The cloud is essential for financial services in the midst of digital transformation

At JPMorgan Chase, Lipkovitz’s team uses zero-trust security frameworks that lock down data at every point, from device hardware to the cloud.

When operating in a zero-trust environment, teams should assume that their entire environment is already compromised. Every aspect of a system’s infrastructure should be assessed from a security perspective, and security precautions are built in: data should be stored securely, keys and sensitive data protected. Zero trust is more of a cultural mindset, an approach to software and infrastructure development. And, according to Deloitte, it’s an approach that more and more financial organizations are adopting, given the increase in cyberattacks as well as regulatory scrutiny.

Lipkovitz credits JPMorgan Chase’s “large, talented in-house IT team” and its shared responsibility model, where application developers work hand-in-hand with security and cloud staff, many of whom have experience outside of the financial industry. This team, he notes, considers both software security and infrastructure security, and works to address them together.

People empower people

JPMorgan Chase’s digital transformation team includes long-time employees and those, like Lipkovitz, newly arrived from other companies and industries. Lipkovitz says the company benefits from each group. “When you bring in people from outside, they change your perspective,” Lipkovitz says. “But there are also a lot of talented people inside. This combination of perspectives is incredibly valuable.

Lipkovitz stresses the importance of a diverse workforce to bring fresh thinking to the business. “When an environment allows for diversity of thought, it’s incredibly helpful,” he says. There’s a lot of talent in places like Silicon Valley and Seattle, Lipkovitz says, and as industries outside of those epicentres have transformed, talent is moving in new directions, especially toward finance. “The financial services industry is looking for outside talent to help drive success,” he says.

While recruiting new talent is important, training and developing existing workers is essential for successful digital transformation. “The world just doesn’t have enough people who know how the public cloud works, so it’s not going to be solved by hiring,” he says.

Amidst cultural and technological changes, the company intentionally balances speed and stability. “There’s tremendous value in doing things gradually,” Lipkovitz says. His team deploys changes through centers of excellence where, for example, developers can check code before it goes live.

Centers of Excellence can help produce incremental change in individual segments of the business or by establishing direct connections between experts and employees who need to learn from them. The people who create change within the company need to be protected from opportunism, Lipkovitz says, even if that means isolating them from deadlines.

“We have a strong obligation and significant responsibility to always protect our customers’ information,” says Lipkovitz, “therefore the level of change management required can be daunting.” He continues: “But we will eventually have a better world. I am an optimist.

This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not authored by the editorial staff of MIT Technology Review.