logo
The British woman competing to run the world's biggest bank

The British woman competing to run the world's biggest bank

Telegraph3 days ago

When Marianne Lake came second on American Banker's list of the most powerful women in finance, she joked that it was better to come in third place, as she had the year before.
'By my estimation, being number three is a pretty sweet spot,' she quipped to the audience of Wall Street high-flyers at the 2015 event. 'You've placed, you're on the podium, you get a medal, and you get to sit down and drink through the speeches.'
Lake may not have favoured the limelight then, but soon it would be inescapable. Today, the Briton is one of the frontrunners in the race to succeed Jamie Dimon as chief executive of JP Morgan, the biggest bank in the US and one of the biggest in the world.
The job would see her lead a Wall Street titan that employs over 300,000 staff while serving more than 82m customers both in the US and the UK.
Lake, 55, would also be stepping into the shoes of a giant. Dimon, 69, has worked as JP Morgan's chief executive since 2006, helping the bank not just survive the financial crisis, but thrive in its aftermath. Its share price has increased almost 600pc since Dimon took charge.
JP Morgan's chief is widely regarded as one of the world's most influential financiers. He was floated as Donald Trump's potential treasury secretary, and Dimon has toyed with running for the presidency himself in the past. When Dimon speaks, his words carry weight well beyond Wall Street.
Lake, who runs JP Morgan's consumer & community banking division, is one of a small group of senior executives who have been identified as potential candidates to succeed Dimon when he chooses to step down.
If she were to step into his shoes, Lake would become the first woman to lead JP Morgan in its 154-year history, as well as becoming its first British chief too. Could she make history and move from number two to the top spot?
Born to a British father and an American mother, Lake moved from Cumberland, Maryland – a small US city of less than 20,000 people – to the UK, aged two. Her father was a computer programmer and her mother an airline ticketing agent.
Lake studied physics at Reading University before starting her career at PwC in London. She moved to the accounting giant's Sydney offices, before joining JP Morgan in 1999 at the age of 30.
She quickly rose through the ranks to be named chief financial officer of the consumer & community banking division in 2009, dealing with more than 82m of JP Morgan's retail customers.
'It's really smart to have a strong contender with a 'Main Street' point of view, given the role that banks play in real people's lives,' says Sandra Sucher, an economist at Harvard Business School.
Unlike rivals such as Goldman Sachs that focus on investment activities, JP Morgan also offers bank accounts and loans to millions of ordinary citizens. It is part of what makes the bank so huge, and the job of running it so influential.
Lake's main rivals in the succession battle are Douglas Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh, both co-chief executives of JP Morgan's commercial and investment bank – the Wall Street side of the ledger.
Lake recently had her own position expanded to cover the responsibilities formerly held by Sanoke Viswanathan, an executive who has now left JP Morgan to join FactSet, a financial data provider. Many took it as a sign she could be being lined up to take the top job.
The Briton has acknowledged that she might not 'fit the typical profile' of a top banker at JP Morgan, given she spent her formative years outside of the US and did not attend an Ivy League school or Oxbridge.
However, Glenn Schorr, a banking analyst at Evercore, says there's 'no chance' anyone would see Lake as an outsider after 'spending more than three minutes with her'.
'I don't think anybody's ever said a bad word about her,' says Schorr, who has known Lake for over a decade. 'She's charming to be around. She has an insane command for the subject matter. She's got the full package.'
Lake wouldn't be the first British woman to lead a Wall Street bank. Jane Fraser, who runs Citibank, was born in St Andrews, Scotland.
Her background is, however, more traditional Wall Street: Fraser studied economics at Cambridge before working in the mergers and acquisitions unit of Goldman Sachs, later completing an MBA at Harvard Business School.
JP Morgan insiders described Lake as a 'big success story' and said people within the bank were 'very enthusiastic about her chances of becoming the next Jamie Dimon'.
To her advantage, Lake has worked closely with JP Morgan's chief for years. She told Marie Claire in 2013: 'Our offices are right next door, and we're in and out of each other's offices multiple times a day. Every Friday night we try to sit down together and go over things, but it's not always necessary. We're usually on the same page.'
Gerard Cassidy, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said Lake has 'done a very good job in her role'.
He described Lake as 'pretty forward' and 'direct', and someone who 'demands and receives a high level of production from the people that she works with'.
'You can tell that she has a high level of expectations for the people that work for her.'
Lake's high status within the bank is reflected in her pay. She earned $18.5m in 2024, making her the fourth-best remunerated executive behind Dimon; Daniel Pinto, JP Morgan's president; and Mary Erdoes, the chief executive of JP Morgan's wealth management business, who may also have a shot at the top job.
Lake now lives in New York, having moved to the US in 2004. In February, local newspaper Crain's New York Business reported she had moved into a four bedroom apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, said to have been purchased for more than $13m.
Schorr describes Lake as a fast talker with an extensive knowledge of the bank. 'It feels like she knows everything about everything,' he says, adding that JP Morgan's major shareholders hold her in the 'highest regard'.
'I'm not going to pretend it's easy'
The executive has given relatively few interviews to the media and was unavailable to speak for this piece. It means there are few clues as to what direction she might take JP Morgan in, if she were to rise to the position of chief executive.
One thing she has opened up about publicly is her decision to have her three children in her 40s, through a surrogate, raising them on her own.
'I'm not going to pretend it's easy,' Lake told the audience at American Banker's gala in 2015. 'But, like everything in life, to make it work you need to be highly organised.'
In her interview with Marie Claire, Lake said: 'I never worried about raising a kid on my own. I'm 42, not 20 with my eyes closed. The circumstances aren't traditional, but I didn't hesitate to do it.'
Lake has also championed diversity. In her 2015 speech at American Banker's gala, the executive said she had made an effort to surround herself with a 'diverse team ... with respect to experience, background and thinking.'
'Should my daughter decide to follow in my footsteps and enter this great industry, I would like to believe that she would have all the same opportunities that her brothers would, and that I would like to do everything I can to ensure that that is the case,' she said.
Lake's rise comes at a time when Donald Trump is fighting an all-out war on the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies that have become widespread throughout America's largest firms.
JP Morgan itself recently relaunched its DEI initiatives, replacing the word 'equity' with 'opportunity', in a rebrand of the programme under a new name, 'DOI'. Whether this is enough to escape the president's ire remains to be seen.
Regardless, Lake may not have to deal with Trump, even if she does get the top job. The board of JP Morgan handed Dimon a $50m retention bonus in 2021 that would keep him in the top job until at least the middle of next year, and he said this week that his retirement was 'several years away'. Still, he has also admitted that succession planning is 'well under way'.
While she may still face a wait, Lake could soon become JP Morgan's first female chief – and one of the most prominent Britons on Wall Street. The limelight is calling.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

US immigration raid of Omaha meat plant cuts staff, fuels food production worries
US immigration raid of Omaha meat plant cuts staff, fuels food production worries

Reuters

time32 minutes ago

  • Reuters

US immigration raid of Omaha meat plant cuts staff, fuels food production worries

CHICAGO, June 11 (Reuters) - U.S. meat producer Glenn Valley Foods was operating an Omaha, Nebraska, facility with about 30% of its staff on Wednesday after federal agents detained workers in an immigration raid the previous day, slashing the output of products it sells to grocery stores and restaurants, the company's president said. In the wake of Tuesday's sweep by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, livestock traders and market analysts expressed concerns that the potential deportation of undocumented workers from such raids could disrupt U.S. food production at a time when beef prices have soared and meat processors report a labor shortage. ICE agents detained about 74 to 76 workers out of roughly 140 at the Glenn Valley Foods plant, President Chad Hartmann said. Other workers did not show up on Wednesday because they felt afraid or traumatized, he said, adding that the facility's production dropped to about 20% of normal. Glenn Valley Foods sells steak, chicken and corned beef products to restaurants and grocery stores, according to its website. Retail beef prices have set records as the size of the U.S. cattle herd has declined to its lowest level in 70 years after a years-long drought raised feed costs. Consumer demand for steaks and hamburgers has stayed strong nevertheless. Glenn Valley Foods is trying to determine how long it will take to hire new employees, Hartmann said. "The hole that got punched into our business is staffing," he said. Livestock traders worried that immigration raids could slow meat companies' demand to buy cattle from farmers to process into beef, if the companies do not have enough workers. Chicago Mercantile Exchange cattle futures came under pressure on Tuesday during the raid, after recently hitting records. "There's certainly going to be nervousness out there on where the labor situation goes, going forward," said Matt Wiegand, a commodity broker for risk management firm FuturesOne in Nebraska. Meatpackers still face an acute worker shortage, said Julie Anna Potts, president of the Meat Institute industry group. It worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when major companies such as Tyson Foods (TSN.N), opens new tab temporarily shut plants because of a lack of workers. Glenn Valley used E-Verify, a federal database used for checking employees' immigration status. Hartmann said Homeland Security told him on Wednesday that there was no better system. "We will have to continue to use it," he said. ICE said a criminal investigation was ongoing into what immigration officials called a large-scale employment of immigrants who are present in the U.S. illegally. Footage, opens new tab of the Glenn Valley raid released by ICE showed agents searching the plant, restraining workers' hands and ankles, and taking them into custody. ICE officers have been intensifying efforts in recent weeks to deliver on U.S. President Donald Trump's agenda of record-level deportations. Tensions boiled over in Los Angeles over the weekend when protesters took to the streets after ICE arrested migrants at Home Depot stores, a garment factory and a warehouse, according to rights advocates. On Tuesday night, demonstrators marched in New York, Atlanta and Chicago. More than half of all meatpacking workers in the U.S. are immigrants, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a think tank. The Omaha World-Herald newspaper said on Tuesday that raids were also reported at local plants run by large meatpackers Tyson and JBS USA ( Tyson and JBS told Reuters their facilities were not raided.

Fact check: how accurate are Rachel Reeves's spending figures?
Fact check: how accurate are Rachel Reeves's spending figures?

Times

time35 minutes ago

  • Times

Fact check: how accurate are Rachel Reeves's spending figures?

'The chancellor's speech was full of numbers, few of them useful,' said Paul Johnson, the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Reeves's speech was political to the core — and that extended to her use of statistics. The chancellor appears to have used whichever numbers best suited her position, predominantly to inflate the scale of the government's spending plans. She used bigger, cumulative figures to highlight the scale of investments, rather than annual numbers, and cash increases stripped of their context. She also used Tory spending plans from before the election, which never came to pass, as the baseline for the biggest numbers in her speech. When it did not suit her she ignored the Tory spending plans. While none of the figures are technically inaccurate, economists argue that they are a statistical sleight of hand and that Reeves would be better off being consistent in her use of numbers. Spending going up The claim: The first number in Reeves's speech — bar her obligatory reference to the £22 billion 'black hole' she claims to have been left by the Tories — was the boast that 'in this spending review, total departmental budgets will grow by 2.3 per cent per year in real terms'. The reality: This figure includes spending announced at the budget last year, where there were some of the biggest increases. Over the next three years, total spending — combining day-to-day and investment — will increase by 1.5 per cent. Day-to-day spending will rise by 1.2 per cent a year for the rest of the parliament, about half the rate it rose this year. • More for public services The claim: Reeves promised to add '£190 billion more to the day-to-day running of our public services' as well as an extra £113 billion to public investment. The reality: This is a comparison with previous Conservative plans — dismissed as 'essentially fictitious' by Johnson — drawn up before the election to set a trap for Labour and allow Rishi Sunak to promise tax cuts. The Tory plans envisioned day-to-day spending rising by only about 1 per cent a year, and big cuts in capital spending. Reeves reversed these by changing her fiscal rules to allow more borrowing and is increasing infrastructure spending. But on an annual basis, capital spending will be £151.9 billion in 2029-30, £20.6 billion more in cash terms than it is now. Day-to-day spending will rise by £50.7 billion by 2028-29. More for schools The claim: Reeves said she was providing a 'cash uplift' of more than £4.5 billion for schools by the end of the spending review period. The reality: Context is everything. The Treasury concedes in the small print that the core budget for schools will rise by 0.4 per cent over the next three years. It says that when the cost of expanding free school meals is stripped out of the figures 'you get a real-terms freeze in the budget'. • Rachel Reeves is testing voters' patience … she needs results Backing innovation The claim: Reeves declared that the government was 'backing [Britain's] innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs' with research and development funding rising to a 'record high of £22 billion per year by the end of the spending review'. In a press release the government said that spending on research and development was £86 billion. The reality: Despite the rhetoric, this spending pledge represents a significant scaling back of the government's investment ambitions in research and development. The previous government pledged to hit the £22 billion target by this year and then delayed it until 2027. This target has now been put back even further to 2029. Indeed, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology's budget will barely rise at all next year — far from the rhetoric of Reeves's statement. The £86 billion referred to in government press releases is a cumulative figure. More for social housing The claim: Reeves boasted of 'the biggest cash injection into social and affordable housing in 50 years', saying this would total £39 billion over ten years. The reality: The figure would represent almost a doubling of the £2.3 billion affordable homes programme. However, this spending ramps up slowly, reaching just £4 billion a year by the end of the parliament, leaving it to future chancellors to find ways of maintaining the spending. The overall capital budget for the housing ministry is actually flat over the spending review, with ministers relying on savings elsewhere — especially a reduction in the capital costs to councils of homes for asylum seekers. If these savings fail to materialise, painful decisions will be needed. NHS spending The claim: With health the big winner, Reeves boasted of 'an extra £29 billion per year for the day-to-day running of the health service' along with a 50 per cent boost in the NHS technology budget. The reality: The £29 billion figure is for NHS England specifically, and its budget will rise by 3 per cent a year in real terms, within a 2.8 per cent per year overall Department of Health rise. Capital budgets were increased last year but will be held flat for the rest of this parliament. Increasing technology spending further will therefore come at the cost of crumbling buildings or modern scanners and other kit. NHS leaders are already saying they will find it harder to shift to more modern, efficient treatments without extra equipment and buildings. Efficiency savings The claim: Reeves said the government had carried out a zero-based review of all government spending that would make public services 'more efficient and more productive' and, according to the Treasury, save £13 billion a year by 2029. The reality: These savings are, to put it charitably, extremely hypothetical and in some cases seem wildly optimistic. The NHS, the government thinks, will save nearly £9 billion from higher productivity — despite the fact that the health service has got less rather than more productive since Covid. And the culture department thinks it will save £9 million from 'digital reform' — despite the fact that the MoD, which is a much larger organisation, only thinks it can save £11 million. Overall the savings appear, at best, to be highly aspirational. But if they are not met, it will have a real-world impact on the amount of money the government has for public services.

Planet Normal: ‘The numbers don't add up' in Rachel Reeves' spending review
Planet Normal: ‘The numbers don't add up' in Rachel Reeves' spending review

Telegraph

time35 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

Planet Normal: ‘The numbers don't add up' in Rachel Reeves' spending review

Mr Lyons wasn't convinced by the numbers, ' Early in her speech the Chancellor said, is the plan credible, and the answer unfortunately is, no.' 'T he starting position is debt is very high, and I think we're in the early stages of Britain going into a debt crisis. If you're looking for good news, it might be that we're not the only country facing this problem; but today the Chancellor gave a speech that I think lacked a lot of the detail.' Allison is not convinced by the claims the economy is stabilising, ' We know it is not true, and we are already starting to see the impact on employment and on businesses. We know payrolls have fallen, that employment's fallen by over 250,000 since Rachel Reeves' budget. This is not an economy where you should be taking the gambles that she's taking. Where is the growth going to come from?'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store