JPMorgan has long been looking for a successor to CEO Jamie Dimon. In 2019, it put two women on the shortlist for the position. Now, neither is in the running.
The bank’s chief operating officer, Jennifer Piepszak, pulled herself out of contention last year. This week, JPMorgan filed regulatory papers announcing Troy Rohrbaugh and Doug Petno as co-presidents. The filing also stated that Marianne Lake, the head of its consumer banking division, was retiring after 25 years of service.
The changes in management leave Rohrbaugh and Petno in pole position to succeed Dimon, as per the Wall Street Journal.
The shake-up in the bank’s succession race occurs in the backdrop of a broader shift in the US. Many firms have scaled back explicit efforts to put forward women leaders. This happens even as the share of women at senior levels continues to go up slowly at JPMorgan as well as other big firms.
For years, it seemed that JPMorgan could put a woman in one of its highest-profile jobs. The bank shifted Lake and Piepszak in 2019 into new roles that positioned them as potential successors to Dimon. In 2021, JPMorgan solidified Lake and Piepszak’s status as front-runners for the CEO post by putting them in charge of its consumer-banking operation.
But things were different under the surface. Dimon has long been credited with creating a culture that helped women advance across JPMorgan. In 2019, when he and other bank CEOs were asked in a congressional hearing to raise their hands if they believed their successor would be a person of colour or a woman, none did.
“That’s a board level issue. It’s not something you do in Congress or you play your hand out in Congress,” Dimon explained days later, adding that his successor being a woman “really depends on the circumstance at the time.”
Now circumstances may have changed. Lake decided to leave JPMorgan after it became clear that she wasn’t in the running for the CEO anymore, the WSJ reported.
Both Piepszak and Mary Erdoes, the head of asset and wealth management, will be given $20 million in retention awards by the bank, a move seen as JPMorgan locking its core team.
Erodes is not in the CEO race. She was also linked with Jeffrey Epstein earlier this year, as per Business Insider. The two exchanged emails when she was one of the late sex offender’s primary contacts at the bank. There is no indication that her emails with Epstein may have had an impact on the succession race.
For now, it seems like JPMorgan may have to wait a while longer for a female CEO.
