Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer
International Wealth Management
Morgan Stanley
Duane L. Hughes is a Managing Director in and the Chief Operating Officer of the International Wealth Management (IWM) business unit of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. Duane manages a team of professionals that work closely with our International Wealth Offices and functional partners to drive strategy, business development and administrative results. Prior to his current position, Duane held multiple leadership roles in the Legal and Compliance Division (LCD) of Morgan Stanley. Duane started his career at Shearman & Sterling (S&S), where he focused on Latin American capital markets transactions, and was a founding member of the firm’s diversity committee. He continued to champion diversity as a senior corporate associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett (STB) prior to joining Morgan Stanley, where he has advised on debt capital markets transactions, including structured insurance and pension solutions. Currently in Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Duane manages a team of lawyers focused on securities and broker-dealer law and regulation, international wealth management and collateral enforceability in client jurisdictions around the world.
Duane was the first chair of Morgan Stanley’s LCD’s diversity and inclusion committee while simultaneously serving as Secretary to the Committee to Enhance Diversity in the Profession of the New York City Bar Association (the “City Bar”). During that period, Duane coauthored the article "Lessons from The Good Black” in Diversity and the Bar (July/August 2003). The article focuses on strategies for institutions and individuals seeking to manage the unintended built-in headwinds that can face outgroup members in law firms and law departments.
Duane’s comprehensive and strategic approach to diversity at Morgan Stanley led to a global LCD diversity committee with over 150 members worldwide and a host of initiatives including: diversity awareness and training sessions; development of diversity training materials; an annual outside counsel survey and reception on diversity matters; a summer internship for diverse first year law students; and strong bonds with the City Bar’s South African Visiting Lawyer Program, and the Legal Outreach Program, where, in 2009, he helped to raise $60,000 for a pilot program to cultivate interest in the law profession among young men of color. As a natural extension of his work life, Duane mentors and coaches many existing and aspiring professionals, both within and outside of Morgan Stanley. The beneficiaries include attorneys at Morgan Stanley, law student interns and all five South African visiting lawyers who worked for Morgan Stanley.
Duane’s contagious enthusiasm for diversity matters has contributed tremendously to the greater legal community. He is a sought after panelist and speaker on the subjects of diversity and inclusion inside and outside of Morgan Stanley. Inside the Firm, Duane has presented his ideas to the Firm’s Black Employee Network Group, Asian Employee Networking Group, and the Latino Employee Networking Group. Outside the Firm, Duane has spoken at the City Bar, the Metropolitan Black Bar Association (MBBA), Mayer Brown, S&S, Debevoise & Plimpton, STB, Sullivan & Cromwell, Kramer Levin, and Clifford Chance and McGuire Woods. Focusing on cognitive bias, in-group favoritism, leniency bias, as well as individual strategies to succeed in one’s career, Duane’s engaging and thought-provoking diversity training sessions have earned rave reviews from participants.
In 2010, Duane was awarded the prestigious Diversity Champion Award by the City Bar. Duane also spearheaded the effort that led to Morgan Stanley to win the MCCA Employer of Choice award for the Northeast Region in 2012. In 2013, Duane was recognized as a CUP Catalyst by the Council of Urban Professionals and, this year, Duane will be honored as Corporate Counsel of the Year by the MBBA, in recognition of his achievement as a pioneer as an MD in LCD of the Firm and for his commitment in the area of Diversity and Inclusion. Duane is intensely focused on the benefits of maximizing the talent of a multicultural workforce.
Duane holds a JD, joint MBA/MA degrees from The Wharton School and Joseph H. Lauder Institute of the University of Pennsylvania, where he gave the commencement address at this year’s graduation. Duane graduated with a BA degree summa cum laude in Economics from Howard University, where he won the Luard Scholarship to study at the London School of Economics from the English-Speaking Union, a not-for-profit organization on whose board he sat for two years. Duane is a member and graduate of the Executive Leadership Program of The Council on Urban Professionals. See http://www.nycup.org/2012/11/duane-hughes-spotlight/. Duane is also on the Board of Advisors of Legal Outreach, where he was recently designated an Elder of the Village. Duane speaks Portuguese and Spanish and is former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
