Jorge Jasson spent most of the Tuesday before Thanksgiving on JPMorgan’s corporate jet, going to seven different one-on-one client meetings. But he wasn’t selling a new deal. He was explaining his departure as head of credit and rates for emerging markets. He calls it his “farewell roadshow tour”.
Jasson was head of all fixed income outside North America at Chase Manhattan when it bought JPMorgan. “I had a much bigger job before the merger in September 2000,” he says. “That’s the job I was doing, that I enjoyed, that I was good at, and the job was narrowed by virtue of this merger.”
Jasson asked for more responsibilities, realized that there was nowhere further for him to go within JPMorgan, and decided that he would rather do something bigger elsewhere. Rumour has it that some of the old JPMorgan hands had encouraged him to seek a wider role, knowing that he would be rebuffed. But Jasson is at pains to say that it has nothing to do with atavistic rivalry between the JPMorgan and Chase Manhattan sides of the bank.
The fact is that Jasson’s management responsibilities are largely being transferred to Fawzi Kyriakos-Saad, an old JPMorgan hand in London, who will now add global emerging markets to his non-emerging European portfolio.
Jasson emphasizes, though, that his management team – mostly Chase people in New York, led by head of emerging debt capital markets Moctar Fall – will be taking on a lot of his workload.
“Fawzi’s really not taking over my job on a day-to-day basis,” he says. “He has the oversight and responsibility to oversee the integrity of the business but essentially the senior managers that report to me today are stepping up.”
Jasson announced his impending departure on November 15, and leaves at the end of the year.
“I can do more, and that’s one of the reasons that I’m leaving,” he says. “I’ve been with the firm 18 years, and I’m ready for a change. I’m looking forward to doing something where I feel more fully utilized, and more professionally challenged. It’s got nothing to do with merger politics.”
