Deutsche Bank's ex-head of corporate strategy just joined J.P. Morgan

Yet another ex-Deutsche Bank MD has proven that there is life after the German bank. Ali Almakky, the bank's former global head of corporate strategy has just turned up at J.P. Morgan, six months after his team at Deutsche was reportedly disbanded. 

Almakky joined J.P. Morgan's London corporate and investment bank strategy team, according to his LinkedIn profile. He spent just over three and a half years at Deutsche Bank after being hired into a strategy group set up under the tenure of former DB CEO John Cryan. Before that, Almakky spent over 11 years at BAML.

Christian Sewing dismantled Almakky's strategy team in June 2018, after taking over from Cryan as CEO. At the time, the Wall Street Journal reported that the team had "more than a dozen employees," and that Almakky was contemplating moving into another position at Deutsche Bank, or looking for a role elsewhere. He clearly opted for the latter.

Almakky isn't the only ex-Deutsche Bank managing director to resurface in recent weeks. Jon Murray, a former director at DB joined Mizuho as co-head of equity capital market syndicate and equity-linked origination for EMEA, and the bank's former head of financial institutions debt capital markets turned up at Deloitte. 

Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Officer Christian Sewing have been looking for ways of merging Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank. Deutsche Bank's shares rose over 8% as a result.

Working in strategy for Deutsche Bank is no easy gig. As we noted when Sewing took over, Deutsche's recent history has been one of endless strategic changes (as has Barclays' too). J.P. Morgan should be a lot more steady.

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