It’s unclear how long Fidelity’s No. 2 executive, Rodger Lawson, will remain in his role as president after reports that the company was searching for his successor. Lawson, who reports to Fidelity chairman and chief executive Edward C. Johnson III, has been the subject of speculation that he will leave the company.

In recent interviews with reporters, Lawson didn’t make the length of his tenure that much more clear, only saying he planned to stay with the company for the foreseeable future.

Lawson and some other senior executives hired in recent years have deeper roots in the New York area than in Boston.

Lawson, for example, owns a home in Southhampton, New York, with an assessed value that tops $11 million. And earlier this year, he listed a Manhattan address on a political campaign-contribution disclosure form, according to a Federal Election Commission filing.

During 2008, Lawson presented an ambitious five-year plan for the company, only to see it get off to a slow start because of the disruptions caused by the mortgage and credit crises.

Late last month, Lawson, 62, told Bloomberg News he was looking for his own replacement as part of an ongoing succession plan that “picked up the pace” in 2009.

Indeed, executives in the mutual-fund industry have told the Boston Business Journal that Fidelity has put out feelers to several experienced executives outside of the company to replace Lawson.

Doubts about its leadership aside, Fidelity is still playing with a strong hand. The company controls 12.4 percent of the $9 trillion mutual-fund industry, according to midyear data compiled by Strategic Insight. That’s up from 11.7 percent at the end of 2008, thanks to sales of money-market funds to investors rattled by stock-market declines.

As the Business Journal reported recently, Fidelity still has work to do with institutional investors. Fidelity’s institutional-investment arm, Pyramis Global Advisors, is losing money amid a global expansion that coincided with a $28 billion year-over-year decline in managed assets. A unit of Pyramis lost $26 million during the first six months of 2009 as fiduciary fees dropped amid a decline in managed assets. The report captured most of the operations of Pyramis Global Advisors that reported $131 billion in assets under management at the end of June.