Jes Staley

But before that became clear, Staley, 53, head of asset management, had to run JPMorgan’s biggest profit center: the investment bank. Happily, that’s where he’d originally made his career as a founder of the equity business. So in September, Dimon chose Staley to head investment banking.

A lifer who joined JPMorgan out of college in 1979, the strong-willed Staley had impressed Dimon by embracing two things that the CEO himself hated — hedge funds and closed architecture — and making them work.