How JPMorgan Chase Women Help Create Their Own Opportunities

A plethora of diversity programs has helped make JPMorgan Chase a nurturing and inspiring place to work for women such as Sarah Youngwood.

"I've had the great fortune of working alongside some pretty incredible women who've encouraged me to take risks and to blaze my career path," said Youngwood, JPMorgan's chief financial officer for consumer and community banking. She began her career at the company as an intern and is now a mentor to other women there.

"I carry tremendous pride for the kinds of programs we've built that have helped women advance their careers, return to work after an extended stay home with children, and rise to the top," Youngwood said.

One of the newest such programs is the 30-5-1 campaign, devised by the company's chief financial officer, Marianne Lake. She challenged bankers to take 30 minutes a week to have coffee with a talented woman, five minutes to call a female colleague and congratulate her on "a great win," and one minute to email a peer and "talk up" a talented woman. "30-5-1 gives us all a structured, easy way to think about how we can share our experience and support women across the globe to help them achieve their fullest potential," Lake said.

The idea came from a speech Lake gave at American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance awards ceremony last year. She teamed up with Mary Callahan Erdoes, the chief executive of JPMorgan's asset management unit, and officially launched the 30-5-1 campaign at a senior leadership conference in February.

The company hosted a roundtable session in New York to celebrate International Women's Day that attracted 24 senior managers and nearly 100 participants. It also created an online toolkit so assorted JPMorgan divisions could take part in the program.

The 30-5-1 campaign is an offshoot of Women on the Move, an internal program created in 2013 that aims to increase the number of women in senior management positions. Lake and Erdoes, who are co-sponsors of that program as well, have traveled to 21 cities on six continents to engage female colleagues in candid conversations about their careers and aspirations.

There's also the Lean In Circle, in which women discuss lessons from the eponymous book by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer. The private networking group was started by the Women's Interactive Network, an umbrella organization at JPMorgan that hosts events and discussion groups with 18,000 members in nearly 50 chapters.

The company also has had success with its ReEntry program, which helps women return to the workforce after time away to raise children or care for aging parents.

Headquarters: New York

2015 Financial highlights:
Assets: $2.35 trillion
ROE: 11%
ROA: 0.99%

Female representation among corporate officers: 36%

Female representation on operating committee: 20%

The Team: Anu Aiyengar, Joyce Chang, Thasunda Duckett, Mary Callahan Erdoes, Stacey Friedman, Marianne Lake, Kristin Lemkau, Bei Ling, Elizabeth Myers, Sandie O'Connor, Lori Pape, Jennifer Piepszak, Sarah Youngwood