(Editor's note: This story was originally published in June when Teresa Heitsenrether was named head of JPMorgan's Data & Analytics team. It was updated to reflect CEO Jamie Dimon's comments about the team and its AI work in October.)
JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon made it clear on Friday that he's not planning to lose the artificial intelligence tech race to a bunch of disruptors.
In a conference call to discuss third-quarter earnings, the 67-year-old CEO said he disagreed with a Wall Street analyst who questioned whether the bank's spending on AI was nothing more than a "moonshot."
"The consensus among people outside the banking industry is that banks will not win that battle, including JPMorgan," the analyst said. "You won't control the front end," the analyst said before asking if the bank's AI efforts should be written off as a "moonshot."
Dimon disagreed and then laid out his vision for how JPMorgan plans to win in AI, including a shoutout for an executive in charge of a newly created team that he thinks will help the bank win this race.
"Oh, I don't agree with that statement," Dimon said, according to a transcript by data provider AlphaSense. "Banks have an extraordinary amount of proprietary data," he said, suggesting that part of JPMorgan's plan is to win using its data inputs.
"We just put a woman who's running it at our table," he said during the call. "So it's data analytics, AI, etc," he said before moving on to explain some of the use cases for AI at JPMorgan.
"So we use AI for risk, fraud, marketing, prospecting. And the management team is getting better and better at saying, 'How can we use the data to do a better job to reduce errors, to serve clients better?'," he said.
"Does it create opportunity for disruptors to come in? Yeah, of course. That's always been true with technology. And you know we'll be quite good at it."
JPMorgan spokespeople confirmed the executive Dimon was referencing is Teresa Heitsenrether, who was put in charge of the firm's AI, data, and analytics in June. As JPMorgan's firmwide chief data and analytics officer, Heitsenrether leads the recently formed Data & Analytics (D&A) organization.
Heitsenrether and her team are critical to JPMorgan's AI strategy, as the models and tools require vast amounts of data. D&A will set JPMorgan up for success by determining how and where the bank uses AI, and the guardrails to do it securely and responsibly, Dimon and President Daniel Pinto said in the June memo announcing Heitsenrether's new role.
Heitsenrether has had a 20-year career at JPMorgan leading its prime brokerage and securities services businesses. And her team is stacked with some of the bank's highest tech leaders, including the bank's head of AI research and head of AI and machine learning transformation and engagement.
Heitsenrether, a longstanding member of the bank's operating committee, works closely with Lori Beer, JPMorgan's global chief information officer, who leads a team of top tech execs, some 57,000 technologists, and a $15 billion-plus tech budget.
"Artificial intelligence (AI) is an extraordinary technology that combined with data — the raw material that fuels it — will be critical to our company's future success," Dimon and Pinto said in the June memo announcing Heitsenrether's new role.
Inside JPMorgan's AI race
AI has been a hot commodity everywhere, including Wall Street, ever since the splashy debut of ChatGPT in November of 2022. AI isn't new in finance but the industry's tech race now has renewed momentum with finance firms of all sizes, from Goldman Sachs to Chime, drumming up new technologies and tools.
Heitsenrether was previously JPMorgan's global head of Securities Services, where she helped the bank's biggest institutional clients with custody, fund administration, and accounting.
Dimon and Pinto selected the business leader for her track record of "transforming some of our most successful businesses in the corporate and investment bank," the memo said.
Since stepping into the role of global head of Securities Services in 2015, Heitsenrether grew revenue for that business by more than 22% and more than doubled assets under administration.
Here are some of the other leaders who are backing Heitsenrether as part of the recently formed D&A unit:
- Manuela Veloso, JPMorgan's head of AI research, and her team of academic whizzes will join the D&A unit. Veloso, who was formerly the head of Carnegie Mellon's machine-learning department, is responsible for exploring the potential of AI at the bank.
- Drew Cukor is JPMorgan's head of AI/ML transformation and engagement. Cukor's team is in charge of applying the bank's AI tools to build models and solutions for the business. Cukor's team works closely with David Castillo, the firmwide head of AI/ML technology, who builds the AI infrastructure used to create new AI use cases, from processes to controls.
- Gerard Francis is the head of Fusion, a data service that Securities Services launched last year that enables buy-side clients to leverage data and generate investment and operational alpha.
- JPMorgan's divisional chief data and analytics officers will have dual reporting lines into their respective business leaders and Heitsenrether.
- The bank's global CTO, Andrew Lang, will become the chief information officer for the D&A unit. He will report to Heitsenrether and continue reporting to Beer. As global CTO, Lang determines new and emerging technologies for the bank and leads strategy across enterprise architecture, cloud computing, AI, blockchain, and more.
- At the time of the memo, JPMorgan said it would be looking to fill at least one leadership position within D&A. It tapped David Robinson of the JPMorgan's Data Assurance and Controls team to join in an interim position while the bank looks for a permanent leader. Eventually, Robinson, whose LinkedIn profile says he has more than 25 years of cyber experience in the financial industry and Department of Defense, will be focused solely on cybersecurity responsibilities, the memo said.
