In this episode of Pay It Forward, host Kristin Kwiatkowski, V.P. HR Business Advisor at J.P. Morgan Payments engages in a compelling conversation with Soomin Hu, Head of J.P. Morgan Access at J.P. Morgan Payments. From Soomin’s beginnings as a computer science graduate to her leadership role in building digital-first payment experiences, she has navigated pivotal career accelerations, intentional work pauses, and a rapidly evolving technology landscape. Tune in to hear candid reflections on Soomin’s decision to step away from work to focus on her family, the personal framework she developed for setting priorities, and how she sees AI reshaping finance in ways that will benefit clients, businesses, and employees. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of J.P. Morgan, its affiliates, or its employees. The information set forth herein has been obtained or derived from sources believed to be reliable. Neither the author nor J.P. Morgan makes any representations or warranties as to the information’s accuracy or completeness. The information contained herein has been provided solely for informational purposes and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, advice or recommendation, to make any investment decisions or purchase any financial instruments, and may not be construed as such. Any mentions of third-party trademarks, brand names, products and services are for referential purposes only and any mention thereof is not meant to imply any sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation.© 2025 JPMorgan Chase & Co. All Rights Reserved.
In this episode of Pay It Forward, host Kristin Kwiatkowski, V.P. HR Business Advisor at J.P. Morgan Payments engages in a compelling conversation with Soomin Hu, Head of J.P. Morgan Access at J.P. Morgan Payments.
From Soomin’s beginnings as a computer science graduate to her leadership role in building digital-first payment experiences, she has navigated pivotal career accelerations, intentional work pauses, and a rapidly evolving technology landscape.
Tune in to hear candid reflections on Soomin’s decision to step away from work to focus on her family, the personal framework she developed for setting priorities, and how she sees AI reshaping finance in ways that will benefit clients, businesses, and employees.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of J.P. Morgan, its affiliates, or its employees. The information set forth herein has been obtained or derived from sources believed to be reliable. Neither the author nor J.P. Morgan makes any representations or warranties as to the information’s accuracy or completeness. The information contained herein has been provided solely for informational purposes and does not constitute an offer, solicitation, advice or recommendation, to make any investment decisions or purchase any financial instruments, and may not be construed as such. Any mentions of third-party trademarks, brand names, products and services are for referential purposes only and any mention thereof is not meant to imply any sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation.© 2025 JPMorgan Chase & Co. All Rights Reserved.
Narrator (00:02):
Welcome to Pay It Forward, a podcast by J.P. Morgan Payments for J.P. Morgan Payments. Get to know our business and gain a better understanding of where we sit at the intersection of technology and finance. Did you know we move over $10 trillion globally each day through over 170 countries and 120 currencies at more than 5,000 transactions per second? (1) Join us as we take you inside the stories, technology, and people that make it all happen.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (00:39):
Hi everyone. Welcome to Pay It Forward, a podcast by J.P. Morgan Payments for J.P. Morgan Payments. My name is Kristin Kwiatkowski. I'm a human resources business advisor for J.P. Morgan Payments, supporting the digital and design and merchant services organization. I'm thrilled to be joined today by Soomin Hu, head of J.P. Morgan Access at J.P. Morgan Payments. Today we are getting to hear from Soomin Hu building things like your career, your family, and how she sees AI playing a role in just any digital journey. You'll get to hear some great advice from Soomin on how, as a working parent, she decided on the key moments for her career to accelerate and moments of pause. So thank you Soomin for being here.
Soomin Hu
Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
Kristin Kwiatkowski
So without further ado, let's get to know you. Can you spend just a minute telling us a little bit about your journey leading you to J.P. Morgan Payments?
Soomin Hu (01:33):
I started at another financial services firm as a graduate in computer science supporting the very first client facing investment research website and their electronic trading platforms. I moved to foreign exchange business and spent a few years in sales in London, which led me to launch my product management career as head of digital products and global markets. Then I took an 18 month career break to stay home with my two beautiful girls, and I rejoined the firm in the investment banking division. I joined J.P. Morgan four years ago to build a new innovative client facing product from scratch in private markets, which now led me to this amazing opportunity in payments, the head of J.P. Morgan Access. For those who are not familiar with J.P. Morgan Access, it is an online and a mobile platform where our corporate clients can come in and manage all of their cash management goals.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (02:37):
Fantastic. We're happy to have you and we know that you've spent the majority of your career and what would be considered a traditional bank environment. What energized you to come to J.P. Morgan Payments specifically?
Soomin Hu (02:50):
I love building products for clients and I love learning about their journey and their pain points and how we can solve their problems with intuitive and delightful experience. Leading a product in a bank has been actually such a rewarding career because the impact is so visible and so immediate. It was true rolling out new trading products in markets and investment banking and I know the impact will be even greater in payments. The payments is an essential and foundational business for all of our corporate clients and we are the front door and foundation for our clients to start doing business with us, and they're opening accounts and funding accounts and making payments right on Access. The digital platform is one of those places where they experience J.P. Morgan repeatedly and digitally. We're also the starting point in establishing a new market in a country and I learned how we do business in 50-plus countries and 100-plus markets on J.P. Morgan Access and that we are number one digital platform globally. (2) The opportunities were so obvious.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (03:51):
Wow, I didn't know that. Fun fact. That's awesome. 50. That's amazing. And with that, from a J.P. Morgan standpoint, when we talk about culture, we pride ourself on our culture here, but from your view, what about the culture here interested you not just only clearly what we can do, but what are we doing today that really interested you and brought you forward to say this is where I'd like to take my next step in my career?
Soomin Hu (04:14):
Sure. So coming into J.P. Morgan, I knew how globally scalable business it was and which interested me quite a bit. I'll say I'm energized by two things, which is learning and people. My first few weeks in the job so far have been all but those two things. So I'm learning a ton and it's such a large and complex business and I feel like it'll take me a year to feel like I'm not a newbie anymore. And that excites me. And the people, my team and my peers and all the colleagues at payments I met so far have been so digitally forward and so tech forward and client focused and it's clear that the tone is set at the top by Umar and Max. The printed roadmaps all over Max's office gave me great first impressions when I learned about an opportunity in payments and people at payments love their work and how we service partner with our clients. And when I was interviewing with Lori Schwartz, she confidently said Soomin, we're the best team in J.P. Morgan and we have the best culture. And so far, I can say it's true.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (05:15):
I love that little insight to Max. We don't usually get to hear about that, and Lori Schwartz is right. This is the best place to be. You mentioned your two beautiful girls. You and I are very similar when it comes to family first. As a parent myself, I would love to hear how things may have changed with your career and the journey once becoming a parent and really as a parent of multiples, because I know more than one just is twice the fun but twice the problem.
Soomin Hu (05:41):
So I didn't do it very well at the beginning. I got married pretty young and had kids pretty young. I was an associate when Kaylee, my first daughter was born and then three years later had Izzy. And as responsibilities grew at work and responsibility also grew at home. And I can honestly say that it was a big struggle. I made a point after I made MD that I was not doing so well that on the most important things in life, which is family as you mentioned. I went from knowing exactly what they were thinking and feeling when they were babies as a mom and to not really knowing their friends, teachers and they surrounding very well. And that was a big red flag for me. So I quit. I decided to stay home with my two girls, Kaylee and Izzy, and they were four and seven at the time in such a fun age where they're experiencing things and starting to interact with the world outside of their home.
(06:32):
And for the next 18 months I only focused on being faithful to my top three priorities of where my life was, which is my faith and my marriage and my children. And I've developed some discipline and habits during that time, which still guide me to this day. On a monthly basis, I set up goals on what's needed and what I want to focus on in a priority order and which is faith, marriage, children, and of course people and community, which includes my work in church. Then I try to review that on a daily and weekly basis to make sure my priorities are not out of order. There are certainly periods of my life where I do need to focus on different priorities and a different order and such as like right now. I started a new job. So work is a lot at the moment and that is okay because my family knows and we have discussed that before I started a new job and we give each other grace to do the things in life where we feel called. This framework helps me not to go out of whack too long and too much though. One of my mentors told me early in my career that career is a marathon, not a sprint. And I know that there will be times where acceleration in my career happens and that is my choice. And just like a marathon, I decide when I want to slow it down and when I want to accelerate. And it's so important to do that to avoid burnout.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (07:47):
And I think it's great for the listeners to hear that it's okay to take pause and your career can continue, but when you feel like those red flags are there and for you personally, you have to identify what a red flag is that you noticed it, you brought it back to your family, what felt like your unit and you guys decided as a family what the next steps look like, which could look different for everyone. But in your perspective, would you say that was one of the bigger lessons you've learned, that self-regulation, the ability to take pause, the ability to say this doesn't feel right, and then to move forward based on that?
Soomin Hu (08:18):
Yeah. Kristin, I completely agree, but I think there's even a step before that. How do you recognize the red flag and how do you know that your priorities are out of order? I think I've worked 15 plus years before I took a pause and it was just only an acceleration during that time, which sort of led me to my burnout. And I've learned that in taking up moments for yourself, whether it's on a monthly basis, yearly basis, whatever the cadence you find yourself to kind of go, how am I doing? How am I feeling? Where are my priorities and how am I doing with that is actually a really important lesson for me that I took away is when you're in this wheel of life and you don't take a moment and pause to actually reflect on that, you can sort of get lost in that and spend years go down the path that you might not have wanted to go down.
(09:07):
So that would be the biggest lesson I've taken away from my time of burnout, putting and coming back to work and all of that, which is okay, how do I institute a discipline and a practice where I'm reviewing something on a yearly basis with my husband? We do our yearly board retreat. We call it a board, which is our board of our family. So we do that at the end of the year every year to just review what we want to focus on next year, how do we want to parent our kids, what are the lessons we want all of us to learn? And I personally do that for myself on a monthly basis.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (09:40):
I love that. And my husband and I have four children, so we need to create a board with many seats, but I love the idea of having a board within your own home and being able to use that time to plan for and how do we do this next step together. And I love that we get to have your insights moving into the Access roles. Switching gears and tapping more into your role a bit, how have you seen digitization accelerate and finance and where in your opinion, does AI play a role in the digital journey?
Soomin Hu (10:12):
There has been a huge acceleration probably about 20 plus years ago when the internet first became a new channel for finance to interact with our clients. Software engineering sort of took over the manual paper workflows. I actually see the same acceleration boost right now with AI and in the past few years, AI with LLM capabilities changed the way of our work and day-to-day lives. I mean my daughters prefer LLM tutor over their live teachers.
Kristin Kwiatkowski
Ah! love it.
Soomin Hu
Now the agentic AI, which is sort of the new step in the AI revolution, it will accelerate digital transformation to the next level and it'll be the most significant technological advance we've ever seen, in my opinion. Agentic AI products will not only digitize the workflows, but it'll remove the physical limitations of the capacity. I mean from the actual number of hours we work and the limitation of what we humanly can absorb throughout the day.
(11:09):
I'm amazing in a world where I can do personally 10x and 100x of what I do today with agents. And I think it'll be the same for payments business and for our clients. By deploying the agent AI in a safe and secure way, and we need a lot of human controls of course, that we can give scale and leverage to our clients. They can make payments, reconcile transactions and balances and optimize the cash flow and prepare for the future all in a fractional amount of time and capacity. I'm really excited to be part of this journey and J.P. Morgan Payments.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (11:43):
Wonderful. And you talk about the experience, so for your kids, the experience of an AI tutor is what they love best. You also talk about payments, experiences and making those pleasant and personalized and having that be a part of the journey. How do you see yourself innovating and bringing that to J.P. Morgan Payments Access?
Soomin Hu (12:02):
Yeah. Payments have gone through such an experience change from negative to positive in the last decade. I think in the past when you're making a payment, let's say paying cash at a store or writing checks, was just kind of a necessary step, and I would say it was a painful chore for me. And now I think payment has become a delightful experience. Tapping to get into a New York subway just changed my life. So, we also have so many different payment experiences on our fingertips to choose from, and almost all of them is actually quite delightful and I'm excited to bring that delightful experience to J.P. Morgan Access. We want to create delightful client-centric experience, which is just intuitive and seamless, and help our clients get to the things they need to do quicker and faster. And we're actively working on that new experience. We're also working on AI, LLM capabilities to assist our clients in a broader complex operations with much more personalization. So that is to be coming.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (13:11):
We're all looking forward to it. And before we wrap, let's do a fun one. So what's something about you that people would never guess something that's not Chat GPT searchable, your kids don't know about it. Something that's like breaking headline news that no one knows.
Soomin Hu (13:27):
I am a big fan of K dramas, so for my 40th birthday, I went to Quebec with my husband. It was the location where my favourite K drama was filmed in. I don't think anybody would know about.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (13:40):
Oh, and I love that you broke that here. So first hot off the press, that's wonderful and I'm glad you got to have those experiences like we've talked about the whole time, slowing down, taking pause, making time for experiences like that or truly at the core. And you've really talked through that today. So let's leave our listeners with one last final thought. So if there is one message or insight they carry with them from today, what do you hope that would be?
Soomin Hu (14:07):
Prioritize what you love and making sure that you are reviewing those priorities on a regular basis. As I mentioned earlier, I think it would help our listeners to have a sustainable career, have an enjoyable life, and do what they love the most.
Kristin Kwiatkowski (14:22):
I love that. And great advice, Soomin. Thank you for sharing your insights and experiences with us. This has been thoroughly enjoyable for me. I hope our listeners have enjoyed this session and I hope you yourself, Soomin, have also enjoyed our time together. And to our listeners, thanks for tuning in. We hope this conversation inspires you to lead with purpose and of course Pay It Forward. Until next time.
Narrator (14:45):
Thank you for tuning in to Pay It Forward, a podcast by J.P. Morgan Payments for J.P.Morgan Payments. Stay up to date on the latest stories, technology and people powering payments by subscribing on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or your favourite podcast platform. Keep pushing boundaries and we'll keep moving the payments world forward one transaction at a time.
Sources:
(1) https://www.jpmorganchase.com/content/dam/jpmc/jpmorgan-chase-and-co/investor-relations/documents/annualreport-2023.pdf
(2) https://www.jpmorgan.com/insights/payments/banking-as-a-service/access-platform-scores-digital-innovation-study