The slow-moving race to succeed Jamie Dimon at the helm of JPMorgan Chase has lost another entrant.
The bank said on Tuesday that Jennifer Piepszak a longtime executive, would become chief operating officer this summer, succeeding Daniel Pinto, who is planning to retire. After the announcement, Ms. Piepszak, 54, said she had notified JPMorgan she would not seek the chief executive job in the near future.
Tuesday’s announcement amounted to an annual update to one of Wall Street’s favorite parlor games: speculating on who will be the next chief executive of the nation’s largest bank. Mr. Dimon, 68, has held the job for nearly two decades — a period that has coincided with the bank’s growth and Mr. Dimon’s ascent into the top echelon of public prominence among corporate public leaders.
He has continued to say he plans to stick around for years to come, and has recently begun to tease an even longer tenure that would have him remain chairman of JPMorgan’s board even after he steps down as chief executive. That’s an arrangement that has produced mixed results for other large corporations, perhaps most prominently Disney, where Robert A. Iger’s shadow power as chairman frustrated his successor and led to his return as chief executive.
Though a steady stream of potential successors have left JPMorgan, some to run rivals, several longtime bank executives remain in the hunt. They include Marianne Lake, 55, who now runs JPMorgan’s consumer and community banking; Troy Rohrbaugh, 54, a co-head of the investment bank; and Douglas Petno, 59, a co-head of global banking.
Mr. Dimon has said he has been observing his potential successors interact with both top clients and the bank’s rank-and file during business trips, amounting to a yearslong audition for his recommendation.
Although Mr. Dimon had described Mr. Pinto as someone who would take over in an emergency — the “hit by a bus” scenario, as Mr. Dimon put it — he was not considered a contender for the top job. Mr. Pinto will step out of the chief operating officer role in late June and retire from the bank in 2026, JPMorgan said.
Analysts at Truist Securities summed up Tuesday’s announcement as a shuffling of the ranks, pointing out that the bank was “no closer to succession answers” for Mr. Dimon.
