JPMorgan Names Daniel Pinto, Gordon Smith as Co-Presidents, COO -- Update

JPMorgan Chase & Co. said business unit heads Daniel Pinto and Gordon Smith will become co-presidents and chief operating officers of the bank effective January 30.

Mr. Pinto, head of the corporate and investment bank, and Gordon Smith, head of the consumer and community bank, will continue reporting to Chairman and Chief Executive James Dimon, and will "help drive critical firmwide opportunities," according to the bank.

Mr. Dimon, 61, said in a statement that he will continue in his role for "approximately five more years."

Mr. Dimon, widely viewed as the most powerful executive on Wall Street and a statesman for the banking industry, had told people within the bank that he plans to stay in his role for another five years, executives have said, though the number hasn't changed as the years pass.

That hasn't stopped executives jockeying to succeed Mr. Dimon, who runs the largest U.S. bank by assets.

This is the most clear statement yet by the bank and Mr. Dimon with regards to his succession.

"The Board and Dimon both believe that under all timing scenarios, whether today or in the future, the company has several highly capable successors in place," according to the bank's statement on Monday.

For years, Mr. Smith, 59, was viewed as the executives who would replace Mr. Dimon if an unexpected event precluded the CEO from continuing to do his job.

Mr. Smith leads the retail-banking, mortgage and credit-card divisions of the bank, along with other parts of the bank related to consumers and under the Chase umbrella. That amounts to overseeing 140,000 of the bank's roughly 250,000 employees, 61 million households and four million small businesses. He joined Chase in 2007 after serving in several roles at American Express.

Mr. Pinto, 55, has spent his entire 35-year banking career at JPMorgan and ran the corporate and investment bank for the past five years. That unit includes investment banking, trading and treasury services that lead the industry in market share and revenues.

In 2017, Mr. Pinto and Mr. Smith assumed responsibility for firmwide technology at JPMorgan after then-COO Matthew Zames left the firm .

Mr. Zames, an executive in resident at MIT Sloan School of Management, was among a string of potential successors to Mr. Dimon who have either chosen to leave rather than wait, or have been pushed out. Other such executives include Jes Staley, who is now CEO of Barclays PLC; Bill Winters, currently CEO of Standard Chartered PLC, and Charles Scharf, who until recently was CEO of Visa Inc.

Write to Emily Glazer at emily.glazer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 29, 2018 17:09 ET (22:09 GMT)