Twice a week, Chris Stafford works from morning to night.

The 36-year-old husband and father is a contract project manager for the country’s biggest banks. By day, he’s usually sitting in front of a computer terminal, or in meetings with co-workers. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he trades his suits for a white karate uniform and a black belt and transforms into a karate sensei (instructor) to young professionals – mostly fellow Bay St. workers – in a financial district studio.

What looks like the simplest idea is often the easiest to sell.

“I think the magic with basically anything in the tech sector is to hide the complexity as much as you can,” said Vincent Cheung, owner of Shape Collage Inc., a software program that arranges hundreds of photos into custom shapes in seconds.

Morgan Stanley plans to boost its underperforming securities business by hiring several hundred traders over the next few years in an effort to close the gap with Wall Street rivals, according to the new chief executive James Gorman.