James Dimon

James Dimon (born March 13, 1956) is an American billionaire businessman and banker who has been the chairman and chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase since 2005. Dimon was previously on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Dimon was included in Time magazine's 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2011 lists of the world's 100 most influential people. Dimon's net worth is estimated at $1.8 billion.

Dimon is one of the few bank chief executives to become a billionaire, largely because of his $485 million stake in JPMorgan Chase. He received a $23 million pay package for fiscal year 2011, more than any other bank CEO in the US. However, his compensation was reduced to $11.5 million in 2012 by JPMorgan Chase following a series of controversial trading losses amounting to $6 billion. Dimon received $29.5 million in fiscal year 2017.

Earlier, he was with Commercial Credit, a consumer finance company, from Control Data. At 30 years of age, Dimon served as the chief financial officer, helping to turn the company around. Through a series of mergers and acquisitions, in 1998 Dimon and Weill were able to form a large financial services conglomerate, Citigroup. Dimon left Citigroup in November 1998, after being asked to resign by Weill during a weekend executive retreat. It was rumored at the time that he and Weill argued in 1997 over Dimon's not promoting Weill's daughter, Jessica M. Bibliowicz, although that happened over a year before Dimon's departure. At least one other account cites a request by Dimon to be treated as an equal as the real reason.

In March 2000, Dimon became CEO of Bank One, the nation's fifth largest bank. When JPMorgan Chase purchased Bank One in July 2004, Dimon became president and chief operating officer of the combined company.

On December 31, 2005, he was named CEO of JPMorgan Chase and on December 31, 2006, he was named Chairman and President. In March 2008 he was a Class A board member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Under Dimon's leadership, with the acquisitions during his tenure, JPMorgan Chase has become the leading U.S. bank in domestic assets under management, market capitalization value, and publicly traded stock value. In 2009, Dimon was considered one of "The TopGun CEOs" by Brendan Wood International, an advisory agency.

On September 26, 2011, Dimon was involved in a high-profile heated exchange with Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of Canada, in which Dimon said provisions of the Basel III international financial regulations discriminate against U.S. banks and are "anti-American". On May 10, 2012, JPMorgan Chase initiated an emergency conference call to report a loss of at least $2 billion in trades that Dimon said were "designed to hedge the bank's overall credit risks". The strategy was, in Dimon's words, "flawed, complex, poorly reviewed, poorly executed, and poorly monitored".[28] The episode was investigated by the Federal Reserve, the SEC, and the FBI and the central actor was labelled with the epithet the London Whale.

Dimon commented on the Volcker Rule in January 2012, "Part of the Volcker Rule I agreed with, which is no prop trading. But market making is an essential function. And the public should recognize that we have the widest, the deepest, the most transparent capital markets in the world. And part of that is because we have enormous market making. If the rules were written as they originally came out; I suspect they'll be changed, it would really make it hard to be a market maker in the United States." He served as chairman of the executive committee of The Business Council for 2011 and 2012.

On January 24, 2014, it was announced that Dimon would receive $20 million for his work in 2013, a year of record profits and stock price under Dimon's reign, despite significant losses that year due to scandals and payments of fines. The award was a 74% raise, which included over $18 million in restricted stock. This is despite the recent $13 billion settlement with the US government, the largest in history, for bad mortgages and practices during the financial crisis.[32] Forbes reported that, in a statement following news of Dimon's compensation, the bank said, "Under Mr. Dimon's stewardship, the Company has fortified its control infrastructure and processes and strengthened each of its key businesses while continuing to focus on strengthening the Company's leadership capabilities across all levels.