In this episode of Pay It Forward, host Steph Forkins sits down with three dynamic leaders—Marques Charbonnet, Jennifer Acosta, and Harvey Colli—to explore the people, purpose, and culture shaping J.P. Morgan Payments and the future of payments. From unexpected career pivots and defining leadership moments to behind-the-scenes views of internal mobility at J.P. Morgan Payments, each story offers a personal take on what it means to grow, lead and drive meaningful impact. Learn how they’re helping attract top talent, building authentic employee experiences, and empowering colleagues with the tools they need to succeed. It’s an inspiring, behind-the-scenes look at the heartbeat of J.P. Morgan Payments—the people moving it forward. 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 Steph Forkins sits down with three dynamic leaders—Marques Charbonnet, Jennifer Acosta, and Harvey Colli—to explore the people, purpose, and culture shaping J.P. Morgan Payments and the future of payments.
From unexpected career pivots and defining leadership moments to behind-the-scenes views of internal mobility at J.P. Morgan Payments, each story offers a personal take on what it means to grow, lead and drive meaningful impact. Learn how they’re helping attract top talent, building authentic employee experiences, and empowering colleagues with the tools they need to succeed.
It’s an inspiring, behind-the-scenes look at the heartbeat of J.P. Morgan Payments—the people moving it forward.
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 dollars globally each day, through over 100 and 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.
Steph Forkins (00:39):
Hi everyone, welcome to Pay It Forward, a podcast by J.P. Morgan Payments for J.P. Morgan Payments. My name is Steph Forkins. I am the head of talent for commercial and investment banking part of the HR function here and I'm thrilled to be joined by three phenomenal colleagues who each play a vital role in shaping the culture and experience here at J.P. Morgan Payments. We have Marques Charbonnet, head of Marketing Strategy and Alliances, Jennifer Acosta, Global Head of Media and Communications for Payment Sales, and Harvey Colli, Latin America Head of Corporate Sales for Payments.
(01:13):
And today we're taking a closer look at our culture and the unique elements that make J.P. Morgan Payments such an awesome place to work. You’re going to hear some great nuggets from these three on mobility, networking, and of course, paying it forward. We’ll also get into how Marques, Jennifer and Harvey are helping really build a place where team members feel they belong and do their best work. So thank you everyone for being here.
Harvey Colli (01:39):
Thank you for having us.
Jennifer Acosta (01:39):
Great to be here.
Steph Forkins (01:42):
Without further ado, let's get to know each of you. So to start, why don't you each spend a minute introducing yourselves and telling us a little bit about your journey at J.P. Morgan Payments. Marques, let's start with you.
Marques Charbonnet (01:55):
Thanks, Steph. I'm really excited to be here as part of the podcast today. I'm Marques Charbonnet and I lead our Marketing Strategy and Alliances team. I joined the payments organization about three and a half years ago, so still feel relatively new and surrounded by folks with such long tenures, but I've spent most of my career at the intersection of sports, entertainment and technology and was initially attracted to the payments business once I really understood that it sat at the intersection of finance and technology. There's really an exciting opportunity for us to take a look at how partnerships can expand reach and relevance of payments to new audiences, helping to really contextualize what payments does and enable for businesses. So my initial focus here within payments was on sponsorship, integration, customer marketing, advocacy, and co-marketing, and at the beginning of the year, expanded to marketing strategy as well.
Steph Forkins (02:45):
Great. Thanks for that, Marques. Jennifer?
Jennifer Acosta (02:48):
Hi, Stephanie. I'm Jennifer Acosta, Global Head of Media and Communications for Payment Sales. I've been in sales my entire career. I started at J.P. Morgan in 2008, so I've been here roughly 17 years, which again is shocking to think about as I say it out loud. I started my career on the lending side at another firm and then came over to J.P. Morgan primarily because I was looking for a new opportunity, try something different, and I was just really attracted to the J.P. Morgan brand and that's where I started in treasury services as a vice president at the time and then I just had progressive roles in the sales organization since 2008.
Steph Forkins (03:27):
And Harvey.
Harvey Colli (03:28):
Thank you Steph. I'm glad to be here, especially sharing the spotlight with two of these great leaders of this company. Well, I've been working in payments as shocking as Jennifer when I look back for over 24 years, so I had some other experiences before, but the last 24 years after I've found my passion in payments dedicated to this business in three different banks, being the one with the longest term at J.P. Morgan. It's almost 10 years now working at this firm, and two fun topics about my career here: one is I'm a boomerang, meaning I worked here before, I decided to leave the bank, spend six years out and I was able to come back to J.P. Morgan two years and a half ago. Don't try that at home. There is a lot more people out there trying to get back than the lucky ones like me that actually could come back to the bank.
(04:18):
And the second is, as I said, 24 years working in payments and I started as a product manager and I'm now running corporate sales for Latin America and my move to sales happened almost like an accident. And for the past 15 years I've been dedicating my focus and payments to sales and I don't intend to get back anytime soon.
Steph Forkins (04:38):
Thanks, Harvey. I'm hearing that payments is a pretty great place to be. A lot of people want to be here. In particular, you guys all have something in common that we didn't hear about. You all hold a leadership position in a working group within payments that we call people of payments, and it's entirely focused on people and culture. You're all actively working on initiatives to bring that culture to the next level through three pillars that focus on attracting the best talent, engaging our incredible community of colleagues and connecting our team members to opportunities to learn and grow. So I'll ask each of you to talk about the pillar that you're involved in and the impact that you're hoping to make. Marques, let's start with you.
Marques Charbonnet (05:18):
What I've written at the top of my Onenote is make a difference in people's experience here and so that's kind of my North Stars, being part of the people payments pillar. I'm focused on the engage pillar within that, which is really giving people ways to shape and elevate our culture each and every day here within the payments organization. But something that I'm really excited about being a marketer, I think one of the things that we're always trying to do is figure out ways to break through and engage different audiences so I think this kind of opportunity is no different.
(05:50):
We're focused on three different work streams per se, within the engage pillar one is amplified, so how do we drive greater awareness of the content opportunity resources that are available to folks within payments and how do we do it in a way that's really curated for the folks within payments, and the needs that they have day in, day out?
(06:09):
The second is recognize, and this is around continuing the wonderful work that has already been taken place here within payments around Appreciate 365 and some other activities. I think one of the things we're looking to do here is, how to gamify that, how can we make celebrating others a little bit more fun? And so we have some exciting things coming on that front.
(06:31):
The third is focus on integrating folks within the organization and especially new joiners. Being the newbie amongst this group here at three and a half years, I can say it's probably near to me coming into this organization and it being a behemoth. A lot of resources, a lot of people, how do you navigate it and how can we make that easier for folks with onboarding programs, buddy programmes and things of that nature.
Steph Forkins (06:57):
Awesome, thank you Marques. You touched on this a little and I love that you have that note front and centre on Onenote every day, but I'd love to get your perspective on what it means for you to engage in our culture. I know especially as three MDs here on the call, it's a lot to juggle personal lives, work, every extracurricular that you're involved in, and sometimes it's difficult to take advantage of the opportunities that we have here. So what's your favorite way to engage in our culture personally?
Marques Charbonnet (07:25):
Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, two things that you said stand out to me, one is juggling, and I think that sums it up. So outside of work, I have three young kids, with work going on, sometimes it's really difficult to get engaged and get involved in other things, but part of me laughs because I think one of the way I engage is I love learning and I love optimizing. I love finding ways to optimize whether that's in work or in life. And I think one of the things I found here is just a tremendous amount of resources to continue learning how to be more effective and efficient and what we're doing from a day-to-day perspective, whether that's job specific or just broader communication organiational skills. So one of the things that I've enjoyed the most is participating in a lot of the learning activities as well as some of the mentorship programs where I've been afforded mentees and things of that nature.
Steph Forkins (08:17):
That's an awesome way to connect. How about you, Jennifer? You want to tell us a little bit about your pillar and the work that you're doing for people of payments?
Jennifer Acosta (08:24):
Sure. So I'm the co-chair of the attract pillar alongside my esteemed colleague, Dan Baker, who sits in Europe. So we're really focused on bringing in the best talent and making sure that we have the right talent in the right roles across the firm. This takes on two different flavors really. One is external and one is internal, so from an internal perspective, we're really focused on promoting mobility. There's tons of opportunity here. We actually last year filled 50% of our roles with internal candidates, which is fantastic. So this might be a geographic move or a diversity of roles, but really want to promote the ability to zigzag throughout the organization, move upward, move lateral, move to different areas to gain that additional experience and exposure.
(09:09):
The second piece is around external and really bringing in the best talent into the firm. We want to do that by showcasing that J.P. Morgan really is a great place to work and that will take shape over the next couple of months in some videos that we're doing and presenting on LinkedIn that'll show some of our senior leadership, a day in the life, and really for the wider population outside of J.P. Morgan to get a sense and real feel for the people here, for our culture and what we're all about.
Steph Forkins (09:39):
Awesome. Awesome. And when we think about external talent, what advice would you give to people considering joining us from outside our team here at J.P. Morgan Payments?
Jennifer Acosta (09:48):
I would just say that we have, and this is something that I learned firsthand when I came in, something that I hadn't experienced early in my career, is that we have an incredibly collaborative and partnership-oriented culture. We don't do anything in silos. We really encourage people to connect, build their brands together, build their network, and really engage with people at all levels in the organization. We find that the diversity of experiences and thought is really valuable to growing the business. So I think we're just going to double down on some of those initiatives to make sure that we're really showcasing the type of culture that we bring to the business.
Steph Forkins (10:25):
Awesome. How would you differentiate between maybe working at J.P. Morgan versus working at a smaller FinTech?
Jennifer Acosta (10:32):
I've never worked at a smaller FinTech, but I can say that working here you feel incredibly supported. We have a lot of discipline around promotions, around talent development, around career progression. So really taking advantage of all those resources that you have available to you and the discipline around it to make sure that you're having robust mid-year conversations, end-of-year conversations, and that you're really taking a proactive role in your career and in your development.
Steph Forkins (11:00):
Great. I completely agree. Harvey, last but not least, on the work that you're doing for people of payments.
Harvey Colli (11:06):
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, so I've been co-leading the develop pillar. I think it's a way for me to somehow give back to this amazing organization some of the good things and opportunities I had in my career. And by the way, when I think on my career, a few of the most relevant moves that I had that helped me to grow, there were three things in common that are somehow also sub-pillars, if you will, that we have in our develop pillar, which are networking so several initiatives we've been working on around networking. Second pillar is mentoring, something that is very important and more to come on that as well, and the third one, super important not to forget about this, training. That's a way to allow and support our teams to add soft and hard skills in a way to be not only to manage their current roles, but also to attack and navigate their careers throughout the firm.
Steph Forkins (12:01):
Yeah, I like the concept of differentiating hard skills for soft skills. So how do you think the team really is helping build those soft skills that they need to do some of the transitions, the more nuanced transitions, as they manage their careers?
Harvey Colli (12:15):
That's a very good point, and I think, again, we can talk later about training, but on soft skills, one of the pillars I've mentioned is super important is mentoring. This is when one of the sub pillars that has more to come, we have lots of discussions as a group, so again, I'm just representing a big group here. One of the things we discussed about mentoring and first, we know how important that is, the difference that it can make in the life of any employee at this bank. When I look at my career, I had mentors that helped me a lot, but actually I'm learning probably even more with my mentees when I'm now mentoring some junior talents. So what we discussed is more of how can we really make sure we create a culture of mentorship in this organization?
(12:58):
So more of just aligning mentors and mentees, but also bringing to the whole organization the importance and how to work on that more in a natural way where folks will, junior talents will feel, that they can really approach seniors that they like, that they understand how they went into their careers that can relate to be their mentors.
Jennifer Acosta (13:22):
Harvey and I both run sales organizations and it's important when we think about our analyst and associate population that we start getting that external experience as quickly as possible. And so it's really giving them the opportunity to have those at-bats with clients, really go and spend time with clients, have an opportunity to speak on the agenda. I'm not a big fan of people going to meetings to take notes. That's not your role. You may be helping with call reports, et cetera, but go to the meeting, engage with a client, talk about a new product, talk about a fraud diagnostic, it doesn't really matter what it is, but really get those client-facing interpersonal skills moving early on in your career so that when it comes time for promotion, you've had some of that experience already and you're well positioned for that next step.
Steph Forkins (14:06):
That's a great point, Jen. So soft skills over here through mentorship and networking and that client interaction, all excellent points. But then on the flip side, there's the quickening pace of technology. How do you think we're preparing our colleagues and Harvey, I'll direct this at you, but how are we supporting our payments colleagues through the rapid pace of tech advancement?
Harvey Colli (14:27):
That's a good question Stephanie, and that's another piece of our work stream that it's a very long-term. It's taken a while because it's a really big and important one so we'll be partnering a lot with HR and the training teams because the first thing we realise is we have tons of trainings around there already and they are really good ones. Trainings in hard skills and soft skills. But the question is, we don't see a lot of people actually taking the full advantage of that.
(14:53):
So again, a lot of people in our pillar are putting a lot of efforts in that partnership with HR, first in understanding what are some of those skills required for each of the functions that we have in payments? So if you want to work in sales as Jen and I, if you want to work in marketing as Marques, if you want to work as a product manager, there are soft and hard skills that are important for that. So we want to first frame that in a way that people can really understand.
(15:19):
And then second is make those training we already have available easier for people to find it and complete the grade to go after that. And to your point, Stephanie, technology yes, is changing a lot, really fast and the bank is investing in tools and making available, like LLM as an example. And in one side I'm impressed to see how some of the young talents we have are using LLM, leveraging a lot for several great things at work. But at the same time, most people that I talk to are not using it that much. They know, yes, I know, yes, I went there and I use it once, for a performance review or for something really simple, but the tool is out there. We have training, if you go to the website, LLM, there's training, there are cases and people can leverage that a lot more than what we are doing nowadays.
Steph Forkins (16:13):
Yeah, I was going to say that's something that I tend to learn from my mentees these days. What kind of LLM prompts are you using? What should I be doing? What should I be learning? Just another way to, I guess, connect with the soft skills and the hard skills.
Harvey Colli (16:26):
As I said, one of the benefits of the mentoring is for the mentors as well. We try to think that it's a one-way street. No, by far this is the two-way street. And those are topics also appearing so when we talk about the networking piece in off-engagement, there are two main work streams we started already. One is called Meet the Seniors, so it's initiative where we track when we have seniors travel into different cities or even countries around the world so they can meet with the talents focusing on VP and below. We had a session already in Chicago with 26 people, a hundred percent more than satisfied with this. Second one is going to be with one and only Jennifer that is coming to my region. So we'll have two sessions, Mexico and Brazil, and looking for others.
(17:13):
And the second one, this is the virtual one, which I think is super powerful, that is leadership circles, which is basically putting together a group of young managers, VPs and EDs to discuss among them and share experiences in how they tackle some of the challenging situations of managing a team. We had already a first session in EMEA, APAC in North America last month involving almost 60 people, 95% of the people that participated more than satisfied with this. And we have more come.
Steph Forkins (17:43):
That's great, that's great. I've heard really good things about the Leader Circles. Let me ask you, are there other things that you guys are doing to really support our next generation of payments leaders?
Marques Charbonnet (17:52):
Being part of this pillar, one of the things I've been most inspired about or from is the number of volunteers that we have supporting the pillar, really doing the work on top of the work that they have to do day in and day out. So I think first and foremost, kudos to all of those folks who are really behind the scenes helping to drive the work here. And I think as part of that, I really feel obligated to make sure that I'm helping to create the right opportunity for them. A lot of these folks have a vision for how they want the engage pillar to show up, new programming to be created, and how can I really help steer them and make sure those opportunities are available for that work to come through. So I think that's certainly an area I'm focused on and an area of responsibility that I'm taking as part of this.
Steph Forkins (18:37):
Marques, what does paying it forward look like to you?
Marques Charbonnet (18:41):
I think one of the things that I think about in terms of career advice, no matter where you're at, is just keep learning. Keep learning and developing your skills, because I think there's always that opportunity. The one thing that I would probably leave listeners today is to just get involved, start small and get involved. I think this organization can feel big, it can feel daunting. I think everyone has a lot going on on their plate, but you can start to identify one thing and just carve out 30 minutes a week to focus on it, an hour a week to focus on it. Just start small and it will typically start to expand and snowball from there.
Steph Forkins (19:16):
So on your J.P. Morgan headstone, it'll be make a difference, optimize and get involved. How about Jennifer, Harvey? What kind of legacy or impact do you hope to leave?
Jennifer Acosta (19:26):
I think Maya Angelou is always credited with this quote, but people will forget what you said. They'll forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. So what I think is really powerful is leaving someone with a lasting impression that made them feel supported, made them feel like you made a difference in their career. If I can just help one person or two people get to that next level in this organization, I feel like that's success.
Harvey Colli (19:52):
But I think you said it all when you said the word legacy, right? So pay it forward is, lived it business, this company, why not leave this work a better place than when we receive it, right? So we have a few years of our careers, not to say we have a few years in our lives, we want to leave this board, this business, this company in a better position than when we start.
Steph Forkins (20:12):
We clearly have the right people in these people and culture roles. All right, well before I ask you guys to wrap up, let's do a fun one. What is something about you that people would never guess? Something that's not on the interwebs?
Jennifer Acosta (20:27):
I'll start. I minored in psychology in college, something that I thought I would never use, but I actually use it every single day. I am truly fascinated by human behaviour, watching how people think, how they behave, particularly in social situations. This really translates well into a sales role and didn't realise it at the time, but I'm absolutely fascinated by people.
Steph Forkins (20:51):
Marques?
Marques Charbonnet (20:52):
I'll share that my favourite date night with my wife is to go to a comedy club. We love to laugh, love to have a good time. And when we were first married, we lived about 15 minutes away from Jay Leno's comedy club, and that's what we did. But to Jennifer's point, I think there's an element there of human behaviour, human psychology that makes those comedy clubs that much more fun.
Jennifer Acosta (21:14):
Listen, Marques, if you want to have fun, you just need to go to Brazil and spend time with Harvey because if you ever see him up on stage or with his people, always a big smile, always high energy. It's a place you want to be.
Harvey Colli (21:25):
So in my case, I was thinking through it and one thing is that a lot of people, they look into my LinkedIn posts and they think I'm a natural influencer. What they don't know is I don't have any social media at all apart of LinkedIn. So I put my LinkedIn for work purposes to help with the business I tried. But a few years ago I exited all other social media, so I'm out of those. I was spending a lot of time there. I'm an avid reader. I have two others that I love spending time with them, and this was actually impacting my life, so I had this tough decision, get out of any social media and I just spend time now reading with sports or with my two daughters.
Steph Forkins (22:07):
Before we wrap up, let's leave everybody, our listeners today, with one lasting thought. So if there's one message, insight, nugget from today that you hope they carry with them, what would it be?
Marques Charbonnet (22:19):
This was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And I think it's a testament to just the notion of get involved. You'll never know where you end up. So thanks for having me on the podcast today.
Jennifer Acosta (22:28):
I would say our business is filled with amazing people, lots of energy and intelligence and knowledge. Embrace it. Get to know someone new every single day or week when you can, and build out your network and your brand.
Harvey Colli (22:43):
As Jen said, have a target of meeting a new person a day. Have a target or having a coffee with an MD at least once a week, you name it. But really invest and treat networking as one of our most important tasks in your day-to-day.
Steph Forkins (22:57):
Great advice. Great advice. Thank you all for sharing your stories, your insights, your experiences with some levity and fun. And we thank everybody that's listening as well, and hope that you walk away a little more inspired to connect and network and focus on your personal growth and of course pay it forward. So until next time.
Marques Charbonnet (23:17):
Thank you.
Steph Forkins (23:17):
Thank you.
Harvey Colli (23:17):
Bye. Thank you.
Narrator (23:20):
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 “Did you know we move nearly $10 trillion globally each day through over 170 countries and 120 currencies at more than 5,000 transactions per second?” (Chairman and CEO Letter to Shareholders)