...As a breed, bankers of the 1960s were naturally conservative, bureaucratic -- not a particularly innovative bunch. But this lack of innovation was not surprising, given that commercial banking had hardly changed since 1930, when the government placed the industry under strict regulations. Perhaps Lord Brand of Lazard best summed up the prevailing view of commercial bankers when he said: "We, the merchant bankers, have the brains; the commercial bankers have the deposits."

I joined Bankers Trust in the early 1960s, shortly before a wave of subtle but fundamental changes began that would effect the very foundations upon which commercial banking -- at least wholesale commercial banking -- relied.

Bankers Trust capitalized on the opportunities presented by these changes and eventually transformed itself in a way that caused The Wall Street Journal to name it one of the world's best wholesale financial institutions. This is how we did it...