Kerim Derhalli likes to joke that he spent most of his career at banks that "have either gone bust, almost gone bust, or should have gone bust.""JPMorgan merged with Chase. Bankers Trust got brought out of Deutsche Bank. Lehman Brothers went bust. Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch and then Deutsche Bank is Deutsche Bank — who knows!" Derhalli told Business Insider recently.
Derhalli spent 35-years in investment banking and spent his final 11 as a managing director at Deutsche, which is now struggling to deal with historic conduct issues and balance sheet woes. "I wasn’t aware of any of the things that were going on," said Derhalli, who left in 2012. "What I always tell people is don’t leave a job for negative reasons, always do something positively. There was a lot that was wrong in the industry but, actually, I thought there’s just this massive opportunity."