Investors overlooked Moynihan's capabilities for two reasons. First, because of a banking legend who overshadowed his early accomplishments, and second, because Moynihan is the antithesis of a showman. In 1993, Terry Murray, the flamboyant CEO of Fleet Financial, in Providence, hired Moynihan, then his M&A attorney, to spearhead what would become one of the great expansion campaigns in banking history. Over the next decade, Fleet bought most of the major banks in New England, culminating with the purchase of venerable BankBoston in 1999 to create FleetBoston. Throughout the run, the two operated as a team, similar to the pairing of Sandy Weill and Jamie Dimon, where Murray, like Weill, set the big vision, and Moynihan filled the Dimon role by tackling the hands-on integration work. "He'd not only negotiate the deal and hammer down the price, he'd oversee all the post-merger work to align computer systems and trim the headcount," Murray tells Fortune.