Jamie Dimon (James Dimon) is the Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, which is the fifth largest bank in the world (over $3.9 trillion in assets). This firm also operates the largest investment bank in the world by revenue. A name formidable in the financial world, Dimon was born in 1956 in New York City of Greek ancestry. His father and grandfather were both stockbrokers at Shearson.

How He Started

Jamie attended the Browning School and later majored in psychology and economics at Tufts University - where he wrote a paper on Shearson’s mergers, which his mother sent to Sandy Weill. Sandy Weill became intrigued by the paper, and hired Dimon to work at Shearson during a summer break to do budgets. His relationship with Weill was a key factor in his career, which you will read more about later in the article.

After graduating, Dimon worked in management consulting at the Boston Consulting Group for two years and later enrolled at the Harvard Business School. During the summer while he was at Harvard, he worked at Goldman Sachs. He graduated from Harvard in 1982, earning an MBA - as well as countless offers from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and other firms. Sandy Weill, knowing the potential of Dimon, convinced him to turn down the offers and instead join him as an assistant at American Express. Sandy Weill promised that he would have fun with him, although he could not offer the same amount of compensation as the investment banks. This marks the beginning of Dimon’s career in finance.

His Career

We will now have an overview of Dimon’s career in finance. This article will only highlight the key moments and events, however, if you are interested in learning more, the “Dive Deeper” section at the bottom of the article contains resources you can read and digest later. Now, let us begin.

Commercial Credit (Primerica, Travelers Group)

As Sandy Weill left American Express in 1985, Dimon followed him. The two worked together and took over Commercial Credit (previously a subsidiary of Control Data Corporation), which is a consumer finance company. Weill and Dimon turned the company around, with Dimon appointed as CFO (chief financial officer) at age 30. In December 1998, Commercial Credit acquired Primerica Corporation and retains the Primerica name. Primerica began trading at the New York Stock Exchange in 6th February 1989.

Primerica then fully acquired the Travelers Insurance Corporation and adopted the name Travelers Inc (later Travelers Group) on 1993. Prior to the acquisition, Travelers acquired Shearson and Smith Barney (both were merged), and various other companies.

Citigroup

Dimon and Weill formed the financial services conglomerate Citigroup in 1998 through a merger of Travelers Group and Citicorp. With this merger, Dimon, Weill, and John (chairman of Citicorp) holds the highest positions of the firm. However, Dimon left the firm soon after the merger after Weill asked him to leave.

In an recent interview with Dimon by David Novak (at the time of writing), Dimon mentioned that he was given the president title which he did not ask for, and Weill told John that Dimon is pushing him. Dimon was supposed to run the global investment bank, but it changed to a tri-heads structure. Dimon expressed his frustrations with the change, and highlighted that the tri-heads and co-heads structure for every division will destroy the company. Later, Weill told Dimon that he and John wants him to resign, to which Dimon agreed.

A Brief Break

After he left Citigroup, Dimon became somewhat clueless on what to do next, as quoted in the interview, “I went from working 80 hours a week to zero, so I was like, what the hell am I gonna do”. He made a list of the things he wanted to do, went to the bookstore and literally bought 30-40 books. He went to visit his brother in Denmark, drove cross country by himself, and even tried boxing. He also took his family on a long trip to Europe.

Bank One

In 2000, Dimon accepted an offer to become the chairmand and CEO of Bank One. Bank One Corporation was formed in 1998 with the merger of Banc One of Columbus, Ohio, and First Chicago NBD - and was considered a failure, until Dimon too over and reformed the company. Eventually, Bank One merged with JPMorgan Chase in 2004.

JPMorgan Chase

As Bank One merges with JPMorgan Chase, Dimon becomes the president and COO of the firm. He introduced cost-cutting strategies, and replaced key executives in the firm with Bank One executives - many of whom were with Dimon at Citigroup. On 31st December 2005, Dimon was named the CEO, and on 31st December 2006, he was named chairman and president.

Under his leadership, JPMorgan Chase has became the leading US bank in domestic assets under management, market capitalization, and publicly traded stock value.

JPMorgan Chase played a crucial role in stopping the bleeding during the 2008 financial crisis, by acquiring Bear Stearns and the Washington Mutual. Those acquisitions made Chase the largest commercial bank in the US, and saved the US government in billions of bailouts. It also helped mitigate the damages from the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and First Republic.

Strategies and Approaches

Dimon carries everywhere a sheet of paper on which he writes lists of things to do, things to check up on, and things to remember, which he systematically crosses off.

Dimon also writes an annual letter to the shareholders of JPMorgan Chase.

He is also known for the Fortress Balance Sheet strategy, which is one of the strategies he used that made JPMorgan Chase survive the 2008 financial crisis. In a nutshell, the strategy is to take a cautious approach by never over-leveraging things to the point where banks could not withstand a major unforeseen shock.

His Personal Life

In 1983, Dimon married Judith Kent - who he met in Harvard Business School. They have three daughters: Julia, Laura and Kara Leigh.

He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014, and underwent radiation and chemotherapy for eight weeks, ending in September 2014. Dimon also underwent an “emergency heart surgery” in March 2020. He returned to work in a remote capacity in April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He is also known as a family man, and a loving father and grandpa - according to a Bloomberg interview by Emily Chang.

Outro

Dimon is an intriguing figure, and a great leader from the world of finance. He has proven his exceptional leadership skills, and executive abilities, which are proven with the success of JPMorgan Chase, and his work in the financial industry prior to that. Dimon is a great example of a leader who is not afraid to take risks, and is willing to make tough decisions in order to achieve his goals.

Thank you for your time, I hope that you learned something new from this article that you can apply to your life. Stay tuned for next week’s article!

Dive Deeper

YouTube videos:

• — Inside the Mind of Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan CEO: Lessons on Leadership and Success: David Novak interviews Jamie Dimon. This article uses the interview as a basis for the article. It is a 1.5hrs long YouTube video, highly recommended if you want to learn more about Dimon.
• — When JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Speaks, the World Listens: A YouTube video of Emily Chang interviewing Jamie Dimon.

Articles:

• — A Fortress Balance Sheet: An article on the Fortress Balance Sheet strategy.
• — Chairman and CEO Letter to Shareholders (2023) - JPMorgan Chase: A letter from Jamie Dimon to the shareholders of JPMorgan Chase for the year 2023 (latest availabel during the time of writing this article).

Wikipedia links:

• — Jamie Dimon
• — JPMorgan Chase
• — Bank One Corporation
• — Sanford I. Weill (Sandy Weill)