J. P. Morgan Chase (JPMC) ranks among the world's leading financial-services businesses, boasting $1.3 trillion in assets, a major US consumer-banking franchise, and operations in more than 50 countries. Created from a succession of mergers over recent years, JPMC prides itself on legacy institutions—Bank One, Chase Manhattan, Chemical, First Chicago, J. P. Morgan, Manufacturers Hanover, and National Bank of Detroit—that evoke a colorful history of entrepreneurship and banking innovation going back more than 200 years, to the founding of its earliest predecessor, in 1799.

With a corporate headquarters in New York City and retail- and commercial-banking operations run from Chicago, J. P. Morgan Chase covers most of the main banking segments: investment banking, consumer financial services, small-business and commercial banking, financial-transaction processing, asset and wealth management, and private equity.

The $58 billion merger with Bank One, in July 2004, was among JPMC's most ambitious deals to date, marking the return to Wall Street of Jamie Dimon, Bank One's former president and chief executive officer, who took over as president and CEO of J. P. Morgan Chase in early 2006.

Jamie Dimon is well known for his roles at Citigroup, its subsidiary Salomon Smith Barney, and its predecessor Travelers Group, where...