Sri Shivananda named new JPMorgan chief technology officer

Former Indian American PayPal executive with a track record to help JPMorgan “tackle complex technological challenges”

By DesiMax Wire

JPMorgan Chase has hired former PayPal executive Sri Shivananda as its new chief technology officer (CTO). Indian American official tasked with deploying some of its $17 billion tech budget, will start later this month, according to a media report.

He will succeed A.J. Lang, who announced his plans to retire earlier this year, Reuters reported citing a company memo. He will report to Lori Beer, the bank’s global chief information officer (CIO), who also sits on the operating committee.

The new executive has a track record of business growth and innovation that will help JPMorgan to “tackle complex technological challenges,” Beer wrote.

Shivananda served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of PayPal Holdings, Inc., a global leader in digital payment technologies.

Prior to PayPal, he served as Vice President of Global Platform and Infrastructure of eBay, Inc., a publicly traded global e-commerce company, from November 2013 until June 2015, and prior to that, in other positions during his 14-year tenure with eBay.

Shivananda holds a Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in India, and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio University, Russ College of Engineering.

JPMorgan also recruited two senior leaders from Amazon recently. Manoj Sindhwani was brought in as CIO for its chief data and analytics office in April to design and create data and AI platforms, while Darrin Alves was hired as CIO for infrastructure platforms, including its public cloud, last year.

Tech workers comprise 20% of the bank’s global workforce of almost 312,000 employees. Implementing AI could add about $1 billion to $1.5 billion in value for the bank, executives told investors at a company presentation in May.

“Improving the efficiency of both our software engineering and our physical infrastructure is a top priority with the end goal being to get maximum productivity out of tech dollars,” while also attracting talent, Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum said in May.