In the wake of challenging economic times, "The Great Resignation" and a competitive job market, employers are looking to attract top talent and retain high performers. In this fireside chat, hear how Kristin Lemkau, CEO of JPMorgan Wealth Management keeps employees engaged and how to lead with empathy, what motivates Gen Zers and Millenials and a new emphasis on the importance of culture in retaining top talent.
Transcription:
Kristin Lemkau (00:12):
Hi everybody.
Chana Shoenberger (00:15):
Hi again. So I'm very lucky to have with me here Kristen Lemkau, who is the CEO of US Wealth Management at JPMorgan Chase. If the stats are correct, half of you in this room are Chase customers. Many of you...
Kristin Lemkau (00:30):
Thank you, <laugh>,
Chana Shoenberger (00:31):
...because half of all American households are Chase customers. Many of you are probably customers of Kristin's. I am, of course. I have an old you invest account.
Kristin Lemkau (00:41):
Excellent.
Chana Shoenberger (00:41):
Yes,
Kristin Lemkau (00:41):
I welcome your feedback.
Chana Shoenberger (00:44):
Okay, so you are approaching your fourth year in this particular CEO role and you had a really unusual path to get here. Can you tell us about how you got where you are today?
Kristin Lemkau (00:54):
Sure. It's a long story. I'll try to make short. So I started at the firm in 1998 back at Old Heritage JPMorgan. I did got battle tested working with reporters and then...
Chana Shoenberger (01:07):
Very scary.
Kristin Lemkau (01:07):
...I worked one thing I would highly recommend, I worked across all different lines of business.
(01:13)
And then my most recent role before this was chief marketing officer. And I actually always get surprised when people say, oh, that's an unusual path. It's not that unusual outside of financial services and other people, like James Gorman, have also done it. And I think in particular it's a great stage for a CEO role because you're managing a big P&L. The marketing at JPMorgan Chase includes all the credit card marketing and all the consumer bank marketing. And your job is to grow the business and your job is to define the brand. And I look at defining the brand as not just the ads, but actually the soul of the company which should align to the strategy. And then I took this role three months before lockdown hit.
Chana Shoenberger (01:57):
Wow.
Kristin Lemkau (01:57):
It's been going great so far. Thanks.
Chana Shoenberger (02:01):
Thank God. That's all over. That's really crazy.
(02:03)
Okay, so tell me quick about your business. How is the business in 2022 and what's still left to do the other half the country? I guess
Kristin Lemkau (02:13):
There's a lot left to do. I'll do a little humble brag about what we've done so far, which is we've grown client accounts by 25%. We've grown a u s through this most recent cycle by 20%. We've increased our advisor ranks by 7% and we've created a brand new business de novo called Personal Advisors, which is our hybrid advice channel. So we've gotten a lot done. What is there left to do? I mean, we're building a business for the next decade and beyond. So we've said and committed to achieving our first trillion in a US by year end 2025. We've committed to growing to 6,000 plus advisors, which means hiring 300 net advisors every year. So you can imagine the pace of that to really becoming best in the industry at our self-directed business that you're a client of.
(03:02)
So I'd love to see if we can get you more active and continuing to make this the best place to work anywhere in the company or hopefully in financial services if not beyond. So it's quite an agenda.
Chana Shoenberger (03:16):
Let me ask you about one thing you just brought up, which is hybrid advice. How does that work?
Kristin Lemkau (03:20):
Sure. So the business is called Personal Advisors. It launches live on Halloween and it's something that...
Chana Shoenberger (03:28):
No pressure
Kristin Lemkau (03:28):
...exactly. It exists in most places in the industry. So Vanguard is the best in the industry. We actually hired the guy who ran at a Vanguard to come run it for us or think the advisors for Merrill Edge. Everybody has a plan. Everybody has a set of portfolios that are designed by the JP Morgan solutions team and you have one advisor who you work with to build the plan, but after that you call and you can get any one of a team of trained advisors to work with you.
(03:55)
And it was just a gap in our offering. We had full service advice done very well. We had 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.
Chana Shoenberger (04:09):
So you get an actual plan customized, but then every time you call you could get a different advisor.
Kristin Lemkau (04:16):
Correct. Which is the same as the model in the industry, but that's right. But they all go through the same training program and the same certification.
Chana Shoenberger (04:23):
Right, right. Okay. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Trick or treat. We'll see how that goes.
Kristin Lemkau (04:28):
Thank you.
Chana Shoenberger (04:29):
Okay. So hiring in the past, I mean, I know when I graduated from college in 1999, something like, half of the kids in my class wanted to be investment bankers and half of them wanted to be consultants and three of us wanted to be journalists.
(04:43)
So that was awesome. But now everybody wants to be a product manager at Google. And, so the number one class on campus, the biggest class on campus when I was in school was Economics 101, EC10, and now it's computer science 50. It's like 1200 people. How do you attract the best people to work on Wall Street when the people who are Gen Z consumers are a little wary?
Kristin Lemkau (05:11):
Well, so I've been around long enough to have seen the next big thing kind of come and go. So I've saw the dotcom thing come and go, and then when everybody wanted to go work for the European banks and then everyone wanted to go work for startups that were going to become unicorns and everyone went to work at FinTech. And so I think you always have to compete for the best talent. There is some real benefit, and I know many of you work at financial services companies that have been around a long time like JPMorgan to just staying the course with one company after 24 years, relationships in this business matter and people who've seen you work across different functions or different businesses are more apt to take a risk or a chance on you doing something different.
(05:56)
And there's a benefit to being at a place that's been around for 200 years. Yes, you have to pay well, and we do. Yes, you have to have great benefits and yes, you have to be a really great place that people want to come to work at every day. But I would caution people to chase the next big thing, even Google.
Chana Shoenberger (06:15):
So don't quit your job if you're thinking about it, just stay where you are. It's going to be fine. I think they're bringing down the NASDAQ right now, but <laugh> what? Somebody just don't, nah, sorry. Markets go.
Kristin Lemkau (06:26):
It's a cheap dig.
Chana Shoenberger (06:26):
What is the line? It's time in the market, not timing the market.
Kristin Lemkau (06:30):
Exactly. Well said.
Chana Shoenberger (06:32):
I'm just quoting you guys. Okay. So that's interesting. Is there, as a former CMO, is there some sort of rebranding that you could do for banking as a sector to get bright young college graduates to want to come into it at all levels?
Kristin Lemkau (06:49):
I will tell you, yes. We have to be competitive for bright young college graduates or millennials or Jay-Z's or Gen X or anyone where you don't have a lot of trouble getting people to come work at JPMorgan. It's a great brand. It's a great company. Yes, we have to make sure you have a great mission. People want to do quality work. You have a great culture. You give people the resources that you need, they need to do well, and you can commit to a long-term path. I mean, the ceiling at JPMorgan is Jamie's job and there's a lot of different things. You can be a product manager. I have a lot of them working for me. There's great benefit to being here. But yes, you have to make sure that you're always staying relevant and not kind of chasing the thing that's happening in that particular moment, the tulip of the moment.
Chana Shoenberger (07:36):
Yeah. Okay. Well said. <laugh>. What do you look for in the people you hire? What would cause you to give someone a job?
Kristin Lemkau (07:43):
Yeah, I look for people who, it's not necessarily about the school you went to. I don't care about any of that. I look for people who've demonstrated some kind of grit and some kind of commitment and tenacity to something. I look for people who are going to be book players, not chapter players. I look for people who have an adaptability to them because even at big companies, you have to know how to get things done. And I look for people who've demonstrated a track record on being able to execute. The minute somebody comes in and says, well, I'm really strategic. I'm like, that's great. Can you deliver on that strategy? And people who know how to collaborate and there's a healthy tension there between knowing how to collaborate and knowing how to execute.
(08:28)
You can over-rotate on one or the other and not quite get it right. And at least at a company like JP Morgan, you need to do both.
Chana Shoenberger (08:35):
No, definitely. And the collaboration thing is so interesting because that's sort of a stereotypical female skill is that we know how to bring people together. Obviously everybody's different, every executive is different, but how do you make sure someone has that skill?
Kristin Lemkau (08:49):
You, you've asked certain interview questions, you see how they've been able to work with peers. And you're right, collaboration is too often gender stereotyped. I think of it more as stakeholder management. Don't throw grenades in meetings. Don't make people blindsided. Make sure you can bring people along with your idea rather than just run with it. The place is big enough that you have to get some buy-in before you can get anything done
Chana Shoenberger (09:15):
Over communicate.
Kristin Lemkau (09:16):
Yeah.
Chana Shoenberger (09:17):
Yeah, that's key. Definitely.
Kristin Lemkau (09:18):
It's influence.
Chana Shoenberger (09:20):
Right. Influence versus power. Okay. So the hybrid work environment has been a big question in the industry and across America for the last two years. JPMorgan has been pretty steadfast in saying, we want everybody to be in the office as much as possible. And of course, you're building that gorgeous new headquarters, which I drive by all the time. What will a hybrid work environment do in terms of the apprenticeship model, teaching more junior employees how to do their jobs or helping them to network? Why is in-person better?
Kristin Lemkau (09:54):
And just to clarify, we are a three, two business generally. It depends on the job. So we have...
Chana Shoenberger (10:01):
Three days in the office
Kristin Lemkau (10:02):
three days in the office, and two days remote.
(10:07)
It depends on the job. So we have service center reps that have been work from home and demonstrated they can do that effectively long before the pandemic. And we have many of our advisors particularly those who operate out of our branches that are in five days a week because that's what their clients want. They operate out of a branch. All of our home office employees are largely three, two. So I know people make statements about whether people should be back full-time or not. And I think three, two is one of the greatest revolutions in employee productivity that I've seen, which is yes, you need to be in the office because you need the collaboration, you need to learn, but people do want flexibility in their lives or demanding flexibility. And sometimes for me that flexibility means I can actually work longer. I do think personal opinion, not the view of JPMorgan that the people who've said we're going to be remote forever are going to find.
(10:59)
They need to backtrack on that. It depends on the company, but I think it's going to be really, really hard to deliver a strategy with speed and build a culture with everybody from home. And I think a lot of employees are finding in year three, four, it feels a little isolating. So Ive seen, it's seen some employees in my own business who left for full-time work from home. They're like, can I come back?
Chana Shoenberger (11:25):
Yeah. There are all kinds of stats about boomerang employees who quit their job and the great resignation and then they sort of change their minds, which is interesting. I mean this is certainly something that journalists struggle with as well because we love to give people flexibility. We have a huge newsroom and we have people coming in hybrid, but of course you want to make sure that people are trained in the proper way and that more junior people have the opportunity to listen to the senior people and to go on interviews with them.
(11:55)
And you don't really know how it's done until you see an expert do it and then you get the chance to do it yourself. It's like medical students, right? See one, do one, teach one. Yeah.
Kristin Lemkau (12:03):
I mean that's how I learned and I learned things I didn't want to do from bad bosses or people you don't necessarily want to emulate. But I also think it's important if your culture is three, two and you're running a business, show people that you're going to do three, two as well. I will operate either out of a branch that's near my house or I'll operate out of my house and I can show people. I get a whole lot done that way.
Chana Shoenberger (00:00):
Kristin Lemkau (12:25):
just go to a branch and they give you a desk. I have my own office. It's my own entrance. But yes, I go into the branch all the time and see how it operates... my own bathroom. But yeah, I operate up.
Chana Shoenberger (12:37):
Just to plug, by the way, cause I know many of these women are actually here today. Yesterday we had our next awards, which is our up and comers 40 and under, and of the 15 women that we honored, four of them had been started at the very bottom. So Tellers, Call Center Reps or Secretaries, she's like, that's the American dream.
Kristin Lemkau (12:56):
And it is a career path within the branch. You can be a teller, then you can become a personal banker, then you can become an advisor, which I highly recommend. And then you can become a branch manager. It is a career path
Chana Shoenberger (13:07):
And then to the sky. Yes. Awesome. Okay, so retaining talent, how do you keep people happy and motivate them? I feel like a lot of people who are my age and have sort of been around a bit that we hear this thing about quiet, quitting and we think it's funny because that's just slacking off.
(13:26)
There have always been mediocre people who are just kind of doing their jobs, but they're not really going the extra mile. They're really never going to get promoted. They're not going to go anywhere. How do you get people to really care?
Kristin Lemkau (13:38):
Yeah, I mean I think you've got care for one, you've got to care about the business and the work that you do, and there is a lot of attention on recruiting, particularly now when the job market has been so hot. You have to really focus on keeping the people that you have. And it's not, that is your job as CEO, you set the strategy, you hire great people, you make sure they have the resources to be able to execute, and you create a really great culture. For me, I think the big difference is people have to know that you care about them.
(14:11)
This is going to sound really basic, but a lot of managers get it wrong and that you care about them at work and outside of work and what's going on in their life and caring about them doesn't mean being nice all the time. It's having the courage to pull them aside and say, you just flooded that meeting and let me tell you why I actually did it to one of my directs this morning. I'm like, this email is way too long. You're too deep in the weeds. Your job's too big. Get out of it. He knows I care about him. Then I'm actually going to tell him that instead of just rolling my eyes and go on to the next thing.
Chana Shoenberger (14:37):
That's really useful feedback. I think a lot of managers find it tough to give that sort of feedback.
Kristin Lemkau (14:42):
Well, and I'll tell you, during the lockdowns that became really clear because all of a sudden your life and your home life and your personal life was literally crashing together and people were under a great deal of strain and people were isolated.
(14:57)
And that, I think, made the difference between good companies, great companies, good leaders and great leaders. 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? I think as women told me years and years ago, don't cry at work. Okay, go ahead. Right. Life can be hard.
Chana Shoenberger (15:22):
And the other big difference of course was that people's home lives came to the daily meeting. So I mean the people on my team, their kids are a part of our team. Their pets are a part of our team. We see their spouses all the time. We see the different views of their home as they move around because and their spouse are hoteling with their teenage kids zooming, whatever.
Kristin Lemkau (15:42):
Yep, exactly.
Chana Shoenberger (15:44):
You get to see people's home decor too, which is really fun. Yeah, I enjoy that.
Kristin Lemkau (15:47):
Or when they stand up the sweatpants.
Chana Shoenberger (15:49):
Yeah. Great, great. Always wear black leggings has been my tip because no one can tell on Zoom what exactly is on the bottom there.
Kristin Lemkau (15:56):
Good point.
Chana Shoenberger (15:57):
It's good. Okay, so tell me about your leadership style.
Kristin Lemkau (16:04):
You probably should ask the people who work for me
Chana Shoenberger (16:06):
Horrible. Absolutely.
Kristin Lemkau (16:08):
I think, look, there to me is no one leadership style. There's certain characteristics that are generally true of very good leaders of you're honest, you're clear in your communication, you're clear in your decision making, you're clear on decision authority. That's a big one. When you walk into a meeting, ask people who owns this decision? It will one, go a lot faster, and two, it will sort of clarify who's just giving input. I think you have to let people know that you care. I think the other thing I've learned is the more senior, you do have to adapt your leadership style for a more senior team and it holds people back when they can't. So I mean, I have CEOs working for me now that's different than when I just managed managing directors or when I managed VPs. Not everybody needs to be managed the same way. Some people need a lot of attention. Some people need to be left alone. Some people need tough love and you have to be able to adjust your swing while still being authentic to yourself and they're great leaders out there to learn from. I've learned from so many inside and outside JP Morgan, and you borrow things but you, you've got to kind of be your own thing.
Chana Shoenberger (17:21):
So what do you do when you're managing up?
Kristin Lemkau (17:24):
That's an interesting question. At least, for us, really know your data. Really know your data. Have conviction around your point of view. Be clear if you don't yet know the answer. And I will say that upfront. I'm like, this is going to be a bit of a messy sprawling meeting in where we are at this point in time and we need more information or more testing or more client insight before we get there. I don't particularly think the suck up political thing works all that well. If you don't have the substance of this is my business, this is my decision, this is what I'm prioritizing, and the other big thing, this is what I'm not getting to right now. It's important 2025 maybe I will look at that, but don't ask me about this thing because it's not on the list and we don't have the bandwidth for it.
Chana Shoenberger (18:15):
That's so interesting because that was something that came up in the panel I led this morning was the executives all said, you have to be prepared. You have to be prepared, maybe the most prepared person for meetings and the data matters.
Kristin Lemkau (18:27):
And have the people in the room who know the thing better than you. If you need that person, you, the bigger your job, the more the people who run things for you are going to be deeper subject matter experts than you are. So don't try to know everything know enough, but don't try to know everything and let that person shine if they're the ones who know the necessary input to make a decision. The decision making thing is big by the way that I earned learned early on. Be super clear, who in this meeting has decision authority, who has veto power, legal risk compliance, whomever and who's just giving input and that honestly, the thing will fly by instead of everybody gets to weigh in and you don't really know what you just did.
Chana Shoenberger (19:11):
Just flat out asking that in the meeting?
Kristin Lemkau (19:12):
Just first. We do it all the time. Who has decision authority in this meeting? Most of the time, if it's my leadership team, it shouldn't be me like I can veto, but chances are I'm not going to. If sometimes if I've hired the right people and they're getting the right inputs and even with legal and she's great, I want her opinion. I'm like, is this a legal veto or is this Julie's opinion about this topic? And that will also save time because people will sometimes assume it's a veto
Chana Shoenberger (19:39):
When she's acting almost just as a manager in the room.
Kristin Lemkau (19:42):
I want her input, but if she tells me we're going to get sued if we do this, that or the other thing, I'm going to listen to her <laugh>.
Chana Shoenberger (19:49):
Another crucial transition point for a leader is when you stop doing everything yourself and you start delegating most of the actual tasks, that's the best part. How do you do that?
Kristin Lemkau (20:02):
It's big hire awesome people, like awesome people. The guy who runs online investing for me is the one who built it at Merrill Edge. He worked at Schwab. My chief marketing officer just came from Morgan Stanley where he had a big product job, hire awesome people and trust them but make sure when they're owning a decision, and by the way, this is an Amazon, but the one-way door and the two-way door. Be clear on that too. If it's a two-way door, you can course correct and adjust the decision. If it's a one-way door, spend more time on it and get involved yourself.
Chana Shoenberger (20:39):
Huh, interesting. I didn't realize, I mean, Amazon has so many leadership maxims. I feel like they should.
Kristin Lemkau (20:43):
That's a good one though, because then if you're framing it that way, there's no going back from this one.
Chana Shoenberger (20:48):
Right.
Kristin Lemkau (20:49):
You'll spend more time making sure you get it right.
Chana Shoenberger (20:51):
Like, split the company in two or...
Kristin Lemkau (20:53):
Yeah. Right. The other thing is if it's a two-way door, don't overthink it. Don't ask for more follow ups and analysis. There's something to be said for just moving ahead.
Chana Shoenberger (21:01):
Right. Yep. Fish or cut bait. Although there are more fun ways to say that, which we're not going to use up here. So advice for people in the audience who may be on the more junior side of their trajectory. Millennials, Gen Zs.
Kristin Lemkau (21:19):
Yeah. I think there's the basics of work harder than other people. Make sure you are the person that everyone wants in the room. We all know who those people are of the person everyone wants to work with, the person everyone wants on their project. Don't be too impatient. There's a lot of people that are, okay, it's two years, it's time for me to do the next thing.
(21:42)
If you're 30, you're probably going to work for another 35 years. You don't need to move every two years.
Chana Shoenberger (21:49):
And that's early retirement
Kristin Lemkau (21:51):
And that's early retirement. And some people say, well, I'm going to be one of these people who retires at 50. Guess what? When you get to 50, you think, what am I going to do? Sit around and spend money for 40 years? I think I'll stick with this, but don't be too impatient. Don't overthink your next move. You can take a risk and course correct, particularly if you've been at a place for a long time. It's imposs... I always tell people, two years is the minimum amount of time that you should do a job before you start thinking about the next job. Three years is a good time to be able to see do you want something else or do you want your own job to get bigger?
(22:25)
Five years can sometimes be too long, and that's sort of a good adjustment.
Chana Shoenberger (22:30):
I had an editor tell me that too, that at in year four, you should start thinking about what you want to do next.
Kristin Lemkau (22:36):
I mean, I was CMO for six years, but during that time I managed all of firm-wide data and then I managed all the sponsorships. The job got bigger and more interesting.
Chana Shoenberger (22:46):
Okay, last question. So as the CEO of a big wealth management firm, and this is sort of a segue into our next panel, what do you see about the economic outlook? What are your clients worried about? What are your advisors telling you?
Kristin Lemkau (23:01):
I mean, I think most people are pricing in some kind of recession for next year, which will be here before we know it. Your guests is as good as mine or as good as anybody here. How severe it will be. I think we'll plan for all of the different scenarios. What we tell our clients and we tell our advisors is you should, if you have a plan and your plan hasn't changed, stick with your plan. You're two and a half times more likely to achieve your goal If you have a plan, yes, make adjustments within your portfolio of course, but don't overreact because chances are you won't get it right.
Chana Shoenberger (23:38):
One of my favorite things, and I use this all the time, is the slide in the JPMorgan Guide to Retirement where you have the four personas, right? And you guys can look it up, but it basically shows you the power of compounding and the power of starting early to invest for retirement, but really for anything, and this is something that Americans overwhelmingly don't understand,
Kristin Lemkau (23:57):
right.
Chana Shoenberger (23:58):
What do we do about that? Financial literacy?
Kristin Lemkau (24:02):
Yes, I think is the answer, but I don't know if the whole latte shaming thing is everybody's favorite example. If you just don't spend $5 on that latte over time, that latte could be worth like a trip to Paris or something. I think it's just showing... start investing early, stay invested. Make sure you get good advice or you have good education if you're doing it yourself and be patient and don't try to overreact when the market's doing things like it's doing now, which is being volatile.
Chana Shoenberger (24:31):
It's a buying opportunity. <affirmative>. Great. That's right. Wonderful.
Kristin Lemkau (24:35):
Make sure you have a good advisor or a good firm. Yes. <laugh> Plug.
Chana Shoenberger (24:41):
Small plug. Okay. Thank you so much, Kristen. I appreciate you coming up here with me.
Kristin Lemkau (24:44):
Thank you.
Chana Shoenberger (24:44):
And I'm excited for Venus also.
Kristin Lemkau (24:46):
Yay.
Chana Shoenberger (24:46):
Yes. We're all excited to hear Venus.
The Most Powerful Women in Banking 2022: Lunch keynote
November 9, 2022 3:05 PM
24:53