Offering more than two decades of senior executive leadership on Wall Street, Duane Hughes is passionate about driving profitable growth. His unique multidisciplinary background spans economics and finance, international business, and corporate law.
With this broad experience, Duane is a deeply valued executive team member known for making key connections, building careers, leading and mentoring inclusive teams, and leveraging his global network across Wall Street to connect people with opportunities. Organizations seek him out for his strategic acumen, operations, risk management, regulatory management, legal, and sales leadership.
Duane balances his zeal for profitable growth with the need to mitigate risk. An expert in securities law and broker-dealer regulation, he drove organizational restructuring and large-scale remediation involving more than 5,000 cross-border clients. His actions mitigated significant legal and regulatory risks and increased profitability.
At Morgan Stanley, Duane led the successful acquisition of $10 billion AUM Latin American Ultra High Net Worth business from Credit Suisse, with a 99% asset conversion rate, and effective integration of the new advisors. Duane’s team doubled assets in a four-year period.
Duane’s passion for growth is especially reflected in his board advisory relationships with InvestSouSou, an innovative fintech B2B, where he helps find sources of capital and VineyardAppCamp, a startup providing training programs focused on tech entrepreneurial skills for young people.
In his current role on the executive team at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, Duane has converted his background in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from internal to external facing, driving revenue and building strong client relationships through client-facing DEI initiatives.
Duane served as COO and Senior Finance and Business Manager at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, Duane managed a 285-employee, $160 billion AUM Latin American private banking business, including leading a geographically diverse 35-person team and client base spanning São Paulo, Mexico City, and Geneva.
With high energy and a motivational style of leadership, Duane builds inclusive teams to achieve outstanding results. The recipient of numerous awards for his leadership in DEI in corporate environments, Duane created and delivered pioneering workshops on unconscious bias and founded new committees to drive DEI in the workplace. Duane’s TEDxTalk, “Check Your Preference and Improve Your Results,” exemplifies his creative ability to tell stories in this space.
Duane also brings corporate governance experience through his work with not-for-profit boards. He serves as a Board Member on the Serve America Movement (SAM) and the Lauder Institute Advisory Council of the Wharton Graduate School of Business. At SAM, Duane is primarily responsible for helping to generate interest in the movement among diverse constituents in the United States. He is also a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Duane started his career in Wall Street law firms Shearman & Sterling and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, with an interim stint at Lucent Technologies. Duane holds JD, MBA, and MA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA degree summa cum laude from Howard University.
