Who wouldn't have wanted a ringside seat at the Pierre Hotel in New York the other week as Philip Purcell, Morgan Stanley's besieged chairman and chief executive, made a presentation at a glitzy financial services conference hosted by UBS?

It was never going to be an easy platform for Purcell, who was to be flanked by his recently promoted presidents: Zoe Cruz, head of Morgan Stanley's fixed-income, currencies and commodities trading group, and Steve Crawford, who previously hadn't progressed much further up the career ladder than chief administrative officer.