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Continued from previous page
World Interconnections Grow
Michael Dee, W'81
Managing Director and Regional Head,
Morgan Stanley, Houston
In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, Michael Dee was there
with a sledgehammer in hand. He had been far away on a
business trip in St. Louis when his now-wife Shelly called
him and told him that the wall dividing East and West
was crumbling. The two got on a plane and together participated
in the dismantling of a Cold War landmark. The first
day the Brandenburg Gate permanently opened between East
and West, Michael and Shelly passed through.
That may have been the last time that Dee went deliberately
looking for history, but it wasn't the last time he was
involved. But when Dee graduated in 1981, he did not anticipate
involvement on a world stage. At that time, he had
left the United States only once for a trip to Toronto. Since
then, he has spent 15 of the last 25 years abroad, doing business
in more than 30 countries.
Even as a student Dee made an impact, albeit on a more
personal scale. A former top amateur pairs skater, he implemented
his athletic connections and organization acumen
by pulling together a Showcase of Champions to benefit the
Elwyn Institute, a school that educates children with Down
Syndrome. Drafting 110 classmates from Stouffer College
House, as well as Olympic luminaries including Peggy
Fleming and Scott Hamilton, Dee's ice show raised close to
$100,000. Seated among the audience members were 4,000
children with disabilities who saw the show for free.
For his efforts, Dee was honored with the Sol Feinstone
Undergraduate Award for instituting orderly and constructive
social and educational change, but the biggest reward
came through finding a way to assist his sister, who has
Down Syndrome. Says Dee, "The day of the show was one
of the most emotional days of my life." He still counts the
showcase as one of his most memorable achievements, holding
up among the string of successes during his 25-year career
with Morgan Stanley.
He vividly recalls his first day on the job as an analyst
in mergers and acquisitions. "I was a numbers geek who
assembled the data and crunched the ˇ®nums' so our senior
bankers could advise the titans of industry on billion dollar
mergers (back then a billion was really serious money)." he
recounts. "I took this job because it was only for two years and
was widely acknowledged as the hardest job on Wall Street, at
the best firm, in the toughest city."
He stuck with Morgan Stanley, but he didn't stay in New York.
He was given the opportunity to work in London, and from
there, he and his wife ("the adventure queen," as he calls her) were
hooked, following London with lengthy stints in Hong Kong and
Singapore. Says Dee, "I started going to China in 1994, when
China really started to get hot economically. I worked on a number
of Chinese deals, and I was there right at the beginning of the
Asia crisis. It was a pretty amazing time to be there. I think our
firm played a very instrumental role in trying to help countries
raise money and stabilize themselves. We were the only firm in
Asia that increased head count in 1998. Everybody else was cutting
back. That was a bold, critical decision in building our Asian
franchise. When I look back, I see that period of time as an inflection
point internationally, and it's been really fun to be involved."
From 2000 to 2004 Dee was Managing Director and CEO
of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter Asia in Singapore, where he
took another opportunity to help pay forward the value of his
Wharton education. Committed to expanding access to business
education internationally, Wharton in 1998 joined with
Singapore Institute of Management to help establish Singapore
Management University, Singapore's third university and only
undergraduate business school. Through his Wharton connections,
Dee became a trustee of the nascent university, which
just graduated its first full class this year.
Two years ago Dee and his family relocated to Texas,
where he became managing director and the regional head of
Morgan Stanley's Houston office, with primary responsibility
for the Investment Banking Division. In September 2005, he
found his new hometown wrapped up in the human tragedy
of Hurricane Katrina when the city hosted hundreds of thousands
of evacuees. As a member of the board of the Greater
Houston Partnership, he went to the Astrodome, the stadium
that provided temporary shelter and services for thousands.
While the faith-based community was serving meals, the
Texas Medical Center was providing health care, and the
United Way was fundraising for cash, there was no mechanism
in place to accept donated goods. Dee volunteered to take on
that task.
He helped set up an Internet site on the Greater Houston
Partnership server and began a telephone line staffed by secretaries
and executives alike, each volunteering for an hour at
a time.
Says Dee, "We just had all these calls coming in; a taxi
company in Las Vegas said they would hire 100 people. We
had a guy in Tennessee with an 18-wheeler filled with refrigerated
food. So we set up this system whereby people, literally
from all across the country, were able to donate goods and
services, and we would match them up with the people that
needed those services." The project continued for a month until
the website was developed to the point that donors and recipients
could match themselves up. "We kind of put ourselves
out of business, so to speak. It was incredibly successful."
Dee considers himself fortunate to be able to help on that
level when called, and especially fortunate for the day-to-day
support of his family and the challenges of rewarding employment.
He says, "25 years later I'm proud to say I am still at
Morgan Stanley and as excited about my work as the day I
arrived. Wharton let me do this."
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