For seven years, Yanhua Ye worked at J.P. Morgan in Singapore as a vice president in the Asia Pacific Outsourcing and Data Privacy Compliance team. She helped make sure compliance requirements across more than a dozen APAC location were clearly communicated and tracked.
“It was really a joyful journey for me,” Ye says. “Our team was very transparent and friendly, and we had a good relationship with our local counterparts.”
Then, in 2019, Ye left the firm to focus on outside interests. Since 2017, she’d been living as a minimalist, cutting clutter out of her life, and writing a blog about the minimalist lifestyle. Minimalism made her home easier to maintain and saved her money, and the lifestyle gave her more free time to spend with her children and in her community.
She wanted to take the time to combine her blogs into an e-book. She also hoped to dedicate herself to teaching Mandarin, her native language. “I had my third child as well, and I wanted to spend more time with him,” Ye says.
For two years, Ye pursued these passions. During the pandemic, she had the chance to appear in a segment on a local TV channel talking about decluttering clothes. She also started to embrace the world of zero waste. Now, she buys only second-hand clothes and uses rags made from old T-shirts instead of paper towels for cleaning. She and her family make their own cleaning products with ingredients like orange peels.
“With a proper second-hand fashion store, you can find beautiful clothes, you spend much less, and you also cause less harm to the environment,” she says.
Ye greatly enjoyed her experiences and lessons learned during those two years away from the firm. But, at the same time, she missed J.P. Morgan and the intelligent, collegial colleagues she used to work with. When a former co-worker told her about the firm’s ReEntry Program, Ye was ecstatic. She applied for a role on her previous team in Compliance and she got the job earlier this year.
“Though we didn’t meet often due to Covid, when I was back at the office, I felt like I never left,” she says. Ye enjoyed the ReEntry Program’s trainings and networking opportunities. “I can see the effort and care JPMorgan Chase has put in place for program participants,” she says.
Now, she’s transitioned from Compliance into a role in Global Supplier Services. She reviews inter-affiliate outsourcing projects globally for the firm.
For alumni interested in re-joining J.P. Morgan, Ye says to be confident that the experience and the skills you acquired during your time away will be a great asset for a future job at the firm.
Also she notes, once you’re back, reach out to your former teammates and your former supervisor, join any and all local networking events, always be open to any opportunity, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.
“You can always find a subject matter expert to teach you the things you need to know,” she says. “It’s a big bank, and there are so many lines of business and products. It’s normal that we don’t know certain things, and we can always be open and learn.”
Outside of work, Ye loves to read, she runs a social media account about minimalism, and she writes blogs on the minimalist lifestyle. She runs every weekend in the park with her kids to keep healthy, she still teaches Mandarin, and she’s involved with her church community. Her goal for 2023 is to be a facilitator in her church’s learning program.
In both your personal life and work life, she advises, “whatever task is given you, work heartily.”
Interested in the JPMorgan Chase ReEntry Program?
JPMorgan Chase invites experienced professionals, who are currently on an extended career break and have been for at least two years, to apply to the firm’s ReEntry Program.
The 15-week paid fellowship program, which runs from March 2023 to June 2023 in several global locations, includes on-the-job training, coaching, and developmental experiences to help participants ramp-up with ease and prepare for a long-term career. ReEntry fellows are also paired with mentors to provide support and guidance needed to relaunch a career. The fellowship placements are based on business needs, candidate skillset and interest areas within the firm, with the potential for permanent employment at the end of the program.
Roles are location dependent.
Learn more and apply by visiting our careers website.
