Mary Callahan Erdoes is a force to be reckoned with. As the Chief Executive Officer of J.P. Morgan Asset & Wealth Management, she oversees more than $4 trillion in client assets. In her first calendar year on the job after starting in September 2009, profits rose 20% to $1.7 billion, pushing revenue to a then-record $9 billion.
It was a long journey, however, demanding a tremendous amount of grit and dedication to get Erdoes to where she is today. Growing up in Winnetka, Illinois, she learned about finance from her father, Patrick Callahan, a Chicago investment banker who occasionally took her to the office. She went on to become exceptional at math and enrolled in Georgetown, where she was the only female to complete a mathematics major. After that, it was on to Harvard, where she earned her MBA. Erdoes then took a job with Bankers Trust, where she worked in corporate finance, merchant banking, and high-yield debt underwriting.
In 1996, Erdoes made the move to JPMorgan’s private bank where she managed fixed-income portfolios. There she stood toe to toe with some of the most tenacious men in finance. Never one to be a pushover, she did not back down from dismissive attitudes in 2005 when she became the leading candidate to run the private bank. “There is no substitute for hard work,” says Erdoes. “There is a little luck along the way, but there is no substitute for really, super hard work, first in, last out.”
This mentality has paid off. Since 2012, Erdoes has been included in the 50 Most Influential list of Bloomberg Markets. Since March 2013, Business Insider has included Erdoes on its list of the 25 most powerful women on Wall Street. Since 2016, Erdoes has been named one of the most powerful women in the world by Forbes. She also serves on the boards of the Robin Hood Foundation of New York City and Georgetown University as well as on the Global Advisory Council of Harvard University.
Erdoes is currently one of the top contenders to take the reins from Jamie Dimon to run the entire JPMorgan Chase & Company empire, which would certainly be a capstone to her career of hard-fought victories.