Bank of America has made several key changes to its executive management team, to be effective after a planned transition period of several months.

Gary Lynch will serve in the newly created position of global chief of legal, compliance, and regulatory relations. Lynch will be based in New York and report to Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan.

Ed O'Keefe, the company's general counsel, will report to Lynch.

Lynch joins Bank of America from Morgan Stanley, where he is vice chairman and based in London. He was previously chief legal officer for the firm, and held senior leadership positions at Credit Suisse, Credit Suisse First Boston, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, where he was director of enforcement. 

Additional, the company appointed Chuck Noski vice chairman of Bank of America. He will continue to advise Moynihan and the management team on strategic and capital management matters and on the resolution of legacy issues, including helping to shape the consumer mortgage model going forward. He also will engage in client development activities as needed. Noski will report to Moynihan and be based in Los Angeles.

Bruce Thompson will be the chief financial officer. Thompson is based in Charlotte and reports to Moynihan. He continues as chief risk officer until a successor is named following an internal and external search process that is under way. Thompson will succeed Noski as CFO by the end of the second quarter of 2011. 

Before serving as chief risk officer, Thompson was head of Global Capital Markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Previously, he was co-head of Global Credit Products and head of Global Leveraged Finance. During his tenure as chief risk officer, Thompson oversaw the development and implementation of the company's enterprise risk framework and improved the international risk governance programs.