Marcus von Kapff’s knowledge of Detroit’s formerly byzantine permitting process for opening a small business has come in surprisingly handy in his new role at JPMorgan.
Von Kapff spent two decades at JPMorgan before becoming Detroit’s chief operating officer in 2024, and is now back to work on the firm’s Security & Resilience Initiative, a $1.5 trillion effort to boost industries seen as strategically important to the US.
Many of the SRI team’s projects rely on coordination between the government and private industries, and von Kapff said his time in the public sector has positioned him uniquely well to do that work. He rejoined the firm this summer as head of advanced manufacturing, overseeing a team that supports companies building cutting-edge products, like specialized sensors or industrial equipment.
“I have a lot more empathy for understanding the roles that they play and how hard these jobs are,” von Kapff said about government officials.
He didn’t expect to return to JPMorgan — when asked, von Kapff said no with a loud, halfway shocked laugh — but said he was compelled by SRI’s mission and that “timing is everything.” Conversations with former colleagues, who assured him that the effort had the support of CEO Jamie Dimon, convinced him to join the roughly 30-person team.
Von Kapff previously held a range of management positions at JPMorgan, including CFO of the commercial bank. In Detroit, he said he drew on the problem-solving and trust-building skills he developed at the firm to reform housing zoning laws, grow public transportation, and secure government funds for infrastructure investments.
Now, he spends his days meeting with internal stakeholders and government officials to raise capital and address problems in the advanced manufacturing sector. It’s an unexpected return to his roots: Von Kapff studied mechanical engineering in college and sold factory automation equipment in Pennsylvania and New Jersey after graduating.
Solving the “knotty problems”
Though von Kapff is a relative newcomer to SRI, the team has been in place for nearly a year. As of late September, it had financed more than $200 billion, and the strategic investment group had deployed more than $4 billion in equity. The team’s work involves more stakeholders than is typical in banking and requires balancing the firm’s commercial needs with the country’s interests. Von Kapff is focused on figuring out how bankers’ energy infrastructure deals, for example, can also boost the US manufacturing base.
Yet more than anything, von Kapff focused on structural issues, like the “knotty problems of workforce,” partly because the advanced manufacturing sector will face a 3.8 million-person worker shortage, according to JPMorgan’s research. In June, SRI hosted a summit in Detroit focused in part on job growth and on how Michigan’s industrial companies can help scale domestic supply chains.
As Detroit’s COO, von Kapff said he gained a new appreciation for the importance of a stable, well-paying job, which now informs everything he does.
“If I have a long, hard day, and I’m kind of like, ‘Why am I doing this again?’ I just think about how if it leads to a good job back in Michigan or Detroit, it’s worth it,” he said.
He has plenty of travel time to mull over snarled supply chains — von Kapff has been to Washington, DC, three times in his first eight weeks on the job.
A unique perspective
Von Kapff has relied on his time in Detroit when working on public-private partnerships, a cornerstone of SRI’s work. When the team is negotiating these deals, von Kapff said he can provide political context, which has “been material.”
“I just look at the problem from another angle,” he said. “I now understand the incentive systems and the motivations from the public side that I might not have known before.”
Beyond being able to look at deals from the other side, von Kapff has helped facilitate work and events in Michigan and is actively working on public-private partnerships across the US.
His local work, however, is only relevant to an extent. Figuring out how to simplify the permitting process for small business owners in Detroit, for example, provides an intellectual skeleton for SRI’s internal permitting task force, but leaves gaps.
“I know I can get it done, but that was just at a city level,” von Kapff said. “Trying to do something similar at the federal level is going to be hard, but I’m up for it.”
