JPMorgan’s next CEO could be a woman

JPMorgan Chase’s longtime chief financial officer, Marianne Lake, is stepping down from her C-suite position to head the bank’s consumer lending division — setting her up to be tapped to be as the next CEO.

One JPMorgan exec said the move was structured to make Lake — and her CFO successor, who is also a woman — “front runners for the longer term” to replace Jamie Dimon, who has been JPMorgan’s chief since 2005.

The move will give Lake, a British banker who rose to the CFO role in 2012, the operational and executive experience analysts say she is lacking to replace Dimon.

She is being succeeded in the CFO role by Jenn Piepszak, the CEO of the bank’s card services business.

The reshuffling comes less than a week after Dimon demurred in response to a question from The Post about whether Lake, 49, might be in the running to succeed him.

“It is very possible and it’s honestly likely over a longer period of time,” Dimon said Friday about having a woman succeed him. “And it has nothing to do with Marianne,” who was on the same call with reporters. “I think Marianne is exceptional.”

No major Wall Street bank has ever had a woman CEO.

Lake will report to Gordon Smith, the bank’s co-President and Chief Operating Officer, who used to run the community bank. She will stay on the company’s operating committee, meaning she will still have a major say over the company’s overall direction.

The appointment gives her rein over the bank’s credit cards, home lending, and auto services.

Wall Street watchers accustomed to watching Dimon’s heir apparents leave for other companies because they were tired of waiting for him to step down didn’t want to speculate on Lake’s chances of stepping into his shoes.

But they conceded that the move to consumer banking gives her more clout.

“If you run the consumer bank, you’re running a major part of JPMorgan,” one Wall Street watcher said, noting that the business took in $13.8 billion in revenue last quarter.

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