Two years after taking the helm at Bank One Corp., Jamie Dimon finally has wooed longtime friend and colleague Heidi Miller to the Chicago-based company.
Miller resisted earlier offers from Dimon because she did not want to leave New York, where she had worked with him at what is now the country’s largest financial-services empire, Citigroup Inc.
In earlier conversations, Miller said, Dimon “really did want me to move, and I couldn’t rip up the family. Now we’re a little bit more flexible.”
“And maybe it was silly that I didn’t” join Bank One sooner, she added.
She became a director of Bank One in 2000, a post she will relinquish now that she has joined the company as executive vice president of strategy and development.
Miller plans to work in Chicago–and other parts of Bank One’s sprawling geography–during the week and spend time with her family in New York on weekends.
Miller quit as chief financial officer of Citigroup in 2000 to assume the same post at online travel services giant Priceline.com.
She left the dot-com several months later, after its stock had cratered, and joined insurance brokerage powerhouse Marsh Inc.
After Miller’s departure, Price-line forgave a $3 million loan it had made to Miller to buy the company’s stock.
She said she recently resigned from her vice chairman’s position at Marsh because “I felt I was not as well utilized as I could have been.” She also found Marsh to be more of a professional services firm than a financial firm.
Miller sounds almost giddy about the opportunity to work with Dimon again.
“Working for Jamie’s always been so exciting, because he has a way of bringing all sorts of people together to work as a team. Not every institution offers that,” she said.
The feeling is mutual. Dimon regularly gushes about Miller and has been eager to bring her to Bank One.
Miller sees her job as understanding what goes on in Bank One’s businesses and looking for strategies to encourage “organic growth or acquisitions of portfolios or something grander.” She will directly oversee its Phoenix-based retail lending operations.
Coming from Citigroup, a behemoth that Sandy Weill and Dimon built through acquisitions, Miller knows well the world of financial-services acquisitions and is expected to be one of Bank One’s top decision-makers when it comes to deals.
Although Dimon has repeatedly stressed his desire to make an acquisition, he and Miller are tight-lipped about when and where Bank One might leap.
“I don’t think there’s anything in the offing,” Miller said, adding that while it is important to know “what’s out there and who might be a good partner,” it is also key to attain “sufficient financial strength and capitalization to take advantage of opportunities.”
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Bank One’s stock price, which has barely risen above $40 since late 1999, will not necessarily keep the company from making acquisitions, Miller said.
Other financial stocks have fallen as well, she pointed out.
Does that mean Bank One’s stock is strong enough to start acquiring?
“I wouldn’t preclude it,” Miller said.