Zoe Cruz  Zoe Cruz (born Zoe Papadimitriou on February 2, 1955) is a Greek American senior banking executive and former co-president of Morgan Stanley. Cruz was born Zoe Papadimitriou in Greece. At the age of 14, Zoe and her parents moved to Massachusetts, United States. She graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude with a B.A. in Romance Languages & Literatures in 1977 and earned a MBA from Harvard Business School in 1982. In 1982, after graduating from business school and becoming a mother, Cruz was recruited by Morgan Stanley and had a 25-year tenure at the firm. She became a Vice President in 1986, a Principal in 1988 and a Managing Director in 1990. From 2000 to 2005, she held the position of global Head of Fixed Income, Commodities and Foreign Exchange. She was appointed Co-President on February 9, 2006. In 2006, she was on the list of Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women of the World and ranked the #10 spot. On November 29, 2007, Morgan Stanley announced that Zoe Cruz was resigning as co-president of the firm and that she would retire immediately. On October 9, 2009, the New York Times reported that Zoe Cruz was possibly starting her own hedge fund named Vorás Capital Management, which is expected to focus on distressed assets and macroeconomic bets on currencies and securities   Once considered "the most powerful woman on Wall Street," in January 2014, Cruz, long dubbed "Cruz Missile", joined the Board of Anglo-South African financial behemoth Old Mutual as an independent non-executive director. Cruz was appointed to the board of directors of Ripple in 2017. Cruz was named as the highest paid woman in Fortune.com countdown with total compensation of $30 million in 2006. She was also ranked as the 10th most powerful woman in the world in 2006 and 16th most powerful woman in the world in 2007 by Forbes.