The death of a 35-year-old Bank of America employee has sparked a debate on Wall Street about harsh working conditions, including 100-hour work weeks and high-pressure environments faced by many investment bankers. happened. This is a particularly difficult challenge for young investors, who are often expected to overcome hurdles as a kind of “rite of passage.”
Leo Lukenas III, a former Army Special Forces officer who joined Bank of America as an investment banker last summer, died on May 2. He died from an “acute coronary thrombosis,” a blood clot that forms in the blood vessels and arteries of the heart. heart, Reuters Confirmed with New York's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
The autopsy report did not link the banker's death to his workload, but his death was linked to long working hours, a strained relationship with management, and a sudden decline in his mental and physical health. The report drew attention to the job demands for investment bankers, including a decline in economic growth. It's also sparked a conversation among junior investment bankers, some of whom are calling for a Bank of America strike until demands for more reasonable working hours are met.
Lukenas started working at Bank of America last March as part of an internship under the Veteran Associate Program, according to his LinkedIn page. He became the company's full-time investment banker in July. Before that, he spent more than a decade in the U.S. Army Special Forces, where he and his twin brother Les Lukenas were members of the Green Berets, a unit specially trained in counter-terrorism and irregular warfare. He said in a post on LinkedIn: He said he is “grateful for the 35 years we spent together, from playing junior golf to earning the Green Berets.”
Lukenas, who now has a wife and two children, “left the military to pursue new opportunities for his family,” according to a donation campaign launched by his family. At Bank of America, Lukenas was part of the Financial Institutions Group (FIG), a team that advised bank clients on transactions. daily mail report. The week before his death, a Bank of America spokeswoman confirmed that Mr. Lukenas was part of the team that supported the bank's acquisition deal in late April. At the time, UMB Financial announced plans to acquire Heartland Financial USA for $2 billion.
On Monday, some junior employees called for a strike against the company until their demands for better management of their working hours are met, according to a post on Reddit. It is unclear whether the call was made by a Bank of America employee, according to the Wall Street Oasis forum.
Specifically, these requirements include a maximum time limit of 100 hours in a given work week, a maximum of 80 hours in an average work week, at least one weekend off per month (and an exception of no more than two Saturdays per month). )It is included. , and will soon visit City Hall with the head of the company's banking division to discuss other proactive ideas to ease the workload faced by many junior employees.
A Bank of America spokesperson declined. Fortune's We seek comment on whether the company's employees have weekly time limits, calls for strikes, and what support the company provides to employees facing long working hours.A spokesperson said: luck Controls are in place to monitor employee working hours and work assignments, but no additional details about those controls are provided.
Investment bankers typically face a notoriously demanding work environment filled with challenges such as long hours, customer focus, demanding workloads, and high-pressure performance reviews.
A Wall Street Oasis study that analyzed responses from more than 600 banking professionals in March 2023 found that first-year analysts worked an average of 77 hours a week and slept less than 6 hours on average. It turned out to be. “Without exaggeration, 100+ hours a week is very common and has become somewhat normalized,” Barclays analysts interviewed in the study said.
Investment banking is attractive to many people seeking a career in business or finance because it offers an attractive combination of high pay, challenging work, and rapid career advancement. However, a Financial Edge report on talent shortages in the investment banking sector found that the industry's “demanding work hours, coupled with unrelenting performance expectations, can erode well-being and job satisfaction over time.” There is.” A survey of around 1,000 people in the country's finance industry, carried out by Mental Health First Aid England, a UK network that tracks social and environmental issues, found that 83% of finance industry employees feel that their job is I once considered changing jobs because of the negative impact of my work. Nearly half of them took the plunge because they had mental health issues. ”