JPMorgan Chase's wealth chief touts new advisory channel, talent strategies

The largest bank in the country will launch a hybrid advisory channel on Halloween and plans to aggressively recruit as well as retain talent for its fast-growing wealth management unit. 

"We'll trick or treat, we'll see how that goes," Kristin Lemkau, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, said in deadpan fashion during an onstage interview Wednesday at American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking conference. 

Chana Schoenberger, editor-in-chief of American Banker, spoke with Lemkau about her plans to expand the Personal Advisors service, and her experience as a leader during the pandemic, managing up, recruiting staff and keeping good people during the talent wars. 

Lemkau, who previously had been the chief marketing officer at the $3.4 trillion-asset JPMorgan Chase, became head of the wealth division in late 2019 as part of a restructuring that consolidated four separate units with 4,000 advisors across 3,500 branches and 21 offices: Chase Wealth Management, Digital Wealth Management, You Invest and J.P. Morgan Securities. She has since moved to stack the wealth team with several veterans internally as well as from rival banks and firms — including Bank of America's Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab — with a focus on building up tech capacities. 

With Personal Advisors, Lemkau said JPMorgan would catch up with other players in the industry. "We've had full-service advice done very well. We just launched self-directed, but we didn't have more of a digital-plan-based advice model that everybody else in the industry has. So we have that now."

"We've committed to growing to 6,000-plus advisors, which means hiring 300 net advisors every year," Lemkau said, consistent with the bank's earlier-stated plan to grow the wealth business to $1 trillion of assets under management by 2025. In an earnings report earlier this month, the bank revealed that across several divisions, including wealth management, it had picked up 792 net new advisors in the third quarter. 

JPMorgan's asset and wealth management business reported 2% growth in net income year over year to $1.2 billion in the third quarter, even as profits fell overall at the bank. 

Lemkau said she sees her job as a natural transition from her years of work leading brand strategy as the overall company's chief marketing officer. "I actually always get surprised when people say, 'Oh, that's an unusual path,' " she said, adding that she had seen other executives make similar shifts in the industry. 

"I think in particular it's a great stage for a CEO role, because you're managing a P&L," she said of CMO roles. "The marketing at JPMorgan Chase includes all credit card marketing, all the consumer bank marketing, and your job is to grow business, and your job is to define the brand. And I look at defining the brand — it's not just the ads, but actually the soul of the company, which should align to strategy." Lemkau added that she also aimed to make J.P. Morgan Wealth Management the "best in the industry at our self-directed business" and "the best place to work." 

Leaders during the pandemic have been forced to shift their strategy in many ways, which for Lemkau meant opportunities to embrace a more authentic approach. "During the lockdowns, that became really clear. …People were under a great deal of strain and people were isolated." She called on executives in the room to ask themselves, looking back: "Did you acknowledge it? Did you check in with people? Did you allow people to have an emotional moment that people might not have thought was appropriate for work before?" 

Going into the tough market for hiring wealth talent now, Lemkau is focused on continuing to offer a supportive environment and promoting what she considers a balanced hybrid work environment, with variations among staff depending on the nature of their work. Generally, she said, she goes by the "3-2 model" with her staff: three days in the office and two days remote to let them collaborate and build rapport with others, but also have flexibility. 

Lemkau urged young graduates to consider the benefits of staying with one firm, where if they move around among different roles, as she did, they will have the advantage of becoming well known in a business that is still largely based on "relationships." 

"Stick with us, but don't be too impatient," Lemkau said. 

Instead of hiring based on brand-name universities on someone's resume, Lemkau said, "I look for people who will be book players, not jacket players." She also valued honesty and direct communication. In return, she said, strong managers should show their direct reports "that you care about them. This can sound really basic, but a lot of managers don't." It's especially important now to retain good talent now, she said, when the labor market is so competitive. 

Caring about workers doesn't mean just "being nice" to them, though. Frank, targeted feedback in private, at the right time, is equally important, Lemkau said. She isn't afraid to abide by those practices herself. "I actually did it to one of my directs this morning. This email is way too long, you're too deep in the weeds, your job is too big, get out of it. He knows that I care about him. I'm actually going to tell him that, instead of just roll my eyes and go on to the next thing."