Let’s be clear: Jamie Dimon isn’t going anywhere

Morgan Stanley announced on Thursday (Oct. 26) its co-president Edward “Ted” Pick will take over from James Gorman on the first day of 2024 as the financial firm’s next chief executive officer.

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Gorman’s departure from the top spot marks a generational sweep through big banks’ C-suite as younger post-global financial crisis (GFC) executives take the reins. Gorman joined Morgan Stanley in 2006 and became co-president the following year. After steering the company through volatile times, he was elevated to CEO in 2010.

But as Gorman passes his torch, there’s still one fiery CEO who isn’t going anywhere: JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, who famously hasn’t answered succession queries concretely (and seems to have no intention of doing so). Dimon set his tone more than a decade ago, when he told shareholders in 2009 that it is in his “best interest to avoid such drama.”

“CEO and management succession often seems more like a psychological drama or a Shakespearean tragedy than the reasoned and mature process it should be,” he said.

Dimon found himself at the helm of the US’s largest bank in 2005 after JPMorgan acquired Bank One, a midwestern bank headquartered in Chicago, where he was serving as its top executive. Dimon would succeed JPMorgan’s William Harrison Jr. as CEO of the combined company. He’s since been credited for building a “fortress balance sheet” during the GFC, then making major acquisitions including Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.

Not even the London Whale in 2012 could sink Dimon, nor did his throat cancer in 2014. Dimon joked that he won’t be playing golf anytime soon, but he also acknowledges that there will be a day to come where he will have to step down.

“I can’t do this forever, I know that,” Dimon said at the firm’s Investor Day (pdf) in May. “My intensity is the same. I think when I don’t have that intensity, I should leave.” There’s no hint of his “intensity” fading, though: see, for one, how he slammed central banks for being “100% dead wrong” about economic forecasts last year. And he still seems to be looking ahead, as he cautioned about the economic outlook next year.

“Prepare for possibilities and probabilities, not calling one course of action, since I’ve never seen anyone call it,” Dimon said during a panel discussion at the Future Investment Initiative summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. “This may be the most dangerous time the world has seen in decades.”

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s succession back in focus after Morgan Stanley’s CEO James Gorman steps downPhoto: AARON P. BERNSTEIN (Reuters)

Dimon’s 1.5 million stock options are rounding the corner

Every time Dimon receives a question about when he’ll step down from CEO, he answers with a long-running joke: five more years.

Fast forward to May this year, during JPMorgan’s investor day in May, Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo asked Dimon how many more years he plans on staying as CEO. Dimon cut him off to answer: “Three and a half.”

So why the switch-up? Here’s one potential hint: In 2021, the bank’s board awarded Dimon 1.5 million bonus stock options, so long he stays at the bank. But he won’t be able to exercise it until 2026.

It seems to be a timely comment, but the five years most certainly can be renewed after the bank reported soaring profits this year.