In 1983, Daniel Pinto, then a 19-year-old student in Buenos Aires, joined a bank to work as a financial analyst by day so he could fund his studies in accountancy at university in the evenings. He never left the profession and has risen through its ranks to become the president and chief operating officer of the biggest bank in the world.

If JP Morgan’s iconic CEO Jamie Dimon departs any time soon, Mr Pinto, 61, will become acting CEO in the short term. He has been a JP Morgan lifer in the sense that he has spent his entire 41-year banking career in institutions that became part of JP Morgan, including Manufacturers Hanover, Chemical Bank and Chase Manhattan Bank. Vastly experienced, he has done just about everything there is to do in banking, from being a forex trader to managing client sales, to overseeing the fixed income, treasury and emerging market businesses, to running JP Morgan’s corporate and investment bank.