Jamie Dimon, who has served as the CEO of JPMorgan Chase (JPM) since 2005, said at an event in New York that looking for his successor is among his most important tasks right now. The comment came after the banking executive said during a company event in May that his retirement “timetable isn’t five years anymore,” backtracking from his standard answer to previous such questions that his retirement was perpetually five years away.
That said, Dimon, 68, is in no rush to step down just yet. In 2021, JPMorgan’s board paid him a generous stock bonus to keep him on the job for a “significant number of years.” Dimon, who has also served as the bank’s board chairman since 2007, has said he expects to remain on the board even after he steps down as CEO.
While Dimon’s retirement date is yet to be announced, here are five promising candidates whom the sitting CEO deems as “extremely” qualified for the job:
Daniel Pinto
Daniel Pinto is currently president and chief operating officer of JPMorgan Chase. He is already Dimon’s “hit-by-a-bus” pick for the top job, promising Pinto is ready to take the helm if something were to happen to Dimon.
In 2020, when Dimon was undergoing critical heart surgery, Pinto temporarily stepped in his shoes and helped navigate the bank through the pandemic. Last week, Dimon told investors in Brooklyn that Pinto “could run the bank tomorrow.” With an annual compensation package of approximately $30 million, Pinto is the second highest-paid executive at JPMorgan, behind Dimon. (Dimon’s pay was $36 million)
Pinto has spent his entire career at JP Morgan and its predecessor companies. In 1983, he joined Manufacturers Hanover, a bank later merged with Chemical Bank and then Chase Manhattan, which eventually merged with JP Morgan in 2000 to form JPMorgan Chase. In 2014, Pinto became the CEO of JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank division. He was promoted to co-president and chief operating officer of the bank in 2018 and became the sole president in 2022.
Pinto is credited for modernizing JPMorgan’s technology. Last week, he unveiled an internal A.I. assistant for the bank’s 140,000 employees to enhance productivity. Pinto also led the development of JPMorgan’s e-trading and mobile technologies, which now process $5 trillion in transactions a day.
However, Pinto is 61 years old, and some suspect he may exit the bank soon. In August, Dimon’s reshuffling of senior leaders led a few top executives close to Pinto to resign. During the reshuffling, Pinto gave up his role as head of investment banking and trading while remaining as president, and rising talent was given top jobs. Pinto’s current compensation plan includes a retention bonus if he remains at the bank until the end of 2026.
Jennifer Piepszak
Jennifer Piepszak, currently co-CEO of JPMorgan’s commercial and investment bank (CIB) division, has spent 30 years with the firm, rising through leadership roles across various divisions. Piepszak’s diverse experience includes co-leading the consumer and community banking division from 2021 to 2023, where she led the bank’s business, serving nearly 80 million U.S. consumers and 6 million small businesses. Prior to that, she served as CFO from 2019 to 2021.
However, Piepszak has often shared the spotlight in her top jobs. She led the consumer and community banking division with Marianne Lake and currently heads the commercial and investment bank division alongside Troy Rohrbaugh (both among Observer’s top five picks). In 2023, Forbes recognized both Piepszak and Lake as two of the most powerful women in the world.
Though sharing her current role with Rohrbaugh, the promotion gives Piepszak increased responsibility at the firm. “The expansion of Jennifer Piepszak’s role in commercial banking and investment banking gives her an edge in the succession planning,” Stephen Biggar, a banking analyst at Argus Research, told Reuters in January.
Troy Rohrbaugh
Prior to his promotion to co-CEO of JPMorgan’s CIB division earlier this year, Troy Rohrbaugh made his name within the bank leading markets and securities services. He also ran the bank’s macro market products.
Rohrbaugh joined JPMorgan in 2005 as a managing director and global head of foreign exchange derivatives. He was lauded as a “source of stability not just for JPMorgan but also for the broader FX industry during its most turbulent years,” as per Euromoney.
Rohrbaugh worked under Pinto for most of his career, giving him unique access to Dimon. Pinto also advocated for Rohrbaugh’s promotion during this year’s executive reshuffling. However, further promotions for Rohrbaugh may hinge on whether he’s able to turn around JPMorgan’s CIB business from a year of unusually slow deal flow.
Marianne Lake
Marianne Lake now runs JPMorgan’s consumer and community banking division by herself after years of co-leading it with Piepszak, giving her a unique opportunity to flaunt her leadership skills. Like Piepszak, Lake previously served as CFO from 2013 to 2019. In April 2019, she was promoted to CEO of JPMorgan’s consumer lending business. Goldman Sachs’ banking analyst Richard Ramsden described her as “probably one of the most gifted CFOs around.”
Lake has long been speculated as a potential successor to Dimon. A JPMorgan executive told Reuters anonymously in 2018, “I would put my money on her above anybody else” as Dimon’s most likely successor.
Lake has also spoken openly about having three children by surrogate in hopes to break the stigma and inspire other women. She is the co-founder of Women on the Move, a JPMorgan effort to improve financial equity for women.
Mary Callahan Erdoes
Mary Callahan Erdoes has served as the CEO of JPMorgan’s asset management division since 2009, overseeing $5 trillion in assets under management. She is also JPMorgan’s third largest individual shareholder, per Forbes, after Dimon and Pinto, contributing to her net worth of $300 million. Under her leadership, JPMorgan’s asset management division attracted record highs of $490 billion in inflows in 2023, generating $5 billion of net income.
Erdoes has spent 25 years at JPMorgan and is often hailed as one of the most powerful women on Wall Street. Dimon described Erdoes’ management style as “an iron fist in a velvet glove.”
