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Billionaire Michael Bloomberg has appointed a chief executive to his media and financial services empire and installed a board of directors headed by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney.
The promotion of chief product officer Vlad Kliatchko comes after growing speculation about succession at Bloomberg, whose eponymous founder is 81.
However, an internal memo from him on Monday made clear that power would continue to be shared. Bloomberg said that he was “not going anywhere”. “I’ve never used a title in the company so I won’t change what I’ll be called — just Mike.”
JP Zammitt, who had been chief operating officer, will become the president of Bloomberg LP, while Patti Roskill will become the group’s chief financial officer.
Carney, who has worked with Bloomberg in the past on climate initiatives, will chair a new board of directors while continuing as chair of Brookfield Asset Management. Other new board members will be added “in short order”, Bloomberg added.
Bloomberg’s terminals have become a fixture of trading desks, and have made him a billionaire many times since he co-founded the business in 1981 after being fired from Salomon Brothers.
A former three-term mayor of New York City, Bloomberg spends much of his time on philanthropy and causes such as climate change and public health.
Bloomberg has pledged to give away nearly all his money during his lifetime and has donated $14.4bn to a wide variety of causes. A company spokesman told the Financial Times earlier this year that he was committed to transferring ownership of his empire to Bloomberg Philanthropies.
In 2020, he ran for president, but became one of the largest individual backers of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
The moves on Monday follow a reorganisation last year of the roles held by Zammitt, who has overseen the terminal sales business, and Kliatchko, who was put in charge of all of Bloomberg’s technology, engineering and data operations. Roskill, a former accountant, became the chief enterprise officer.
In the memo, Bloomberg said that “one of the hallmarks of Bloomberg is our ability to make changes from a position of strength — not out of fear when times are tough. And from that perspective, there’s no time like the present.”
He said that its “decades-long growth, while terrific, also risks complacency” and that the organisation has “never been a place that just accepts the status quo”.
Tom Secunda, a co-founder who worked with Bloomberg at Salomon Brothers, “will sit with me on the fifth floor and help me analyse and set priorities”.
Of Bloomberg’s more than $12bn of annual revenue, only about $500mn is generated from media, people familiar with the matter told the FT earlier this year, with the bulk of sales still tied to financial data.
Bloomberg LP declined to comment.
