New Barclays Chief Executive Jes Staley approached his former JPMorgan colleague Blythe Masters about running the British bank's investment bank division, a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
But Masters told Reuters she was fully committed to running her company, Digital Asset Holdings - a startup designed to speed the trading of derivatives by using technology associated with bitcoin. She joined the company as chief executive in March.
"I can't think of a better person than Jes Staley, nor a more venerable institution than Barclays, but I am in mid-flight at Digital Asset and fully committed to what we are doing," Masters said.
Staley spoke to Masters about joining the bank late next year, the source said. He declined to be named because details of the approach were confidential.
A spokesman for Barclays declined to comment.
Masters, best known for helping to create the credit-derivatives market in the 1990s, was the most high-profile woman on Wall Street when she left JPMorgan last year after a 27-year career with the bank.