Good morning! Ashley Moody is the pick to fill Marco Rubio’s Senate spot, Sephora is making over all of its North American stores, and JPMorgan's succession bake-off is reshaped. Have a restful weekend!
- Bank on it. Earlier this week, JPMorgan Chase made a statement on behalf of Jennifer Piepszak. The longtime executive "does not want to be considered for the CEO position at this time,” bank spokesperson Joe Evangelisti said. Announcing a new role for Piepszak as COO, he said "her clear preference is for a senior operating role working closely with Jamie [Dimon] and in support of top leadership going forward.”
The announcement took Piepszak out of the running in the closely-watched JPMorgan succession race. For a few years, the former firm CFO had served as co-CEO of consumer and community banking alongside then-fellow co-CEO Marianne Lake before taking on new role a year ago. Both execs were viewed as prime contenders to take over from chief Jamie Dimon—a big deal in an industry where only one woman (Citi's Jane Fraser) has ever run a major bank. For a stretch, they were the first-ever tie on Fortune’s annual Most Powerful Women list (although Piepszak pulled ahead last year, at No. 18 to Lake's No. 19).
While Piepszak and Lake were both in the mix as long-term successor candidates, Daniel Pinto had been named Dimon's "hit by a bus" successor, ready to step in in case of an emergency. The $240 billion-in-revenue firm yesterday announced Pinto's plans to retire in 2026. The race to take over from Dimon—whose retirement is no longer "five years away," he has said—has officially been reshaped.
"We have several exceptional people. You guys know most of them," Dimon said on the firm's earnings call this week. "It'll be one of those people...Of course, at the last minute, people get sick, they change their mind, they have family circumstances."
Lake is still considered a contender. "There's been no reading that I've seen that she would not be interested in the role," Argus Research analyst Stephen Biggar told me. But she's not the only one. Commercial and investment bank co-CEO Troy Rohrbaugh and global banking cohead Doug Petno are the other prime candidates who were spotlighted by the bank's announcement.
Lake has spent her 25-year career at JPMorgan gaining the experience needed for the job across all aspects of the business. Before becoming CEO of consumer and community banking, the 55-year-old Brit was CEO of consumer lending, the firm's CFO, and held various roles in the firm's finance organization.
Fraser's appointment at Citi broke Wall Street's glass ceiling, but the industry still has a ways to go. (And, some say, has recently regressed to some of its bro-ier past amid Trump's election.) Fraser is "out of the honeymoon period," Biggar says, and faces challenges as she overhauls Citi. In some ways better than being the first, a second female chief on Wall Street would send the message that it's par for the course for women to lead these firms.
But all succession predictions are just that for now. Dimon expressed sympathy for his execs who have to be "in the spotlight all the time" as part of this speculation. As he said this week: "Even if you thought you knew today, you couldn't be completely sure."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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