“It’s hard to enter his orbit without feeling you’re near someone extraordinary. He’s not a small man – his mere physical presence is something.
He’s obviously not a timid person, and he goes a mile a minute. You can barely keep up with him.” writes Duff McDonald, author of Jamie Dimon’s biography Last Man Standing.
Good day, my readers! 🫡
Jamie Dimon's four-decade ascent from the son of a stockbroker to the CEO of JPMorgan Chase is a compelling narrative of ambition, hard work and resilience.
At the moment, he is one of the most powerful men in global finance. And rightfully so.
Today, I proudly present 4 lessons that we can all learn from Jamie Dimon.
Sit back and enjoy! 🙂
What to expect 🔎
Early Beginnings - Jamie’s headmistress calls him “too headstrong”. He gets rejected from Brown because of her backhanded recommendation letter.
Sandy Weill - Jamie meets one of the most important figures in his career.
Citi Group - Jamie builds Citi Group for several years before getting abruptly fired.
Bank One - Jamie turns Bank One around. Bank One merges with JP Morgan. Jamie becomes CEO of JP Morgan.
Lessons you will learn 📚
Whatever profession, be good at it and be productive in life.
Career paths are messy and never linear. A small step backwards may eventually set you up for a great leap forward.
Your job is your net worth, not your self-worth.
Early Beginnings
Jamie Dimon was born in 1956.
His family background is rich with Greek heritage and a strong connection to the world of finance.
Both Jamie’s father and grandfather were stockbrokers and were successful in their careers. Jamie’s father even became an executive vice president at American Express at some point.
His parents were very moralistic.
Jamie says, “They weren’t religious, but they were moralistic.”
They strongly believed to do your best. To tell the truth. To defend those being picked on. To treat everyone equally and fairly.
His parents would say to him, “Whatever profession, be good at it and be productive in life”.
His grandmother would say to him, “Don’t let your brains go to your head.”
That was the type of upbringing Jamie had – hard working, ambitious and morally upright.
Jamie attended the prestigious Browning School in Manhattan, where he excelled academically and athletically.
His twin brother described him as someone who was extremely confident and “wanted the ball whenever the game was on the line”.
That confidence often came across as arrogance.
Even though he graduated fourth in his class, Jamie was rejected by Brown University — in part because of a backhanded recommendation letter written by the assistant headmistress of the school.
“His lack of manners, due to his habits of making quick judgments and contradicting others, is [to be] greatly improved,” the assistant headmistress wrote, according to Jamie Dimon’s biography, Last Man Standing.
She praised Jamie’s “keen, analytical mind” and his “dedication and seriousness of purpose.” But she could not avoid mentioning what she saw as his problem with authority. Jamie was too headstrong.
Jamie’s headstrong and blunt nature would have severe repercussions later into his career.
He ended up attending Tufts University where he excelled academically, graduating summa cum laude.
He worked as a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group for a few years before attending and graduating from Harvard Business School in 1962.
Very impressive, huh? 🧐
Lesson 📚
Whatever profession, be good at it and be productive in life.
Sandy Weill
Jamie met Sandy Weill through a combination of initiative and family connections.
Sandy would become a very important figure in Jamie’s life. 💎
Sandy Weil is an accomplished dealmaker.
He formed Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill, a securities brokerage firm, in May 1960 and served as the firm's Chairman from 1965 to 1984.
During this period, he completed over 15 acquisitions to transform the firm into the country's second-largest securities brokerage.
In 1981, Sandy sold the firm to American Express for about $915 million in stock. He then served as president of American Express in 1983.
While a student at Tufts University, Jamie wrote an economics paper analyzing the 1974 merger of Shearson Hammill, his father's firm, with Hayden Stone, which was led by Sandy.
He presented it to Sandy at a company cocktail party. This bold move led to Jamie securing a summer job at Shearson in 1978.
In 1982, as Jamie was about to graduate from Harvard Business School, Sandy invited him to join American Express as his personal assistant.
Jamie gave up offers from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Lehmann Brothers to work for Sandy.
He says, “He [Sandy] had built Shearson Hammill, from just Hayden Stone, they had a lot of acquisitions kind of from the ground up, I love that kind of story.”
To him, Sandy was a modern-day Genghis Khan, and he loved that.
At the time, American Express owns a fund called, Fireman's Fund.
Sandy Weill wanted to sell it to Warren Buffett. He and Jamie worked tirelessly to make this deal happen.
At the final stage, the board vetoed this idea.
Sandy realizes he was played and quits American Express in anger. He encourages Jamie to stay on.
Several people in Jamie’s life told him that the smart thing to do would be to walk away from Sandy Weill.
However, in a show of loyalty, the 29-year-old Jamie quits his job too.
Lesson 📚
Career paths are messy and never linear.
A small step backwards may eventually set you up for a great leap forward.
Citi Group
Timeline (so far):
1956 - Jamie Dimon is born.
1978 - Jamie meets a very important figure in his life, Sandy Weill.
1982 - Jamie graduates from Harvard Business School. He becomes Sandy's personal assistant at American Express.
1985 - Jamie & Sandy leaves American Express.
After leaving American Express, Sandy and Jamie start looking for deals.
They're looking to take over a smaller company, then leverage it to take over bigger companies.
A familiar playbook that Sandy used when building his securities brokerage firm.
They find just the company, from an unlikely place.
Commercial Credit is a loan company in Baltimore, doing high-interest short-term loans to middle- and lower-class consumers.
In 1986, Sandy bought Commercial Credit for $7 million.
After taking over Commercial Credit, Sandy and Jamie starts ruthlessly cutting costs, laying off 10% of the employees on the first day.
After just one year of running the business, they create $100 million dollars in profit and achieve a 18% return on equity.
They didn’t stop there.
They took the company public and raised $850 million dollars.
With a strong balance sheet, they are fitter than anybody else. They start taking over struggling firms.
In 1987, they acquired Gulf Insurance.
The following year, in 1988, he paid $1.5 billion for Primerica, the parent company of Smith Barney and the A. L. Williams insurance company.
In 1989, they acquired Drexel Burnham Lambert's retail brokerage outlets.
In 1992, they paid $722 million to buy a 27% share of Travelers Insurance, which had gotten into trouble because of bad real estate investments.
In 1993, they reacquired the old Shearson brokerage (now Shearson Lehman) from American Express for $1.2 billion.
By the end of the year, he had completely taken over Travelers Corp in a $4 billion stock deal.
They officially began calling their corporation, Travelers Group Inc.
In 1996 he added to his holdings, at a cost of $4 billion, the property and casualty operations of Aetna Life & Casualty.
In September 1997 Sandy acquired Salomon Inc., the parent company of Salomon Brothers Inc. for over $9 billion in stock.
Then, their big moment came.
In April 1998, Travelers Group announced an agreement to undertake the $76 billion merger between Travelers and Citicorp, and the merger was completed on October 8, 1998.
Citi Group was born.
As the CEO of Citigroup, Sandy Weill is now the king of Wall Street. 👑
Jamie Dimon becomes the president of Citigroup. He is one step from becoming the most powerful man in finance.
Contrary to what most believe, Jamie did not build his career by climbing the corporate ladder.
He was bold and ambitious. He was an entrepreneur.
He went out, bought over companies and grew his sphere of influence from nothing.
It was a very un-traditional career ascent. Almost Genghis Khan-like.
Bank One
“I worked for Sandy for 14 years, we didn't get along for the last five.” Jamie says as a matter of fact.
In November 1998, in an abrupt turn of events, Sandy fired Jamie from Citigroup.
Early on, Sandy had realized that although Jamie was a skilled and intelligent businessman, he's often too blunt, and has a big temper.
(Recall: This was the same remarks Jamie’s assistant headmistress had.)
Sandy says, “The only problem was, I wasn't ready to retire. And then, you know, so, we began to not cooperate, and uh, that was not a good way to try and run a business.”
Jamie says, “I tell people about Citigroup was my net worth, not my self-worth, and I was able to move on, and yes it was difficult.”
Jamie was one step away from becoming the most powerful man on Wall Street, but now he is unemployed.
Lesson 📚
Your job is your net worth, not your self-worth.
By 1999, a perfect opportunity lands at his doorstep.
Bank One is a badly run financial conglomerate based in Chicago.
Exactly the kind of situation Jamie thrives in.
Its credit card was rated the worst in the industry. They had deep internal strife within the board as well.
Jamie says, “I knew the board had huge problems, 22 people and they hated each other.”
There was only one man capable of turning the bank around - Jamie Dimon.
He was hired as Bank One’s CEO.
To show he meant business, Jamie goes all in, putting all of his fortune in Bank One stocks, worth over $50 million dollars.
Over the next 12 months, he sells underperforming businesses, he cuts executive compensation, and he fires 12,000 employees to cut costs.
A year later, Bank One posts an astounding $2.6 billion dollars profits. With sheer will, Jamie Dimon has turned this company around from the brink of collapse.
Under Jamie Dimon's management, Bank One stocks achieves 59% return, three times that of the market.
By 2003, Bank One is among the only few banks that are thriving.
Enter JP Morgan Chase.
By 2003, JP Morgan Chase has become a sleeping giant.
The Enron scandal cost JP Morgan $135 million dollars in fines, and a negative public image.
The current CEO, William Harrison, is at his retirement age.
He knows to turn the company around; they need a wartime CEO.
He finds the right man.
At the time, both Bank One and JP Morgan are looking to do deals.
From a business perspective, it's a great fit, because JP Morgan can use Bank One to strengthen its branch banking business.
But the most important part of the deal was Jamie.
William Harrison wanted Jamie as his successor.
Unlike Sandy Weill, William Harrison is not a power-hungry person. He doesn't feel threatened by Jamie.
In fact, he made it clear that Jamie would become the CEO once the merger is completed.
JP Morgan Chase merges with Bank One.
In 2005, after one year of consolidation, Jamie Dimon officially becomes the CEO of JP Morgan Chase – the second largest bank in America, second to Citigroup.
For the second time in his career, Jamie Dimon is one step away from becoming the king of Wall Street. 👑
Timeline (complete):
1956 - Jamie Dimon is born.
1978 - Jamie meets a very important figure in his life, Sandy Weill.
1982 - Jamie graduates from Harvard Business School. He becomes Sandy's personal assistant at American Express.
1985 - Jamie & Sandy leaves American Express.
1986 - Jamie & Sandy buys Commercial Credit for $7m.
1986 to 1998 - Jamie & Sandy completes a series of acquisitions. Their corporate is now called Travelers Group Inc.
1998 - Jamie & Sandy merges Travelers Group with Citi. They form Citi Group. Sandy becomes CEO of Citi Group. Jamie becomes President.
1998 - Sandy fires Jamie from Citi Group.
2000 - Jamie becomes CEO of Bank One.
2004 - JP Morgan merges with Bank One.
2005 - Jamie Dimon becomes CEO of JP Morgan.
Ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. Jamie Dimon.
Thank you so much for reading up to this point. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about Jamie’s career.
I hoped you enjoyed reading this too. If you did, please subscribe for more career spotlights.
Take care and till next time! 🫡