JPMorgan Names Retail Finance Executive Lake as New CFO

JPMorgan Chase & Co named little-known executive Marianne Lake as its chief financial officer on Monday, making her one of the most powerful women on Wall Street and the top ambassador to investors for the largest U.S. bank.

JPMorgan Chase & Co named little-known executive Marianne Lake as its chief financial officer on Monday, making her one of the most powerful women on Wall Street and the top ambassador to investors for the largest U.S. bank.

Lake, 43, will replace Doug Braunstein as CFO early next year and join only a handful of other women in top Wall Street roles, such as Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer of Morgan Stanley.

Lake will answer directly to CEO Jamie Dimon in her new role, reestablishing a reporting line taken away from the CFO post this summer after a massive $6.2 billion trading loss hurt the company's credibility with securities analysts.

She will also join the bank's powerful operating committee, which has about a dozen members.

"I hope to be described as a great partner and someone who helped drive and develop the business," Lake said in a interview.

Braunstein, 51, a long-time investment banker, will become a vice chairman at JPMorgan and "focus on serving top clients," according to an announcement from the company.

His move could mark the last exit from the public spotlight of JPMorgan executives linked to the trading loss.

Braunstein, like Dimon, had insisted to analysts in April that press reports were wrong about risks the bank's Chief Investment Office faced from positions taken by Bruno Iksil, who was known to hedge funds as the "London Whale" for the size of his trades in derivatives.

When talk of Braunstein's possible move surfaced last month, a person familiar with the matter said giving up the CFO post would be Braunstein's decision and unrelated to the bad credit trades.

The change also comes as Dimon grooms a younger group of executives at the bank.

In a reshuffle over the summer, Dimon named Michael Cavanagh and Daniel Pinto - both in their late 40s at the time - co-chiefs of commercial and investment banking. Both Cavanagh and Pinto are seen as prime candidates to succeed Dimon, 56, when he is ready to retire.

HIGH-PROFILE ROLE

Lake was far removed from the derivatives debacle. Though she has been the CFO for JPMorgan's retail branch systems since 2009, she has had a relatively low profile outside the bank.