Chase CIO: "Don't be afraid to make changes"

As Chase Bank’s chief information officer, Gill Haus (pictured) guides efforts to build and sustain a technology infrastructure designed to boost the product experience for more than 66 million households. Such a job creates plenty of opportunity for boldness, he said.

“I’d give this advice to any technologist regardless of their level within an organization: Embrace discomfort. Take on the role you are intimidated by, set stretch goals and don’t be afraid to make changes,” Haus recommended. “Technologists should work to evolve professionally, just like the technology we all use changes on a regular basis.”

It’s no secret that Chase Bank is a massive operation. As the consumer banking arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co. it provides a wide range of financial products and services for individual businesses and is one of the largest full-service banks in the US. Haus is one of the key executives who help keep technology operations both running and improving. He became CIO in September 2021, after starting at Chase as Managing Director and Head of Digital Technology in March 2020.

Read more: Chase eyes millennial homebuyers with new credit card points program

Haus has more than 12,000 people at Chase under his purview, with a focus on building and maintaining technology in areas including mortgages, personal banking, credit cards, auto financing, investment advice, small business loans and payment processing.

Technology is a huge priority at the company, Haus said. JPMorgan Chase spends more than $12 billion annually on tech, of which $4 billion is dedicated to Chase, he said, with the money focused on meeting customers’ digital financial needs.

“We have 60.2 million digitally active customers that are using our mobile app and website to manage their financial lives, helping them do everything from making payments, saving, investing, getting a mortgage, booking travel and more,” Haus said. “Our team’s main goal is to deploy technology in a way that both helps our employees better serve our customers and our customers make the most of their money whether they choose to interact with us in a branch, on the phone or digitally.”

Challenges of change

Chase has been modernizing its technology operations and approach for several years now, which Haus said has been both challenging and rewarding at the same time.

“We have been moving away from the legendary, heritage mainframes that have run some of our core banking offerings for decades,” Haus said. “We’re moving it all into cloud native, digital centric capabilities. From an engineering, product, and customer experience perspective, it’s an exciting time to rethink how we manage our core banking experience at scale.”

One of the key parts has been to focus on technology that enables customers to do as much as they want digitally, including buying their homes. Haus mentioned the Chase MyHome platform as one example of how the company addresses this, letting customers view personalized offers, access loan options including product and pricing, and search for properties, among other tasks.

“The benefit of technology like this is that customers receive personalized insights that help them meet their home lending needs, as well as access to resources and information that help them make smarter decisions across their home lending” process, Haus said.

On a broader level, Chase has worked to make its digital transactions and products more agile, with collaboration between departments.

“Today our tech teams work hand-in-hand with our product, data & analytics and design teams to build products like Chase MyHome,” Haus said. “We work closely across all aspects of our day-to-day objectives… [and] can build and deploy tech that is truly customer-backed and centered around their preferences through our unified efforts.”

Read next: Moody's lowers assessment on JPMorgan Chase Bank as prime jumbo residential originator

Technology that helps deliver customer-centered products is key right now to every mortgage and bank lender, Haus said. Chase meets this goal through the cloud.

“We do this with a set of cloud-based microservices that … advance the modern architecture required to enable customer-centered digital banking,” Haus said. “This tech enables speed and agility for designing and delivering customer-centered products and features at scale.”

Boldness has benefits

Haus argues that technologists at any level at a bank or mortgage company should not hesitate to pursue change, even if they have uncertainty along the way. The benefits, he said, can be widespread.

“By being agile, you’ll be able to learn and grow professionally, and if you’re unsure of how to do something, read up on it and don’t be afraid to ask for help,” Haus said. “When you ask questions, you make it a safe space for others, across all levels of your organization, to ask questions. Ultimately, this helps foster even more collaboration across your team.”