The new JPMorgan technology MD that might decide if you're cut (or promoted)
In a post-Moneyball world, almost all decisions at major companies are influenced by data. The latest hire by JPMorgan will be using data to look at which employees at the bank get on base, and which don't.
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Matt Brandt joins JPMorgan as an MD and head of data and analytics for human resources and employee experience. He spent the last 13 years at Morgan Stanley, latterly serving as its head of HR analytics. He was promoted to MD while serving in that role in 2021.
Brandt hasn't disclosed what he was doing in that particular role, but his past roles at Morgan Stanley were split between talent development and cost-cutting. He was initially hired as a cost efficiency portfolio manager, developing a firmwide tool used to track and report cost reductions. Within a few years, he was also appointed workforce strategy lead for enterprise infrastructure; in the role, he analyzed factors like talent career drivers and promotion times to "evolve location strategy" for the 4,000-person team.
Data-driven people strategy is becoming even more intriguing thanks to AI. Morgan Stanley recently unveiled a coding tool, DevGen.AI, that it claims saved ~300,000 hours of work. As more efficiency tools like it are released, people like Brandt will have to determine whether all those saved hours actually correlate to a change in headcount.
At JPMorgan, Brandt might be working with some data employees aren't as enthused about. The bank implements an ambiguous tracking system called WADU (workplace activity data utility), monitoring factors like office attendance. The system has faced comparisons to Big Brother from '1984', although r/FinancialCareers users claiming to be JPMorgan employees have downplayed its influence in recent months.
Interestingly, Brandt also has a background as a blackjack card counter for a team at Duke University. With JPMorgan, he'll now be tasked with making sure the house always wins when it comes to the bank's hiring strategy.
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