Sometimes JPMorgan executives receive emails from a colleague who signs off in all caps: JACK.
JACK, however, isn’t one person. It’s the shared identity of John China and Andrew Kresse, who co-lead the bank’s Innovation Economy team for founders and venture capital firms.
The nickname started as a practical solution, Kresse told Business Insider. “People kept on writing emails like, ‘Dear John and Andrew,'” he said. “And I was like, let’s not waste time. Let’s give them something easy.”
However, the acronym of their initials — John, Andrew, China, Kresse — also reflects the united leadership from the two very different bankers. A Silicon Valley veteran recruited from SVB and a nearly two-decade JPMorgan executive, they have spent the past year figuring out how to co-lead a fast-growing business.
Since Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and JPMorgan bought First Republic Bank, the firm has aggressively grown its Innovation Economy team. They’re competing with the likes of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Citi to bank startups from the earliest stage.
China became a leader on the team in 2023 after 27 years at Silicon Valley Bank, and Kresse became a co-head in 2025.
Together, they oversee more than 550 people advising more than 11,000 companies and are squarely focused on executing the long-term strategy and scaling the team. Part of that means undercutting the narrative that JPMorgan is best for established companies looking to go public.
“We want founders to understand that we’re here for them from the beginning, and that’s probably something that the industry doesn’t yet fully understand,” China said.
Growing JPMorgan’s startup business together
Though it started in 2016, the Innovation Economy business rapidly expanded from 2023 to last year, quadrupling its client base and hiring more than 200 bankers and leaders. The team banks companies pre-seed through $2 billion in revenue or an IPO, when they transition over to JPMorgan’s corporate banking team.
The two have built the business on opposite sides of the country. China is on the West Coast and brings decades of experience building relationships in the venture community. Kresse is on the East Coast and knows JPMorgan from his years expanding commercial banking internationally and his time as the CEO of Chase Business Banking.
“You have to divide and conquer, and you have to delegate,” Kresse said, especially on such a large and global team.
The leaders don’t have a highly structured way of communicating, but they’re always available by phone or email on days when they’re not physically together, Kresse said. Their conversations range from guiding the team and making hiring decisions, to brainstorming client solutions and tackling internal projects.
“We’re like a pair of coaches calling audibles as the game unfolds,” he said.
They often travel separately, and who goes where is dictated by their distinct strengths, but they always reference JACK, China added. When they’re not on the road, living on opposite coasts extends their joint workday.
As China sees it, the key to making joint leadership work, especially in such a fast-paced business, is to “always presume innocence.”
“Maybe someone gets left off an email or a team isn’t looped in quickly enough, and we assume positive intent,” he said.
In an email, he added that people “often think co-leadership means competition or confusion, but it’s really about collaboration.”
“Having two of us with different perspectives helps us solve problems, motivate our team,m and spend more time with them and with clients,” he said.
Before officially becoming co-leaders, the duo got to know each other partly through building out client advisory boards abroad, in Europe and Asia.
“I knew John was a good guy before we were co-heads, which is always the best thing: to have an informal relationship and partnership before anything formal,” Kresse said.
Their relationship extends beyond work. When they’re not talking business, Kresse said, they’re swapping stories about their kids — “John’s are a bit older, so I get to hear some of his lessons learned” — and trading friendly jabs over football. China roots for the Raiders; Kresse is a lifelong Bills fan.
An “athletic stance” for AI startups
No area of their business is moving faster than AI.
Though the Innovation Economy team banks companies across eight sectors — applied tech, health tech, and life sciences, to name a few — China and Kresse said they’ve never seen anything like the pace of the AI boom. There can be as many as 10 new AI companies in a week, Kresse said.
Their team isn’t responsible for picking winners and losers — they’ll work with companies opening their first checking account and companies getting ready to go public. China said the next generation of AI companies to keep an eye on are those building agents that will sit atop models.
It’s those founders who, if all goes well, will develop relationships with China and Kresse’s team, and, by extension, JPMorgan.
“We take an athletic stance,” China said about AI companies. His team is staying ready to support companies hoping to become the next OpenAI through their “accelerated growth.”
