What Boards Can Learn from JPMorgan’s Succession Saga
The rest of the banking industry can glean these important takeaways as the country’s largest bank plans for its next generation of leadership.
Principal Brad Jayne and Managing Director Ed Steinhoff were featured in the Bank Director article, “What Boards Can Learn from JPMorgan’s Succession Saga."
As banks prepare for CEO transitions, retaining and developing strong internal candidates can become increasingly important—particularly when succession timelines shift. “If they’re attractive CEO successors for you, they’re also attractive CEO successors for other banks,” Steinhoff said. Compensation can help with retention, but providing new challenges and opportunities to build skills can also keep potential successors engaged.
The key for banks is ensuring they know what type of CEO they’d like to have in the future, Jayne said. That way, they can identify the skills that candidates should be developing as they progress at the company. Giving them that hands-on training may well mean replacing an incumbent executive who’s performing well. “It is a very hard thing to do — to remove somebody because you have a potential rising star under them,” he says. “But that’s what the best organizations do, is move people around, exit talent that is a B-plus player because there’s an A player possibility under them.”