JPMorgan Chase & Co. Wants the Best Tech Talent

Tom Horne

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is the biggest bank in America, and it employs 10,000 people here in Delaware – more than 2,400 of them at the Delaware Technology Center just north of Wilmington. The thoroughly modern center, with its sleek spaces and massive array of rooftop solar panels, explains JPMorgan’s Tom Horne, helps the bank compete with the Googles and Amazons of the world for the best tech talent.

So what do a few thousand technologists do all day? One of two things, says Horne, who serves as Delaware market leader for the bank: “One of the ways we talk about it is, run the bank and change the bank.” That means production – keeping everything running smoothly at the enormous multi-national firm – and development – creating new apps and services. “When we think about innovation and technology and product design, it’s not just how are we doing against other banks, it’s really how does our mobile app compare outside of the industry,” Horne says, “because people want your app to be as easy and intuitive and capable as Uber or Amazon or Apple Music. They’ve grown accustomed to a very simplified way of conducting business.”

While Wilmington is well-known as the firm’s credit card headquarters, JPMorgan’s operations in the First State encompass all the major arms of its worldwide business: credit cards, plus investment banking, asset and wealth management, and commercial banking.

“Delaware is an incredibly important market for our company,” Horne says. “We’re an enormous company around the world, yet we have a handful of strategic technology and operations hubs, and Delaware is one of those. And, Delaware is one of the most important sources of technology talent for our firm.”