JPMorgan elevated Troy Rohrbaugh and Doug Petno to co-presidents on Thursday, the clearest sign yet that they are leading the race to replace CEO Jamie Dimon.
The announcement comes after more than a decade of speculation and a rotating cast of succession candidates.
Even now, the field could keep shifting until the day Dimon steps down.
While both are held in high esteem at JPMorgan, Petno and Rohrbaugh have distinct strengths — the former is known for his charm and client relationships, the latter for his trading chops and quieter risk management.
Petno and Rohrbaugh had jointly led the commercial and investment bank, which Petno will now lead on his own as Rohrbaugh becomes CEO of the firm’s consumer and community banking unit.
Marianne Lake, the current head of consumer and community banking who had been seen as a frontrunner in the CEO race, is retiring.
Though the announcement effectively narrows what had been a more crowded field to a two-person race, it doesn’t seem that Dimon, 70, plans to step down anytime soon.
Analysts from Bank of America said the announcement, especially Lake’s retirement, suggests Dimon will stick around for several more years, and his timeline could impact whether Petno, 61, or Rohrbaugh, 56, lands his job. “It’s a question of timing more than anything,” Mike Mayo, a Wells Fargo banking analyst, said.
Mayo said that Rohrbaugh, with his relative youth, likely has a better shot at becoming CEO the longer Dimon stays in the position.
Petno has worked at JPMorgan for more than 35 years, though originally thought he would be a veterinarian, he told his alma mater, Wabash College, in 2019.
He started at the firm as an investment banker and eventually became head of the natural resources group.
He became the CEO of commercial banking in 2012, and under his leadership, revenue more than doubled.
In 2024, he became the co-head of global banking, before becoming co-head of the investment bank in 2025, the role he shared with Rohrbaugh.
Through his three decades at the firm, Petno became known as one of Dimon’s close associates, with a finger on the pulse of top customers.
Dimon described him as “a great client guy and a culture carrier” in an interview with Bloomberg at the beginning of last year, adding that he has a good sense of humor.
The CEO has trusted him with big projects over the years, tapping him to help combine the corporate and investment banks and build up the firm’s startup banking capabilities. “I learned to observe the people and types of behavior I admire and embrace it, building it into my own style,” Petno told Wabash in 2019 about his rise. “People took chances on me, including Jamie.” Rohrbaugh has been less of a public- and client-facing figure.
A veteran trader who started at JPMorgan in 2005, he’s built a reputation as someone who knows how to navigate risk — he said in an interview with Bloomberg last year that, being a trader by background, “I worry about everything.” That skill could make him an attractive CEO candidate, an industry recruiter previously told Business Insider.
The 56-year-old studied political science and played football at Johns Hopkins, and started his finance career trading options at the Philadelphia Stock Exchange.
He then worked at Banque Nationale and Goldman Sachs before joining JPMorgan’s foreign-exchange business.
Rohrbaugh helped stabilize and mature the business while pushing to modernize its technology capabilities.
He’s also served as head of global markets, and his experience at JPMorgan has spanned Asia, London, and New York.
Rohrbaugh was vaulted more publicly into the succession race when he became co-head of the commercial and investment bank in 2024.
In a video to Johns Hopkins’ football team in 2023, Rohrbaugh, dressed in blue jeans, advised staying “calm under pressure” — potentially useful words of advice given his current circumstances.
Now that Rohrbaugh and Petno are locked into their roles as co-presidents — they each received a one-time $30 million retention bonus, according to an SEC filing — they’ll need to prove they’re up for the CEO job that’s been synonymous with Dimon’s name for decades.
Petno, as the sole head of the corporate and investment bank, has the chance to maintain his strong client relationships and impact on firm culture, Chris McGratty, an analyst at KBW, said in an email.
On top of that, the veteran investment banker will need to demonstrate his handle on the markets business.
He’s also one of the people spearheading the Security & Resiliency Initiative, a $1.5 trillion effort that’s a huge focus for Dimon.
Rohrbaugh, on the other hand, is now overseeing an entirely new group of people and line of business on Main Street rather than Wall Street, giving him wider insight into the sprawl that is JPMorgan.
In his new position, he’s overseeing more than 5,000 branches across the country.
The new role could also address his more limited experience in high-profile leadership roles, which Mayo, the Wells Fargo analyst, described as a potential “shortfall.” With Dimon seemingly entrenched as CEO for at least a couple more years, the two men, former football and soccer players, have just started what might be the most public game of their lives.
It seems all of Wall Street is filling the stands.
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