Career Path
His path up the corporate ladder included a seven-year stint in the firm’s Stamford, Connecticut, office. Tully was named a vice president in 1971, president of consumer marketing in 1984, president and chief operating officer in 1985. He was deputy to CEO William Schreyer and succeeded him in May 1992, adding the chairman’s role the following year.
Tully told CNN’s Lou Dobbs in 1997 that Merrill Lynch had found success by focusing on long-term client relationships.
“If you follow your clients, you’ll continue to do well because you won’t be narrow, you won’t be myopic,” he said.
He insisted that Merrill Lynch offices around the globe display the five principles -- client focus, respect for the individual, teamwork, responsible citizenship and integrity -- on which Charlie Merrill had founded the firm, Greg Farrell wrote in “Crash of the Titans,” his 2010 book about Merrill’s collapse.
Serving Clients
Tully “could make clients feel like they were Merrill Lynch’s most important customers,” Farrell wrote. “On road trips, he would follow up client meetings with visits to the local offices of Merrill Lynch private client managers, where his glad-handing and banter weren’t an act, but the expression of a man who actually cared about the firm’s network of financial advisers.”
Merrill Lynch’s work with one of its clients -- Orange County, California -- left a blot on Tully’s record. The firm sold the county customized bonds that initially generated high returns but led, in December 1994, to the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. The county sued Merrill, which settled for $400 million in 1998.
Tully was named non-executive chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers in 1996.
In 2008, Tully joined with former colleagues to found Fieldpoint Private, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based financial firm.