Lazard (LAZ) CEO Orszag Says Junior Bankers Seek Long Hours of Interesting Work

Many young Wall Street bankers are hungry for interesting work and willing to put in long hours, Lazard Inc. Chief Executive Officer Peter Orszag said, as the industry grapples with how to manage the workloads of its junior employees.

The high-profile business of stitching together deals on Wall Street offers exciting opportunities that make the effort feel worthwhile, Orszag said in a Sept. 6 interview with David Rubenstein for an upcoming episode of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations.” He spoke in a response to a question about why junior bankers put up with the 80- to 90-hour weeks.

For it to be sustainable, firms need to offer flexibility to ensure staff still have the agency to focus on other important things in their lives, Orszag said. In New York, his firm allows its bankers to work remotely for two days per week.

Read More: Junior Bankers Log 100-Hour Weeks Again, And Tensions Are Up

“There are many, many people who would rather work whatever number of hours per week on interesting, important things rather than fewer hours on things that are not that interesting,” he said. “And that’s what we’re looking for. That’s the trade-off.”

Employers also owe the junior bankers opportunities beyond the mundane, he said.

“It’s not just make-work,” Orszag said. Still, “there are many professions where you can’t get around the effort part of it.”

The executive was speaking before news broke that some major banks are rolling out measures to cap junior banker hours. JPMorgan Chase & Co. will limit hours to 80 per week in most cases while Bank of America Corp. is launching a new internal platform that will more closely monitor individual workloads. The debate over junior banker workloads reignited this year following the death in May of Bank of America associate Leo Lukenas from a heart attack. Complaints emerged that weekly hours were creeping past 100 despite earlier pledges by banks to safeguard the health of their young workers.

Orszag also said that his 176-year-old firm, with a storied history in a male-dominated profession, sees clear benefits to having a more diverse workforce.

“The evidence is clear that more diverse teams produce better outcomes when the problems are not routine,” he said. “We’re going to be better on behalf of our clients as a result.”

Read More: Junior Bankers Log 100-Hour Weeks Again, And Tensions Are Up

Orszag, who took over as CEO in October 2023, has set fresh targets for the investment bank, aiming to double revenue by 2030 and hire more senior staff. The firm is ahead of schedule on its 2030 goal, Orszag said, after posting record revenue in financial advisory for the first half of this year. Mergers and acquisitions activity has been rebounding as headwinds such as a challenging finance market amid higher interest rates abate, he added.

And while it has lost a few bankers including recently to rival Evercore Inc., the bank has “been winning more than we’ve been losing in terms of talented people,” he said.

The executive, a former government official in the administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, also shrugged off questions on whether he’d be open to being appointed Treasury Secretary if Kamala Harris is elected president in November.

“I don’t think your hypothetical is going to happen,” he told Rubenstein. “I have an unbelievably great job.”

For the full interview with Lazard CEO Peter Orszag, watch “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer to Peer Conversations” on Wednesday Oct. 16 at 9:00 p.m. in New York on Bloomberg Television.