JPMorgan Revamps Management of Bank-Branch Brokers

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is revamping leadership of its reorganized business for selling wealth management services through approximately 3,800 brokers based in bank branches.

The banking giant in December separated the in-branch Chase Wealth Management unit from its broader consumer bank and melded it into a newly created U.S. Wealth Management division that includes J.P. Morgan Securities’ force of fewer than 500 traditional brokers (the former Bear Stearns retail brokerage operation).

The new structure aims to create a more focused wealth initiative that can increase JP Morgan’s relatively small share of the market for servicing wealthy investors. The bank currently serves about 1.0% of the high-net-worth market and 8.0% of the “ultra-high-net-worth” market, officials said at a recent investors conference.

On Tuesday, Chase Wealth Management CEO Eric Tepper outlined a three-division, 18 sub-region sales structure aimed at putting stronger management focus on converting wealthy bank customers to wealth management clientele.

Barry Simmons will head Chase Wealth’s East division, Joe Skarda will oversee its Central division and Nikki Hartung will be promoted to run the West division. Simmons and Skarda had been, respectively, California and Midwest divisional directors under the former Consumer and Wealth structure. Hartung had been a regional director in southern California.

The changes take effect on July 1, according to the memo.

Tepper also named 10 of the 18 regional directors, and said additional hires will be made in coming weeks from internal and external candidates.

“J.P. Morgan is continuing to invest in its US Wealth Management Business and hire new talent during the economic downturn,” he wrote in an emailed statement.

J.P. Morgan Securities’ traditional brokers based in 21 U.S. offices across 16 regions are not directly affected by the branch-based reorganization. Chris Harvey remains chief executive of the unit.

Harvey and Tepper will continue to report to Kristin Lemkau, head of the new U.S. Wealth Management division. The unit also includes the YouInvest robo-advisor service that is run by digital and client solutions head Kelli Keough, who also reports to Lemkau.

The announced new regional directors at Chase Wealth Management are: Regino Diaz (North/Central California); Chris Goebel (Mountain & Northwest); Beth Brown (Dallas-Fort Worth/Austin); Laura Stone (East Chicago/Wisconsin); Karen Montgomery (West Chicago/Central Illinois); Scott Ford (Brooklyn/Bronx/Queens & Long Island); Gregg Kleinbaum (Manhattan); Mike Ayerov (New Jersey/Staten Island); Mike Perrone (New York North/Connecticut); and Seth Jones (North Florida & Atlanta/Louisiana).