Jamie Dimon

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James "Jamie" Dimon (born March 13, 1956) became CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. on January 1, 2006. He succeeded William B. Harrison, Jr., who became the company's chairman. Dimon will succeed Harrison as Chairman of JPMorgan on January 1, 2007.

1 History
2 Quotes
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

Born in New York City, New York to Theodore and Themis Dimon, Jamie was a child of the industry. His career in the brokerage business seemed preordained by his lineage. His grandfather, a Greek immigrant from Smyrna, was a broker and passed on his knowledge of the business to his son and partner, Theodore Dimon. Jamie Dimon's father and grandfather worked together for 19 years, and Dimon worked summers in their New York office.

He majored in psychology and economics at Tufts University, before earning an Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School. Upon his graduation in 1982, Sandy Weill convinced him to turn down offers from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to join him as an assistant at American Express. Though Weill could not offer the same amount of money as the investment banks, Weill promised Dimon that he would have "fun." In a power struggle, Weill left American Express in 1985, Dimon followed him, and the two took over Commercial Credit, a consumer finance company, from Control Data, which became the vehicle that Dimon and Weill would use to propel themselves to the top of the financial world. Through a series of unprecedented mergers and acquisitions, in 1998 Dimon and Weill were able to form the largest financial services conglomerate the world had ever seen, Citigroup. Although Weill was the one who made the deals, Dimon was the "whiz kid" who made the numbers work so beautifully.

Dimon left Citigroup in November 1998. It was rumored at the time that he and Weill got into a large argument in 1997 over the perceived lack of promotion given by Dimon to Weill's daughter Jessica M. Bibliowicz.^[1]

In his 2002 and 2006 Kellogg School interviews, he stated that he was fired by Weill. In March 2000 he became CEO of Bank One, then the nation's fifth largest bank. Dimon became president of J.P. Morgan Chase in mid-2004 when it acquired Bank One.

Dimon was named to Time Magazine's 2006 list of the world's 100 most influential people.

He is married to Judith Kent. They have three children.

[edit] Quotes

October 4, 2002 - Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

I went to work for Sandy...to build something. The reason I went to work for Sandy was because I liked him...and I like him because he was down to earth, no b.s., told it the way it was, he dealt with the secretaries and the drivers and the clerks the same way he dealt with anybody else, tremendous common sense. I also think that people make the big mistake, they think they have to fight their way to the top, I think a lot of people are pushed to the top, and they're pushed to the top by people who like them, trust them, respect them, and consider them leaders, I'm going to talk about it later because I think it's probably the most important thing.

June 1, 2005 - Sanford C. Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference

By the middle of '07 we will have, pretty much, one loan system, one wire system, one deposit system, maybe two or three general ledgers. ... We'll have far bigger and more efficient data systems, storage centers etc. And your cost efficiency will be enormous, your ability to innovate will also be much better.