'Advance career by staying connected to the past', Samantha Saperstein, JP Morgan Chase

We sat with Samantha (Sam) Saperstein, Head of Women on the Move at JP Morgan Chase who shared insights on helping women advance their careers, their companies, and the quality of their lives

Samantha, please take us through your professional experience gained so far and tell us how does your professional background tie into the topics discussed at PayTechWomenLive?

Throughout the event, we talked about career development and the unique support and resources that women need to advance their careers. My own career path has been marked by some significant pivots; I started my career in business journalism, went to business school, and then shifted into consulting and financial services. As I progressed, I continued to build my skills in strategy, product development, marketing, and communications, and leverage those skills into new and larger roles. My latest pivot came after I participated in a career development program at the firm tailored to women. The program involved creating a bold vision for my professional and personal life. By sharing that vision with senior level mentors, they helped me realise my next goal. It led me to my current role as the Head of Women on the Move. 

You have taken JP Morgan Chase’s Women on the Move program from an internal program to empower and advance women employees to a global initiative working to expand women-run businesses, improve women’s financial health and advance women’s career growth. What are you most passionate about when it comes to the position you occupy within JP Morgan Chase?

I’m most passionate about ensuring women have a fair shot when it comes to their careers, their compensation and their access to knowledge and information. With Women on the Move, our mission is to help women achieve their goals. Women founders are a great example—we know women entrepreneurs find innovative solutions to problems, often creating businesses that help solve other women’s needs. Getting these founders the support and resources that they need is incredibly inspiring, not to mention great for the economy and women’s equity more broadly.

Women are globally financially under-, or even unserved. The European Women Payments Network (EWPN) recently published a report, Female Finance in Figures, revealing that there is a world to gain for financial institutions by catering more to women. How can this be achieved?

Women don’t necessarily need different financial products. They do need institutions to make the effort to deeply understand their unique needs, perspectives, and life stages. For example, women need retirement accounts and planning, but may be more motivated to save money in support of life goals vs. just reaching a specific number. They are often the financial decision makers in their households and need companies to recognise they perform multiple roles and need their time valued. Financial institutions that don’t understand this and fail to speak to women appropriately are missing out on incredibly valuable clients. 

How can events like PayTechWomenLive or programs like JP Morgan Chase’s Women on the Move narrow the gender equality gap, especially at workplace?

Events like this are in lock step with our goals with Women on the Move: these conversations remind women they have agency and control over their futures. The information shared here helps putting control in women’s hands by giving them tools to make them successful and reminds us to hold companies accountable for creating a supportive workplace that will help women thrive.

What was your key takeaway for the PayTechWomenLive audience? What’s the most important thing women need to do to build their careers and advance in paytech industry?

A big takeaway for me is also a big area of focus for us with Women on the Move: find the network and sponsors that will take you along with them. No one becomes successful without support from others. Find those individuals who will help you achieve your goals. This may be your manager or it may be someone in a completely different line of business. Your job is to ensure you are finding the people who will recognise your hard work and talent and advocate for you.

If it were to give some advice to a younger self, what advice would you give?

Stay in touch with everyone you come across in your career. Luckily, that’s much easier now with social media. Touch base even when you don’t need something, bring them information and opportunities that are useful to them. Nurturing these relationships will be tremendously valuable when you need things from them in the future. You never know when a connection from the past will benefit you. 

About Samantha (Sam) Saperstein

Samantha (Sam) Saperstein leads the firm-wide Women on the Move program at JP Morgan Chase. In this role, Sam manages programs designed to fuel female ambition and ensure women have equal access and opportunity. Sam joined the bank in 2012 as head of credit card strategy for Chase Consumer & Community Banking and advanced to chief marketing officer of Chase Commercial Banking. Prior to joining Chase, Sam was group head of US Core Products at Mastercard and a strategy consultant for McKinsey & Company, where she served retail and wholesale banking clients. She also worked in journalism and spent several years covering the US Treasury market and macroeconomics for Dow Jones Newswires, The Wall Street Journal, and Barron’s.