Bloomberg Surveillance · Friday, September 11, 2026
Tom Michaud, CEO of KBW, shared the profound impact of 9/11 on his firm, which lost 67 employees and significant capital. He emphasized that rebuilding was driven by strong values, a united culture, and a mission to honor the victims, rather than a textbook strategy.
“Well, so I went to night school at NYU to get my MBA. There was no chapter in any textbook that I read to say what to do when that happens, okay? And When I look back as to how we were able to rebuild, it's all about your values and it's all about the culture and the people that you're around. And we collected ourselves quickly after 9-11 and we said, we're going to do a few things. We're going to, we want to do the best we can to help the families of the victims, our friends and colleagues. And rebuilding the firm was the best way to do that. And so we just made one decision at a time. We had a goal. We weren't going to let the firm end that way. We weren't going to let the terrorists win by flying planes into buildings and ending all our work. And we had a mission, and we were united in doing it. And in many ways, it was therapeutic for us to be able to do that. And so really, I think it comes down to values, values and culture. I mean, we have a lot of smart people at the firm. A lot of firms have a lot of smart people. But if you have the right way of working together, we're a we firm, not an I firm. We collectively put ourselves together. We said we were going to do it and we were able to rebuild the firm.”
“And so we just went about rebuilding our business one step at a time. And look, all of our records were destroyed. All of our physical property was destroyed. We lost a lot of our leadership. Over 35% of our firm's capital was owned by those who were killed that day. We were privately held at the time. And we figured it out. And I think what it goes to show you is even under the most unthinkable and bearable circumstances, You can do it and you can do it.”