Workers daydream of the moment they can clock out of work for good, kick their feet up, and bask in their indefinite downtime. However, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has just revealed that his retirement will be the second act of his career.
“l’ll do business with people I like,” Dimon told Axios of his plans for after he steps down as CEO in a recent interview.
“I’m gonna probably write a book, maybe more about management and stuff like that, and I might do one on the financial crisis. There’s a lot of stuff that really people don’t fully understand about what happened.”
The 70-year-old banking giant legend said that teaching is also on the table—a popular gig for leaders with decades of industry expertise. Former General Electric (GE) chief executive Jeff Immelt, who led the $370 billion industrial giant for 16 years, went on to become a lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Plus, Dimon threw in the possibility of “something around a media-related thing.” No matter what post-CEO career he follows, he’ll be kept busy.
“I have got to do something,” Dimon said on the Acquired podcast last year. “I’m not going to twiddle my thumbs and smell the flowers.”
JPMorgan Chase declined Fortune’s request for comment.
Dimon is preparing for succession from the $890 billion bank
Dimon has helmed the largest bank in the world by market cap for over 20 years. The Wall Street veteran has led JPMorgan through the 2008 financial crisis, landmark acquisitions, and periods of record profits. But as Dimon continues to tick past the typical CEO retirement age of 63, the world is watching who will succeed the legendary banker, who suggested he would step down as chief executive in around three years.
“Last time I was asked, I said, less than five years,” Dimon told CBS last year. “But when you say ‘retire,’ I’m not going to retire like that. I may write a book. I may teach. I may work with my kids, if they want. I would never pressure them to work with me.”
Dimon added that it’s “likely” that he would step down as CEO and stick around as chairman, but ultimately, the board has the final say. “But if it makes sense, I may be chairman for a couple years.” And now that a rough timeline has been laid out, the race to succeed Dimon has come into sharper focus.
There are a few possibilities on the table, while some promising candidates have already been ruled out. Just last month, the succession pool lost a frontrunner after Marianne Lake, CEO of JPMorgan’s consumer and community banking, announced that she would be leaving the bank. And another internal candidate—Jennifer Piepszak, the company’s chief operating officer—has expressed that she doesn’t want Dimon’s coveted job.
The two that have floated to the top of succession watch-lists are the bank’s co-presidents Doug Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh.
What CEOs do in their ‘retirement’: authorship, philanthropy, and sports teams
Dimon isn’t the only CEO who would be restless vacationing their retirement away.
Steve Ballmer, the charismatic leader of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014, went all-in on sports and other ventures after he stepped down from the helm of the tech giant. Notably, he bought the LA Clippers for $2 billion the same year he retired—and now, it’s valued around $7.5 billion. Ballmer also co-founded USAFacts: a nonpartisan project that aggregates and visualizes official U.S. government data.
And just like Dimon, he took an interest in shaping the young minds of tomorrow; the 70-year-old worth $139 billion taught an MBA course at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and also instructed at USC’s Marshall School of Business.
When Indra Nooyi left her role as the CEO of food giant PepsiCo in 2019, she didn’t step away from business for good. The longtime chief executive of 13 years then went on to serve on Amazon’s board, as well as the supervisory board of Dutch health company Royal Philips.
She also champions the arts and science, sitting on the Board of Trustees of both the National Gallery of Art and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 2020, the now-70-year-old also added author to her resume upon the release of her book My Life in Full.
And at 72, Howard Schultz is still making his mark in philanthropy, writing, and venture capital.
The three-time Starbucks CEO, who collectively served around 25 years at the top, founded Schultz Family Foundation focused on advancing economic mobility. The businessman worth $3.6 billion is also a partner at Maveron—a VC firm he co-founded—which invests in consumer brands like Groupon, Madison Reed, and Allbirds. And in the same spirit of both Dimon and Nooyi, he’s put pen to paper in his free time, publishing four books on business.
Are you a former CEO in “retirement,” or a business leader thinking about what to do in your post-executive career? Fortune wants to hear what you’re doing—or planning to do! Reach out at emma.burleigh@fortune.com
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
