John Thain, the amateur beekeeper from the tiny town of Antioch, Illinois, has become hot property on Wall Street in recent years.

The head of Merrill Lynch, aged 53, moved into pole position to succeed Kenneth Lewis as chief executive of Bank of America on Thursday, after he was given a top job in the group that will be formed through the merger unveiled last month of the two companies.

Mr Thain, a leading fundraiser for John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, is widely credited with modernising and expanding the New York Stock Exchange, which he ran from 2004 until he joined Merrill Lynch in December. He merged the group with Archipelago, an all-electronic trading platform, and converted what was a non-profit organisation into a public entity. He then took on Deutsche Börse to win Euronext, a pan-European exchange, which merged with the NYSE to create a global trading platform.

As Merrill wilted under the credit fallout and Stan O'Neal, its chief executive headed for the exit, it was Mr Thain to whom the firm turned. He is thought to have turned down the same role at Citigroup to take the Merrill post.

He has had less time to stamp his mark on Merrill but recently insisted that the broker had made good progress in tidying up its balance sheet before it was sold.

Before joining the NYSE, Mr Thain worked at Goldman Sachs where he held the positions of president, chief operating officer and chief financial officer.

In his new role at the combined BoA/Merrill, Mr Thain will become president of global banking, securities and wealth management.

This will see him responsible for the group's corporate and investment banking operations globally and much of its wealth and investment management units.

These made up about 35 per cent of BoA's revenue for the first half of this year.