Jamie Dimon Was Nearly CEO Of Home Depot [Report]


Before he became the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon almost became the chief executive of Home Depot — according to a recent report.

Dimon was fired by Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill in 1998 after he expressed an interest in becoming the bank’s CEO, reports The Huffington Post.

The JPMorgan Chase CEO considered applying for Microsoft and Amazon, but he also reportedly “was seriously considered as the CEO of Home Depot.

Home Depot is now the largest home retailer in the world and the company’s stock price has almost doubled in the last year. But this was not always so for the home improvement retail chain. Home Depot’s current CEO, Frank Blake, stepped in a few years ago to turn the company around.

Business Insider notes that Jamie Dimon had not been inside Home Depot for years, so he took one of his daughters, as well as Jay Mandelbaum and his daughter, to the store in Yonkers, New York. Mandelbaum recalled:

“When he walked in the store his eyes kind of lit up, because he loved it. Home Depot is a great company, great stores, and he loved just watching the service people and checking out all the aisles.”

Despite the fact that Dimon was considered for the Home Depot CEO position, he passed and, after 18 months without a job, became CEO of Bank One in 2000. The bank merged with JPMorgan Chase in 2004, allowing Dimon to ultimately ascend to the top of the bank.

Jamie Dimon, since turning down the opportunity at Home Depot, has become an outspoken defender of the financial industry. He has stepped up lobbying in Washington, DC against financial regulation reform; his company has even spent almost $11 million lobbying since the start of 2011.

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