Blythe Masters, the British woman who ran JPMorgan’s giant commodities division for almost three decades, has resigned.
The Cambridge-educated banker joined the US institution as an 18-year-old intern, and went on to become one of Wall Street’s most powerful women.
Masters, 45, is best known for developing credit derivatives in the 1990s, products that were described as “weapons of mass destruction” after the financial crisis.
Her departure was announced by Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, and Daniel Pinto, head of the investment bank; she was said to be taking “some well-deserved time off [to] consider future opportunities”.
Masters built up JPMorgan’s trading in physical commodities for six years, before being told to sell the division, which faced investigations by regulators.
She will remain at JPMorgan for the next few months before the trading arm is sold off to Swiss firm Mercuria in a deal worth $3.5 billion (£2.1 billion). Greater regulation, more competition and fairly stable commodities prices have made trading them far less lucrative for banks.
