J.P. Morgan just hired an information-warfare officer from the U.S. Navy

Not to be outdone, with banking rivals scooping up experienced cyber-security professional left and right from every industry imaginable, J.P. Morgan has tapped into the U.S. Navy’s talent pool, bringing on an information-warfare officer – a commander, no less.

A recent Deloitte report found that cyber-security talent continues to be in short supply, especially when it comes to quality hires in areas like advanced threat management. Banks are desperate to hire cyber-security professionals and a shortage of talent means they’re looking outside of the financial services industry. Goldman Sachs turned to the White House for its new cyber-security lead, while Morgan Stanley hired a counter-terrorism expert and BNP Paribas recruited from consulting.

J.P. Morgan recently hired Rod Dickerson, a senior U.S. Navy Reserve officer – a commander – with active Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) clearance and two decades of experience.

In the Navy, he was responsible for training, leading and mentoring military and civilian personnel who provide strategic and tactical analysis and data analytics to national-level senior information-warfare leaders worldwide in support of the U.S. military’s multinational operations.

Now Dickerson is an executive director of risk data management at J.P. Morgan responsible for data management, governance, reporting and analytics – above all, he’s tasked with keeping the bank’s trove of data safe from hackers and other types of potential breaches.

While that may seem like a major departure, he does have previous financial services experience. He worked as a principal enterprise architect at Huntington National Bank for five years. He worked a stint as a senior vice president of architecture at Bank of America before joining Nationwide Bank as its data governance leader and chief data steward. Most recently, he worked as a principal of data governance at ICC, a data analytics and technology firm.

Dickerson is based in Columbus, Ohio, and it is unclear whether J.P. Morgan will ask him to relocate.

J.P. Morgan also has 14 technology hubs across the world, which are typically based outside of major financial centers in locations such as Dallas, Houston, Mumbai, Glasgow and Bournemouth. Lori Beer, the chief information officer of J.P. Morgan’s corporate and investment bank, says that all of the bank’s technology teams now work in the sort of “high-performance workspaces” that tech pros expect.

If Dickerson is able to keep hackers at bay using his information-warfare experience he honed in the Navy, then Beer and CEO Jamie Dimon will be happy with his performance.

Photo credit: chapin31/GettyImages