A few months ago, I headed up to JPMorgan’s midtown office (not the new one!) to meet with Kristin Lemkau. Lemkau is CEO of JPMorgan Wealth Management, overseeing the advisor network across more than 4,800 Chase locations. That totals more than $1 trillion in assets under supervision—and that’s mostly through everyday investors, not the high net-worth individuals JPMorgan serves in other parts of its business.
We chatted about the business she’s running, her advice for female investors, and more—but my favorite topic we dove into was how JPMorgan has cultivated senior female talent. The bank is rare among its peers on Wall Street for having had multiple women in the running as serious candidates to take over from CEO Jamie Dimon.
Lemkau’s career is a prime example of the approach JPMorgan, and Dimon, have taken to talent. She was previously the firm’s CMO, behind some of its biggest consumer moments like the overhaul of the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Moving from CMO to running a wealth management business might not be an obvious move—but it’s a signature one for the bank. “We’ve taken this many women in extremely different jobs than what they’re in now and found the pathway to promote them,” Lemkau explains. The strategy requires “identifying the people that have the raw talent and then placing them in jobs where you are unfamiliar with the subject matter, and having the patience for that person to fumble their way into it.” Success at JPMorgan requires an ability to collaborate—and execute. If you can’t do either, it won’t work, Lemkau says.
When Jamie Dimon joined us at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in October, I asked him about this approach to talent. He confirmed that that’s how he likes to operate. He describes it as moving people around to try out “test” jobs. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to bring out the best in people, he believes—and that includes putting talent into opportunities they may not have gone after themselves and sometimes even making room for more reserved people to voice their opinions.
Dimon seems to like this strategy in part because it’s not gender-specific. (He has recently railed against Democrats and corporate America “overdoing” it on DEI.) His approach works for all kinds of talent, but a side effect is that it’s been effective at promoting women to the senior ranks. Women are often not given these sort of opportunities elsewhere, and may be unlikely to raise their hand for jobs if they don’t feel fully qualified.
That was true for Lemkau. “I have not asked for any of these jobs. They’ve asked me to do them. Maybe that’s not how it typically works,” she says. “I’ve been scared of every job I’ve gone into—but that’s great too.”
Jennifer Piepszak and Marianne Lake are two other execs who have been prime examples of this strategy. Both were leading candidates to take over from Dimon as JPMorgan’s chief (Lake still is; Piepszak took herself out of the running earlier this year). But the execs frequently took on new roles on all sides of the business, culminating in swapping jobs—each learning from time as the firm’s CFO and consumer bank chief—and then running a business together.
This approach to the talent at the top has influenced the bank’s lower levels; Lemkau deploys it for her own team frequently.
Can other companies stand to learn from this approach, especially as more structured DEI programs are slashed? Rather than setting a target to promote more women, businesses can create the conditions where those promotions happen.
“You have to take a bet on somebody,” Lemkau says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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