Client: J.P. Morgan Private Bank
Project: Speculative brief: explore future-proofing wealth management solutions
Role: Service Designer
Background:
J.P. Morgan Private Bank's (JPMPB ) core demographic of high net worth individuals with a minimum of $10 million in investable assets, was ageing with a noticeable reduction in the size overall. With increased competition from newer wealth management platforms and a generational gap in the pipeline, the bank faced a structural problem: how do you future-proof a business built on relationships when the people you need to attract don't yet see themselves in your brand, or have even considered private banking services?
Working within the in-house design studio at LEAP, I was already embedded in the brand — managing communications across EMEA, APAC and LATAM with an understanding how the Private Bank spoke to its existing clients. That proximity made the strategic gap visible. The brand was authoritative, refined and trusted. But to a 30-year-old entrepreneur or a recent graduate on the ascent, it appears as closed and elitist.
The question became: what would it take to bring the next generation in before they were wealthy enough to qualify?
The service design process:
I approached this as a service design challenge using the Double Diamond framework; starting wide, before narrowing to two concepts that addressed different parts of the same problem.
In the discovery phase, the research pointed in a consistent direction. Future high net worth individuals weren't discovering private banks through financial advertising. They were forming opinions about prestige, exclusivity and aspiration through the brands they followed: luxury fashion houses, exclusive brand lifestyles, the art world and sporting pursuits like yachting, polo, tennis and F1 motorsport. The gap wasn't product — it was presence.
The define phase crystallised two distinct user profiles. The first was someone like a young founder, family business owner or creative entrepreneur; talented, ambitious, already building something, but not yet on the bank's radar. The second was someone whose wealth trajectory was more predictable: educated at the institutions that have historically produced high net worth (HNW) individuals, likely with family wealth already in play, wanting to establish their own financial identity rather than inherit one.
These two personas needed different pathways to the same destination.
Speculative brand identities
Concept 1 – Nebula
The first concept was Nebula: a boutique lifestyle sub-brand sitting adjacent to J.P. Morgan Private Bank, designed to attract and cultivate clients before they reached the $10M threshold. Rather than presenting itself as a financial product, Nebula would operate more like a luxury membership — with a presence at F1, Paris Fashion Week and the broader world of culture and sport that aspirational audiences already inhabit.
The service blueprint mapped how this would work in practice: lifestyle event touchpoints and a dedicated app at the front stage; wealth coaches and a customer relationship management (CRM) tracking client readiness in the background; and a graduation mechanism that moved clients seamlessly into Private Bank when the time was right. The brand would be kept visually and tonally distinct from JPMPB; approachable enough to attract, premium enough to retain.
Concept 2 – The Elite Pipeline
The second concept addressed the more predictable pipeline: individuals at elite schools and universities who were statistically likely to become high net worth clients within a decade. Rather than waiting for them to arrive, JPMPB would go to them through campus advisors at institutions like Eton, Harrow, Oxford, Harvard and Yale; through scholarships and internships that created genuine relationship rather than simply brand exposure. Also through mentoring that would give these individuals something they actually wanted: access, challenge and peer recognition.
Both routes converged on the same outcome to a younger, broader and more sustainable client base for J.P. Morgan Private Bank; built through services rather than marketing.
Brand environments and touchpoints
Outcome:
Both the sub-brand Nebula and The Elite Pipeline programme represent a strategic shift from acquisition to cultivation: meeting future clients where they are and on their own terms whilst building the kind of trust that takes years to earn. The work brought together service design methodology and brand thinking with a deep understanding of how private banking actually functions.
It demonstrated that the most effective way to grow a private bank's future isn't to rely on outdated perceptions and elitist associations, but to exist where the young talent is and to partner with them to realise their own ambition.
