Chief among all the succession questions on Wall Street is what will happen when Jamie Dimon relinquishes the top job at JPMorgan. Last week, the bank offered a rare glimpse of its preparations in a securities filing that said a “substantial majority” of investors wanted him to stay on as non-executive chair when he steps down as chief executive.
If he does stick around, it would mark the first time JPMorgan has split the roles of chair and CEO since 2006, when Dimon added the role of chairing the board of directors to the responsibilities he assumed upon being made the bank’s top executive a year earlier.
JPMorgan did not divulge whether such a split would be permanent, although it did say that many of its shareholders had a “general preference” for the role to be separated. If the lender were to combine the roles again in the future, it would be going against the prevailing trend in corporate America, where investors are increasingly demanding a strong individual serve as non-executive chair as a counterweight to the CEO.