As Jamie Dimon Signals Exit, 5 JPMorgan Execs Emerge as CEO Contenders

This year, Jamie Dimon celebrates 20 years at the helm of JPMorgan Chase. The 69-year-old CEO is prepared to pass over the reins to a successor in a “few years,” he said during an investor event this week. “I was told to say this very specifically,” said Dimon, to laughter from the audience. “I’m here for a few years as CEO, and maybe a few after that as executive chairman.”

For much of the past decade, Dimon’s standard answer to succession questions was that retirement was always five years away. That script changed in 2024, when he jolted the banking world by acknowledging that his timetable “isn’t five years anymore.”

Since then, JPMorgan’s board has elevated succession planning to a top priority, describing the transition as a “medium-term” focus. In interviews, Dimon has made clear that his successor will most likely come from within—a signal that has sharpened attention on several top executives at the bank.

The race has already seen unexpected turns. Daniel Pinto, the bank’s former chief operating officer and president—whom Dimon once said would become CEO if he were “hit by a bus”—removed himself from contention last year when he announced his retirement. Jennifer Piepszak, another longtime lieutenant widely viewed as a leading candidate, also stepped aside from consideration after taking on the chief operating officer role.

One thing is for sure: whoever replaces Dimon, who turns 70 in March, will have some big shoes to fill. Since becoming CEO in 2006, Dimon has steered JPMorgan through the 2008 Financial Crisis, emerged as one of Wall Street’s most influential economic voices, and built the firm into the largest U.S. bank by assets and market capitalization, dwarfing even its closest rivals.

Here’s a look at some of the top candidates in the running:

Marianne Lake

Marianne Lake, CEO of JPMorgan’s vast consumer bank, has long been viewed as a leading contender to succeed Dimon. Originally from the U.K., she began her career at JPMorgan’s London office in 1999 before relocating to New York five years later.

Lake previously served as CFO from 2014 to 2019 and led JPMorgan’s consumer lending business from 2019 to 2021. “If investors were to do a straw poll today, they’d probably pick Marianne,” Brian Foran, a Truist analyst, told CNBC last month.

Lake, 57, also co-founded JPMorgan’s Women on the Move Initiative, which supports women-run businesses, career advancement and financial health. She has spoken publicly about her unconventional path to parenthood via surrogacy to show other career-driven women that it’s possible to pursue both professional and personal ambitions.

Troy Rohrbaugh

A dark horse contender is Troy Rohrbaugh, a longtime JPMorgan executive who in 2024 became co-CEO of the firm’s commercial and investment bank (CIB). Rohrbaugh, 55, joined the bank in 2005 and has since overseen a range of market-focused businesses.

He also maintains a significant presence across the broader financial industry. Bohrbaugh has served as chair of both the New York Federal Reserve’s Foreign Exchange Committee and the Global Financial Market Association’s Foreign Exchange Group. He is also a member of the Bank of England’s Joint Standing Committee.

Beyond Wall Street, he supports several of his alma maters, serving on boards at Johns Hopkins and as a trustee of the Gilman School, the all-boys preparatory school he attended in Baltimore. Rohrbaugh is also a founding member of the Frannie Foundation, a nonprofit supporting research on diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Doug Petno

Doug Petno has also been put forward by JPMorgan’s board as having CEO potential. He shot onto Wall Street’s succession radar last year when he joined Rohrbaugh as co-head of CIB following a long stint as CEO of commercial banking, where he led domestic expansion and pushed into international markets.

Petno, 60, has spent more than three decades at the firm, beginning his career in its oil and gas group. “He’s a great client guy and a culture carrier,” Dimon told Bloomberg in an interview last January, adding that Petno also has “a great sense of humor.”
Outside the bank, Petno’s interests include climate and conservation; he serves on the board of directors of the Nature Conservancy. He’s also reportedly a fitness enthusiast and an occasional attendee of Barry’s Bootcamp.

Mary Erdoes

Mary Erdoes, 58, leads JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management division and has spent more than three decades climbing the firm’s ranks. She has overseen the business since 2009, and her leadership of the sprawling unit has frequently placed her in succession discussions.

In 1989, Erdoes was the only woman in her graduating class at Georgetown to earn a degree in mathematics. She later earned an MBA from Harvard and now serves on the school’s Global Advisory Council, in addition to holding board roles at the Harvard Management Company and the U.S.-China Business Council.

An outspoken advocate for A.I. adoption, Erdoes has in recent years pushed to streamline her division’s productivity through new technologies. “Mary’s strategic vision, execution and ability to quickly adapt to fast-moving technology have made her very successful,” Ebrahim Poonawala, a Bank of America research analyst, told American Banker last year.

Jeremy Barnum

Jeremy Barnum, 53, is another potential successor and one of the bank’s most public-facing executives. He has served as JPMorgan’s chief financial officer since 2021 and regularly represents the firm at investor conferences and earnings calls.

His path to the C-suite wasn’t linear. After first joining JPMorgan in 1994, Barnum was let go a decade later following a trading blunder. He returned in 2007 to help rebuild its credit trading operations and later rose within CIB, serving as head of global research and CFO of the division from 2012 to 2021.

Like many of his finance peers, Barnum attended boarding school and an Ivy League university. But colleagues say his interests extend beyond the finance stereotype: he spent much of his youth in Barcelona, studied chemistry, and is known amongst peers as an intellectual.