评论
打印
If Jamie Dimon fulfils the plan he announced this week, and remains chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase until 2023, he will have been at the helm for 17 years. That is still some way short of the near-half century racked up by John Pierpont Morgan, who founded the eponymous bank in 1871. But in this day and age, it is more than a fair innings.
如果杰米·戴蒙(Jamie Dimon)执行他最近宣布的计划，继续担任摩根大通(JPMorgan Chase)董事长兼首席执行官至2023年，那他将执掌摩根大通帅印17年。这与1871年创立该行的约翰·皮尔庞特·摩根(John Pierpont Morgan)近半个世纪的掌舵相比，仍是小巫见大巫。但在当今这个时代，这已超出公平范畴。
To fend off criticism that he has no clear succession plan in place, Mr Dimon has promoted Gordon Smith and Daniel Pinto to the new roles of co-president and co-chief operating officer, inviting the assumption that one of them will take over from him. The five-year timeframe also appears designed to scotch rumours Mr Dimon could stand as a Democrat candidate for US president in 2020.
为化解外界对于他没有明确接班计划的批评，戴蒙同时提拔了戈登·史密斯(Gordon Smith)和丹尼尔·平托(Daniel Pinto)出任联席总裁和联席首席运营官，引发外界猜测其中一人将成为他的接班人。五年的时间框架似乎也意在戳穿关于戴蒙将成为民主党的2020年美国总统候选人的传言。
But on both counts, the mercurial Mr Dimon could yet surprise.
但在这两方面，变幻莫测的戴蒙都仍有可能出人意料。
Succession planning has been an on-off topic for Wall Street’s longest-serving chief for years. He has sometimes elevated top performers, only to cut them down or ease them out soon afterwards. Dig out a copy of Fortune magazine from September 2008 and you will see the JPMorgan boss on the cover, flanked by the seven star bankers who had helped the group come through the financial crisis in better shape than any rival.
对这位华尔街任职最久的掌门人来说，接班计划这个话题多年来一直没有断过。他偶尔提拔过表现最优秀的下属，只是随后很快就会把他们开掉或者悄悄地打发走。翻出2008年9月的《财富》(Fortune)杂志，你会看到这位摩根大通老板出现在封面上，身旁簇拥着7位明星银行家，这些人帮助该集团比任何竞争对手都更加完好无损地挺过了金融危机。
Several of them — and others besides — were cited along the way as potential future chief executives. Today only one (the newly promoted Mr Smith) is still at the bank. Critics of Mr Dimon would say he has clung on to power and ruthlessly disposed of any rising star who might threaten his position prematurely. Acolytes would prefer to cast him as the football manager who only now has his optimum team.
其中几位——加上另外几人——先后被外界称为未来首席执行官的潜在人选。如今，只剩下一位（新近获提拔的史密斯）仍在该行工作。戴蒙的批评者会说，他紧紧攥着权力，无情地排挤任何可能过早威胁其地位的后起之秀。亲信们倾向于把他形容为足球队的经理，到现在才刚刚拥有一支黄金阵容的队伍。
What, then, should we make of the elevation of consumer boss Mr Smith and investment bank chief Mr Pinto to a rank that explicitly positions them as likely successors to the entrenched Mr Dimon· They might indeed fulfil that destiny if Mr Dimon’s five-year plan does not work out. But if it does, they would be in their sixties — not an age, surely, to start out as a bank CEO.
那么，我们该如何看待消费部门主管史密斯和投行部门首席执行官平托的晋升（新职位明显让他们成为地位稳固的戴蒙的潜在接班人）呢？如果戴蒙的五年计划不能做到底，他们或许真有接班的命。但如果戴蒙做满五年，他们将已经是60多岁的人——无疑不是接任银行首席执行官的合适年龄。
Instead, those close to Mr Dimon believe he will spend the next few years grooming two or three alternative successors. Marianne Lake, the highly regarded finance chief, is probably the favourite, and is expected to be given management of an operating unit, such as the investment bank, in preparation. If Ms Lake were to wind up as chief executive, she would be Wall Street’s first female CEO — creating just the kind of legacy that a moderniser such as Mr Dimon would like to leave.
相反，接近戴蒙的人士认为，他将利用接下来几年时间培养两、三名候选继任者。备受尊敬的财务总监玛丽安·雷克(Marianne Lake)可能是他最钟意的人选，预计将被派去管理一个运营部门（比如投行部门）让她获得锻炼。如果雷克最终成为首席执行官，她将成为华尔街首位女性首席执行官——这正是戴蒙这样的现代主义者希望留下的那种遗产。
So much for the succession plan. What of the five-year time span before it is enacted· Investors clearly like the idea of Mr Dimon staying around. JPMorgan’s shares have outperformed those of all its Wall Street peers over the 12 years he has been in charge. Profits last year, measured by the bank’s 12 per cent return on tangible equity, surpassed rivals’ too. Colleagues past and present enthuse about his leadership prowess, especially in times of crisis.
接班计划仅此而已。那么交接班之前的五年时间跨度怎么样呢？投资者显然喜欢戴蒙留任。在他执掌该行的12年间，摩根大通的股价表现优于华尔街所有同行。以该行12%的有形股本回报率衡量，去年的利润也超过了竞争对手。过去和现在的同事都钦佩他的领导才能，尤其是在危机时期。
And yet, however impressive the individual, long tenures can create big headaches. The need for potentially destabilising purges, as layers of frustrated senior managers pile up at the top of the organisation, is just one problem. Longstanding bosses, particularly successful ones, can spill over from confident and capable into arrogant and disengaged. There was more than a hint of that six years ago when the London Whale trading scandal generated a $6.2bn loss. More recently, he has appeared distracted, spending significant time on his work at the Business Roundtable lobby group in Washington.
然而，无论个人能力多么令人印象深刻，长期占据最高职位都会带来巨大麻烦。随着组织高层堆叠一层又一层怀才不遇的高层管理人员，需要进行潜在破坏稳定的清洗，这是问题之一。长期在位的老板（尤其是那些成功的老板）会由自信和能干变得傲慢、不接地气。六年前的“伦敦鲸”(London Whale)交易丑闻致使摩根大通亏损62亿美元时，就已显露出一些这方面的迹象。最近，他似乎有些分心，在华盛顿游说组织——商业圆桌会议(Business Roundtable)的工作上花了大量时间。
For all that, Mr Dimon enjoys the support of the board — thanks in part to his impressive record but also to the quirks of the bank’s corporate governance. Mr Dimon is chairman as well as chief executive. And Lee Raymond, the former ExxonMobil chief executive who is the board’s “lead director” — and the closest thing Mr Dimon has to a boss — has himself been on the board for 31 years.
尽管如此，戴蒙还是得到了董事会的支持——这在一定程度上要归功于他令人印象深刻的业绩，同时也得益于该行奇特的公司治理结构。戴蒙既是首席执行官，也是董事长。而摩根大通董事会的“首席董事”、埃克森美孚(ExxonMobil)前董事长李·雷蒙德(Lee Raymond)本人占据董事会席位已有31年。
Overstaying is a common error — as demonstrated by JPMorgan adviser Tony Blair who spent a decade as UK prime minister, or by Jeff Immelt at General Electric, which is unravelling only months after the end of his 16-year stint in charge.
在位过久是一个常见错误——正如摩根大通顾问、担任英国首相10年的托尼·布莱尔(Tony Blair)或通用电气(General Electric)的杰夫·伊梅尔特(Jeff Immelt)所展示的那样。在伊梅尔特结束16年掌权仅几个月后，通用电气就走上分拆的道路。
Then again, perhaps Mr Dimon is genuinely in that rare category of leaders, many of them company founders, who evolve with their business and prove exceptional corporate guardians — individuals such as Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway (53 years at the helm) or Jeff Bezos at Amazon (23 years). Was it a coincidence that the day after JPMorgan’s succession announcement, the bank unveiled a not-for-profit healthcare collaboration with Berkshire Hathaway and Amazon·
话说回来，或许戴蒙真的属于那类罕见的领导者，他们中的许多人是企业创始人，他们与企业一起与时俱进，证明自己是杰出的企业守护者——比如掌舵伯克希尔哈撒韦(Berkshire Hathaway) 53年的沃伦·巴菲特(Warren Buffett)或掌舵亚马逊(Amazon) 23年的杰夫·贝索斯(Jeff Bezos)。在摩根大通宣布接班计划后的第二天，该行公布了与伯克希尔哈撒韦和亚马逊的一项非营利医疗合作计划，这是巧合吗？
Improving healthcare, along with tightening gun control and supporting immigration are among the big issues that Mr Dimon cares deeply about — fuelling the theory that he could yet have a shot at the presidency. It is an idea that his spokesman has refuted, on the grounds that in politics he would not have the executive power to implement the change he seeks.
改善医疗保健、加强枪支管控和支持移民，这些都是戴蒙深切关心的重大问题——这助燃了有关他可能尝试竞选总统的猜测。戴蒙的发言人驳斥了这种说法，理由是他在政坛反而得不到推行他所寻求的变革的执行权力。
For this ardent patriot, perhaps the only thing big enough to distract him from his attachment to JPMorgan is his love of America.
对于这位热情的爱国者，也许唯一能吸引他告别摩根大通的大业就是他对美国的热爱。
