Justin Nelson of JP Morgan on the Leadership Skill Finance Schools Don’t Teach

The finance industry runs a demanding recruitment machine. Candidates are screened for GPA, grilled on valuation models, and ranked by the prestige of their undergraduate institution. What rarely gets tested in that process is the skill Justin Nelson says separates the advisors who build lasting careers from those who plateau.

“I think that having insight into how people think and emotional connection is so important in finance,” says Nelson, Managing Director and Head of the Asset Management and Financial Principals Coverage Team for J.P. Morgan Private Bank in Connecticut. “When I’m out looking to hire people, I actually couldn’t care less what your major is. I’m just looking for the right fit and a strong interest in finance.”

It’s a stance that cuts against the grain of an industry long associated with technical gatekeeping. But Nelson, who has spent nearly three decades at J.P. Morgan building and managing a team that oversees more than $15 billion in client assets, has come to see emotional intelligence as a core professional requirement, not a soft add-on.

The Skill the Curriculum Skips

Finance programs teach discounted cash flow analysis, portfolio theory, and credit risk. They don’t teach advisors how to sit with a family making decisions about a deceased parent’s estate, or how to hold a client’s trust through a difficult market conversation. Nelson lives in exactly that territory every day.

“People are very emotional about their personal money,” he says, “and so you get to know people really well.”

He’s not alone in identifying this gap. A 2025 LinkedIn survey found that 57% of senior leaders now value soft skills more than hard skills, citing communication, adaptability, and problem-solving as their top priorities. A 2025 survey by TestGorilla found that 78% of employers had hired someone with strong technical skills who failed anyway due to a lack of interpersonal skills or cultural fit.

For Nelson, the application goes well beyond client-facing work. He uses the same lens when thinking about what his team needs day to day. Fifty percent of his job, he says, involves listening to and understanding people, trying to figure out what they actually need rather than what they’re asking for.

Why This Matters More Now

The financial services industry is undergoing a generational shift in what clients expect from their advisors. The model that worked for the previous generation, built largely on investment performance and product knowledge, is being tested by clients who want something broader.

Nelson describes the change directly. J.P. Morgan’s work has broadened from managing assets for individual principals to managing relationships across entire families. Advisors now need to operate across different personalities, generations, and emotional registers, sometimes in the same room.

“We have shifted from working with principals to principals and their families,” he says. “Their kids are part of the conversation now.”

That expansion of scope puts a premium on judgment, patience, and the ability to hold trust over long stretches of time. None of those skills appear on a CFA exam.

How He Hires for It

Nelson says the clearest signal he gets from a candidate isn’t their academic record. He’s watching how they carry themselves in conversation, how curious they are, and whether they seem genuinely interested in understanding people.

Psychology, he says, is the discipline he sees most among candidates who catch his attention. Not because of what the degree signals, but because of what studying human behavior teaches. At J.P. Morgan, a firm that employs more than 40,000 technology professionals, the demand for analytical horsepower is not going away. Analysis alone, Nelson argues, has never been what separates the best advisors from the rest.

The CFA Institute’s 2025 Graduate Outlook Survey found that half of finance students now rank specialized skills over connections, internships, or university prestige as the most important factor for career advancement. That’s a real shift in priorities. But Nelson would argue the market is still catching up to what the job actually requires.

For Justin Nelson, the question isn’t whether someone can run a financial model. Running the model is table stakes. Using it in the service of a relationship that lasts 20 years — that’s the job.