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JPMorgan Chase has tasked one of its bankers with overseeing the company’s junior banker programme, a response to renewed concerns about working conditions for young employees on Wall Street.
JPMorgan, the largest US bank by assets and often a bellwether for the industry, named Ryland McClendon as the global investment banking associate and analyst leader, according to a memo sent to employees earlier this month.
Analysts and associates are entry-level positions on Wall Street. In the newly created role, McClendon “will help to support their wellbeing and success, as well as equip and enable them to deliver for our business, clients and each other”, JPMorgan said in the memo, which was reported earlier by CNBC.
Investment banking for decades has been synonymous with 100-hour work weeks and high-stress deal pitches where tens of millions of dollars in fees can be at stake.
The gruelling conditions are under renewed scrutiny following the death in May of a junior banker at Bank of America who was a US special forces veteran. Although the cause of death of Leo Lukenas III was ruled to be a blood clot, it became a fresh rallying cry for junior bankers seeking a healthier working environment.
At an investor event in the wake of Lukenas’s death, JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon referred to “that unfortunate death” and said the bank was looking at things it could learn from it.
JPMorgan has recently capped junior bankers’ working week at 80 hours, although the limit does not apply when employees are working on live deals, according to a person familiar with the matter.
McClendon has worked at JPMorgan for nearly 14 years and most recently worked as the bank’s head of talent and career development experience.
There have been various previous efforts to improve working conditions in the industry, including after the 2013 death of a Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern in London, and in 2021, when a group of first-year investment banking analysts at Goldman Sachs compiled a slide deck documenting their arduous hours.
Many senior investment bankers describe a work culture that has improved over the years, but calls for easier conditions can be at odds with the premise that high fees paid to banks are based on the expectation that they are at the beck and call of clients.
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