To get some insight into the mind of one of the world's most powerful women in banking, look no further than a legendary American basketball coach.
Mike Krzyzewski—known as 'Coach K'—led the Duke Blue Devils to five national championships, and one key to his success was a core philosophy: "Next play."
JPMorganChase's Jennifer Piepszak hews closely to that approach when dealing with all the adversities that come with being COO of the world's most valuable bank.
"If you can, just move on and not dwell on it," Piepszak recently advised the bank's staffers in an address. "First, it's so much better for your mental health. But it's also going to make the next play more successful, because you're not stuck ruminating on something that went wrong."
Despite the heady responsibilities that come with the COO role, which she assumed in early 2025, Piepszak has been very clear that she has no interest in Jamie Dimon's chair. She withdrew herself from succession consideration last year; now, the race is likely between newly named co-presidents Doug Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh.
As that spotlight points elsewhere, Piepszak seems more comfortable putting her head down and just doing the work. That diligence seems to be paying off. In 2025, JPMC posted $57 billion in profit, down 2.4% off the prior year due to a drop in interest rate-driven tailwinds, but its diluted EPS grew 1.4%. At the same time, the bank recorded double-digit growth in both its loan book and total assets under management. In its second-quarter 2026 earnings, the bank's revenues in each business line hit new records.
"You start with the fact that she's super smart, which for an executive at this level isn't a surprise," says Ebrahim Poonawala, head of North American Banks Research at BofA Securities. "You also have a person who comes across as empathetic. Think about running a large bank—you have to be a people person, and Jen naturally has that. [A] combination of smarts and people skills is a huge advantage for her."
For JPMC, the challenge of being No. 1 is less about staving off challengers than it is staying agile enough in an AI-driven era to adapt a colossal organization on the fly.
Piepszak has had a crash course in dealing with adversity before, as a longtime board member for the United Way of New York City as it navigated the Covid era. "It was a tremendously difficult time," remembers Eichakeem McClary, the nonprofit's EVP. "She advocated for us to get the resources to put towards our work, and gave us a footing other organizations didn't have, so we could focus on the now of what was happening."
Success is not just about navigating the present, but in anticipating three or four steps ahead, especially when it comes to technological advances. These days the one who has the most information tends to win, so JPMorganChase's massive scale certainly helps: With a 2026 tech budget of almost $20 billion, "We are as much a technology-driven company as we are a bank," Piepszak wrote in her April shareholder letter. "Data powers it all—and data remains a competitive advantage."
The stakes are impossibly high for an organization valued at almost $1 trillion. But the forward-looking philosophy of Coach K should hold Piepszak in good stead while managing to outpace the competition.
"I say it to my kids all the time, and I say it in my own head sometimes, when a conversation doesn't go the way I wanted," she said. "Learn from it. Next play."
