Pam Hendrickson took work calls while waiting to give birth at a New York hospital three decades ago, helping to sort out a problem at Chemical Bank from her labor room.
Since then, she’s watched colleagues drag themselves to the office when they should be home sick. Now, the vice chair of investment firm Riverside Co. expects Covid-19’s terrifying toll to finally change some of Wall Street’s hard-charging ways.
“The macho-ness definitely will go away,” she said. “If you don’t feel well—we’ve always said this, but I think some people haven’t taken us seriously—keep your butt at home.”
The biggest banks see a path to returning to the office in Manhattan, London and financial capitals around the world after a devastating year. In New York City alone, the pandemic has killed more than 30,000 people, wiped away more than a half million jobs and emptied out neighborhoods. Now industry veterans are preparing for what’s ahead. They’re hoping that Covid brings about lasting change, while welcoming the return of some ancient finance traditions.
Dochtor Kennedy looks forward to staring into the eyes of his rivals again. The president of AdvisorLaw LLC represents brokers inside the industry’s secretive arbitration system. Like so much else over the past year, his hearings haven’t been in person.
“It’s a joke doing it that way—it’s terrible,” he said. “It feels like you’re less immersed in it. You struggle to try to convey the point.” The distance robs him of his favorite in-person move: “I’ll literally go stand next to opposing counsel, right there, make the point with the witness, then stare,” he said. “I’ll look right at him, hand on the table, look right at his eyes, but talk to the panel.”
But, he added, he’s enjoyed sleeping in his own bed instead of traveling.
Alexandra Lebenthal craves power breakfast. About twice a week for 30 years, the senior adviser at investment bank Houlihan Lokey had sat down around 8:15 at the Regency on Park Avenue, where she gets her eggs scrambled soft with no bread or potatoes. Just as often, she’ll have the Cobb salad for lunch at Michael’s in Midtown, with no tomatoes and extra vinaigrette on the side, and, about once a week, the carpaccio at San Pietro one block south.
“Those places are a part of my networking,” said Lebenthal, who works in the financial-sponsors group and leads an effort to focus on businesses owned by women. “It’s not just a meal. It’s an event.”
When her spots reopen for in-person dining, she plans to hug the waiters at breakfast and celebrate with a new pair of suede Manolo Blahnik pumps, maybe in dandelion yellow. “I’m going to have to practice wearing high heels again. I’m kind of worried.”
Rising vaccinations in New York have helped push the industry toward reopening. Hundreds of JPMorgan Chase & Co. interns are set to work in the lender’s New York and London offices, Citigroup Inc. will begin inviting more employees back in July, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has said it hopes to have more staffers back by the summer. Even so, finance firms are promising to be kinder, especially to younger employees who say they’re overworked and under-supported.
Wall Street isn’t snapping back into business as usual. Americans have to recommit to wearing masks and other Covid-19 mitigation measures to avoid a new surge, according to Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cases have begun to rise slightly again, she said this week, and contagious variants continue to spread. In Hong Kong, positive cases recently appeared in the banking industry right as the city was emerging from a round of restrictions.
Things may soon look closer to normal in the U.S., where 90% of adults are set to be eligible for a shot by April 19.