When Matthew Koder made presentations to the board of Bank of America Merrill Lynch as leader of its Asia-Pacific business, he came prepared. While other regional presidents created a handful of slides to discuss the main highlights of their respective business areas over the past year, Koder arrived armed with a deck whose slides ran into the hundreds.

“He only ever had time to run through 10 or 11,” said one executive and close friend of the president of BAML’s Asia-Pacific business since 2012. “But the supporting material was incredible.”