Ex-Morgan Stanley Exec Says He Was Fired for Being White

What You Need to Know

In a lawsuit, Kevin Meyersburg alleges that the wirehouse replaced him with a less-qualified Black woman.
The firm has been the target of discrimination complaints before, such as when its head of diversity alleged it discriminated against Black women.

A white former Morgan Stanley broker and executive sued the wirehouse on Tuesday in New York, alleging he was fired and replaced by a less-qualified Black woman.

In a complaint filed at U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, Kevin Meyersburg alleged that, while with Morgan Stanley as managing director and head of Executive Services, he “developed an impressive list of achievements.”

Those achievements, the complaint said, included “creating and spearheading Executive Services Partner Referral Programs that resulted in over 3,000 new wealth management accounts and $5 billion in wealth management assets under management for the Firm.”

Additionally, “under his leadership, the Firm’s Executive Services team grew from 50 to 330 employees, nearly tripled in budget size and played a pivotal role in generating profits for Morgan Stanley during a period when other divisions struggled to be profitable,” the complaint alleged.

In about April 2023, the wirehouse started announcing a series of layoffs because of its recent financial “underperformance,” according to the complaint. The company “implemented the majority of the layoffs by combining and collapsing similar teams,” it said.

However, due to its “Morgan Stanley did not target Meyersburg’s Executive Services team for elimination nor did it lay off a significant number of employees from the Executive Services team,” the complaint stated.

But “Morgan Stanley informed Meyersburg on May 11, 2023, that he was being terminated and replaced in the Managing Director role that he had held for nearly three years with a Black female with significantly less experience and qualifications for the position,” the complaint alleged.