A hiring trend once associated mostly with technology companies has found its way into wealth management, and Justin Nelson is one of the people driving it at JP Morgan. As Managing Director and Head of the Asset Management and Financial Principals Coverage Team at J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Connecticut, Nelson has watched tech firms recruit humanities graduates to help build better artificial intelligence products, betting that human centered thinking cannot be replaced by technical skill alone. He sees a parallel in his own industry.

“When I’m out looking to hire people, I actually couldn’t care less what your major is,” Nelson said.

People First, Portfolios Second

Nelson leads a twenty person team that manages more than $15 billion in client assets, and he has staffed it with graduates from psychology, biology, and engineering programs rather than sticking to finance and economics majors alone. Justin Nelson JP Morgan argues that interpreting human behavior matters just as much as interpreting market data when advising families on complex financial decisions.

Nelson’s own background supports the theory. He studied chemistry and economics at Tufts University before earning an MBA at Columbia University, a combination that taught him to move between disciplines rather than stay locked into one.

Justin Nelson three decades into his career at JP Morgan, Nelson believes this shift toward people focused hiring will keep growing across the wealth management industry. Firms that keep hiring only finance majors, he suggests, may eventually find themselves outpaced by teams built around a broader range of academic training and life experience.

Justin Nelson traces part of his openness to his own resume, which lists a chemistry degree next to an economics degree from Tufts University and an MBA from Columbia University. He says that mix taught him early on that talent rarely arrives in a single, predictable package, a lesson he has carried into every hiring decision he has made at JP Morgan since. Visit this page for more information.

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