Not every talent problem in financial services requires a new compensation package or a broader recruiting radius. Sometimes it requires looking at a group of candidates that the industry has quietly been turning away for years. That is the argument Justin Nelson, Managing Director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank, has been making in conversations about neurodiverse hiring and workforce inclusion.
Strong Candidates, Wrong Process
Nelson leads a team at J.P. Morgan overseeing more than $15 billion in assets, and his position gives him a credible vantage point on what high performance actually looks like. He is direct about the qualities neurodiverse candidates bring. “Usually what that means is that while they may have a harder time connecting and communicating, they’re exceptional in other areas. They can be extremely creative and have amazing computational skills which far exceed the norm,” Nelson explains.
The disconnect is that the standard interview, which dominates hiring across the financial sector, is precisely the format where these strengths go unseen. Conversational fluency is not predictive of analytical output, yet it often determines who moves forward and who is screened out. Justin Nelson JP Morgan sees this as a correctable design flaw, not an inherent limitation of the candidates.
Building Systems That Work
Once neurodiverse employees join a team, Nelson argues, the management relationship becomes the key variable. He describes his own approach as fundamentally task-specific: define the work clearly, explain how it connects to the larger objective, and provide the contextual scaffolding that allows employees to direct their focus effectively. “If you can lay out the rules and know how to work and communicate with that group of people, you probably have some of your best employees,” he says.
For JP Morgan’s Justin Nelson, the charitable work he does alongside his banking career reinforces these principles. His involvement with Broad Futures, which connects neurodiverse candidates with employment-ready companies, and with Adelphi University’s Bridges Program, which supports neurodiverse students through higher education, reflects the same conviction: that the barriers are structural and that the right intervention at the right moment can change outcomes dramatically. Financial firms willing to make those interventions will find that they have been overlooking some of the strongest talent available. See related link for additional information.
Find more information about Justin Nelson JP Morgan on https://tfn.tufts.edu/blog/news/2011/10/01/member-spotlight-justin-nelson-a98-opening-doors-to-students-at-jp-morgan/