Campbell and Bailyn Boston Office

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APRIL 11, 2008

ANNE DONNELLON DUN GIFFORD

Campbell and Bailyn’s Boston Office: Managing The Reorganization

As he stepped off the elevator onto the 25th floor of the Federal Street Office Tower at 7:30 on a December morning, Ken Winston, regional sales manager for the Boston office of Campbell and Bailyn (C & B), bumped into Paul Callahan, the top-grossing salesperson in the office. Callahan, his brow deeply furrowed, was on his way downstairs. “Leaving so soon, Cal?” joked Winston. “I just got off the phone with Jim Harrington at Ashland Capital,” said Callahan, referring to one of his biggest accounts. “He says he wanted to have coffee before the markets open. He would like to know why I don’t come around as much any more over there. It seems things are more complicated now for them, not less.” This was not the first time Winston had heard grumblings recently about some of the changes that had taken place recently in the Boston office. Much of the discontent could no doubt be attributed to a meltdown in the mortgage-backed securities market that had rocked the financial world for six months now—and pushed C & B’s sales force to the limit. The international crisis, triggered by the collapse of billions of dollars worth of mortgage-backed securities, had left Winston’s sales force scrambling to help customers minimize losses on their bond portfolios. But even more unsettling had been the new sales assignments Winston had announced half way through 2007, which were testing the skills—and patience—of his staff and their customers. As Winston walked across the trading floor to his glass-walled office, the 16 bond salespeople and 13 support staff he managed were just starting their day, cracking jokes, assessing playoff prospects for New England’s football team, and predicting interest rate changes at the Federal Reserve. The daily 7:45 a.m. conference call with the New York research and trading team would be starting soon. Pulling a laptop out of his...