Building opportunity for women

Alumna Samantha Saperstein led the transformation of Women on the Move from a grassroots employee effort into a global initiative supporting women’s careers, finances and businesses.

Samantha Saperstein rewrote the playbook for supporting women at JPMorganChase and beyond. A highlight of her 13 years at the firm was transforming a small network for female employees into a global program that now touches tens of thousands, while helping channel loans to women-owned businesses.

The Women on the Move business resource group now includes more than 80,000 JPMorganChase women and allies, and offers programming focused on employee engagement and building community. Now in its tenth year, Women’s Leadership Day brings together JPMorganChase colleagues and clients for panels and discussions on women’s careers and economic empowerment. This year’s speakers included WNBA star A'ja Wilson, cosmetics company owner Bobbi Brown, and media executive Elaine Welteroth.

“Attending the 10th anniversary of Women’s Leadership Day filled me with great pride,” says Saperstein. “The team’s terrific work lives on in the programming, the relationships, and the power to convene inspiring leaders and encourage women to keep marching forward.”

Listening to women

The seed of the women’s initiative appeared in 2013, when senior women executives began meeting with employees around the world, listening to their experiences, gathering their concerns, and bringing those insights back to New York. Over time, the group began to informally refer to itself as “Women on the Move.”

“Employees were open about their needs,” Saperstein says. “They loved the firm but wanted more opportunities and support to advance in their careers.”

Four years later, while Saperstein was working as Chief Marketing Officer of Commercial Banking, overseeing marketing, communications and client experience for the business, conversations about formalizing support for women began to gain momentum.

Saperstein understood the need for sponsors in the workplace, people with the power and influence to open doors to new jobs and opportunities. A true sponsor champions you, puts your name forward for stretch assignments, has your back in closed door meetings, and is willing to take a chance on you, she says. It’s the kind of support more women need, and that she was fortunate to find during her career at JPMorganChase.

She wrote the strategy for Women on the Move – now the Office of Women’s Affairs –  centering the initiative on three core missions: supporting women’s businesses, finances, and careers. At first, it was just Saperstein. But in 2018, a female private banker in London emailed her. “She said, ‘I love what you’re doing. I’m taking off August and coming to New York City to help you.’” She became Saperstein’s first team member.

“Her manager was very supportive,” Saperstein says. “Then, little by little I started pulling, borrowing, and begging so I could grow my team.”

Unlocking capital

In 2018 and 2019, to tackle one of the biggest barriers female founders face—access to capital to start and scale companies—the firm announced a three-year commitment to extend $10 billion in new loans and lines of credit to women-owned businesses. It marked a major expansion of Women on the Move and a shift toward directly supporting female entrepreneurs as clients, in addition to JPMorganChase employees.

“It was exciting to come together with the business banking team to look at the data and see if we could do it,” says Saperstein. “And over three years, we met our goal.”

Saperstein and team also partnered with the retail bank to encourage more women to use Chase Mobile App’s auto save feature. Thanks in part to this collaboration, at the time, two million women had signed up for the tool, ultimately saving a combined $3.4 billion, and women continue to sign up and save through Autosave today.

She organized the first Women’s Leadership Day at Radio City Music Hall, and over the years helped bring in speakers for the annual event, including Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice, CEO of General Motors Mary Barra, and professional tennis player Naomi Osaka.

Saperstein knew the women’s initiative was a resounding success when male executives came to her. “They said, ‘I have a working daughter and wife, and I want to make the world a better place for them.’ Other men would tell me, ‘women on my team are leaving. I want to keep the best talent and give them opportunities.’ Those moments to me were a sign that we were seeing real change.”

Carrying the mission forward

Last summer, Saperstein left the firm to advise women founders and invest in their businesses. Her time at JPMorganChase continues to shape how she approaches her work today. The experience, she says, instilled both the discipline to dig deeply into problems, and the confidence that the skills she developed at the firm can travel anywhere.

“When you leave, you take not just the skills you’ve learned, but the fiber of the place with you,” she says. “And for me, that’s really about excellence.”

She’s currently on the board of Astia, a venture capital fund focused on companies with women in leadership. “I love helping founders, and I wanted the time to really devote myself to it,” she says. She spends her days advising founders on business fundamentals. Businesses she’s supported include the Upshot League, a new basketball league for women, and Latitude Food Allergy Care, a company that treats adults and children who have food allergies.

“It’s the portfolio life, which provides the flexibility to devote time to different initiatives,” she says, adding that she’d like to continue doing a podcast for women on careers and leadership. “What I hope is to continue to motivate and inspire women to keep moving forward and to reach for more.”