Former JPMorgan Lobbyist Joining Bank Policy Institute

Kate Childress, a longtime JPMorgan Chase & Co. lobbyist, is joining the Bank Policy Institute in September to run its advocacy and communications efforts.

Childress helped lead JPMorgan’s lobbying and regulatory efforts on the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. At the institute, she will be executive vice president and head of public affairs.

“I am delighted to have Kate joining us at BPI,” said the group’s CEO, Greg Baer, who previously worked with Childress at JPMorgan, according to Bloomberg. “With her experience, energy and judgment, she is uniquely positioned to help us build out the organization.”

The policy institute had originally hired Shahira Knight, a top Trump administration official, for the job — but Knight changed her mind last month, deciding to stay at the White House to head the legislative affairs office.

The institute was formed in July after a merger of two other financial trade groups, part of an industry attempt to streamline its lobbying and boost its power in Washington. Members include JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and SunTrust Banks.

Childress, a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, has spent 10 years at JPMorgan. Most recently, she was CEO Jamie Dimon’s point person at the Business Roundtable.

As JPMorgan loses one employee, it hired another in May: The head of Carnegie Mellon University’s machine learning department, Manuela Veloso, will take the helm as lead of the bank’s AI research team this summer.

“In this new role, Manuela will establish an AI research capability at JPMorgan, building on our reputation as Wall Street’s leading technology bank,” Sanoke Viswanathan, chief administrative officer for JPMorgan’s corporate and investment bank, wrote in a press release.

In addition, the bank’s healthcare initiative — launched with Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway — finally found its CEO in June. Well-regarded surgeon and author Atul Gawande will lead the new company, which aims to address healthcare for their U.S. employees, focusing on reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction.