Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, gestures as he speaks during the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee’s oversight hearing on Wall Street firms, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on December 6, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
JPMorgan Chase has created a new global role overseeing all junior bankers in an effort to better manage their workloads post-crisis. dead of one Bank of America Associate in May forced Wall Street to investigate how it treats its youngest workers.
The company called Ryland McClendon CNBC has learned this, in a memo sent this month to its global investment banking associate and analyst leader.
Associates and analysts are at the two lowest levels of Wall Street’s investment banking and trading hierarchy; Recent graduates are flocking to these positions because of the high pay and opportunities they can offer.
The memo specifically stated that McClendon, a 14-year JPMorgan veteran and former banker who previously served as head of talent and career development, would support the “well-being and success” of junior bankers.
The move shows how JPMorgan, the largest US investment bank by revenue, is responding to the latest untimely death on Wall Street. In May, Bank of America’s Leo Lukenas III died after reportedly working 100 hours a week on a bank merger. Later that month, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said his bank was exploring what it could learn from the tragedy.
Then, starting in August, JPMorgan’s senior managers instructed their investment banking teams that junior bankers typically no more than 80 hourspart of a renewed focus to monitor their workload, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
Exceptions can be made for live deals, said the person, who declined to be identified speaking about internal policy.
Dimon’s warning
Dimon denounced some of Wall Street’s deep-rooted practices at a financial conference held Tuesday at Georgetown University. Some of the hours worked by junior bankers are a result of inefficiency or tradition rather than necessity, he indicated.
“A lot of investment bankers have been traveling all week, come home and give you four assignments, and you have to work all weekend,” Dimon said. “It’s just not right.”
Senior bankers would be held accountable if their analysts and staff routinely stumbled over policy, he said.
“You’re violating it,” Dimon warned. “You have to stop, and it will be included in your bonus, so people know we really mean it.”