Hiring
JPMorganChase said Wednesday, Oct. 21, that it plans to increase its business banker coverage in Atlanta by 11% over the next five years and is making a $10 million long-term, low-cost loan to ACE | Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs, a Georgia community development financial institution that lends to small businesses.
The bank announced the plans at its Chase for Business Make Your Move Summit in Atlanta. It did not say how many business bankers it employs in the Atlanta market today, so the 11% figure cannot be turned into a number of new positions, and the release gives no hiring timeline beyond the five-year window.
The loan to ACE
The $10 million is a loan to ACE, not a grant, and not money that goes directly to businesses. ACE is expected to use it to finance approximately 70 small-business loans across Georgia, with at least $7.5 million to be deployed in metro Atlanta, according to the bank. Those are targets for future lending; the release does not identify any borrowers or loans already made.
Martina Edwards, ACE’s president and chief executive, called the financing “the largest single investment of lending capital in our 26-year history.” The bank said it previously gave ACE $75,000 in philanthropic grant support for its small-business advisory services, its Women’s Business Center and other programs.
ACE says on its website that it began in rural North Georgia and keeps its main operations office in Cleveland, Ga., with an Atlanta office and offices in Norcross and Tifton. Chase described it as supporting small businesses that include those in low-income and high-poverty urban and rural areas.
Michelle Egan, head of credit solutions in JPMorganChase’s Impact Finance group, said many small businesses “may not be at the right stage of their journey to access financing through traditional channels,” and that strengthening community lenders helps them reach flexible capital.
Bankers and coaching
The bank said business bankers work directly with business owners on access to capital, resources and connections. Separately, Chase for Business plans to grow its team of senior business consultants nationwide, including in Atlanta, to expand its Coaching for Impact program, which offers free one-on-one consulting, executive coaching and on-demand education.
More than 15,000 business owners nationally have graduated from that program since its launch, including more than 450 from Atlanta, the bank said. It aims to graduate more than 700 Atlanta-based business owners and entrepreneurs over the next five years. The release does not say how many consultants will be added in Atlanta.
Stevie Baron, chief executive of Chase for Business, said the goal is to connect Atlanta entrepreneurs “to capital, coaching and tools that help them grow and hire.”
The bank's Atlanta footprint
JPMorganChase said it has more than 110 branches in Atlanta serving 1.4 million customers and 165,000 small businesses, and that it has provided more than $185 billion in credit and capital to Georgia businesses since 2021. The plans are part of the firm’s American Dream Initiative, which includes a goal of serving 10 million small businesses nationwide over the next several years, up from 7 million today.
The bank also said it has committed more than $9 million in philanthropic capital to Atlanta small businesses over the past five years, supporting more than 2,500 businesses and helping create or retain more than 1,500 jobs in the city. That figure combines created and retained jobs and is the bank’s own estimate.
What it means for job seekers and owners
For job seekers, the clearest employment signal is the planned growth in business banker and consultant roles, though the bank has not published a count, and any openings would appear on its own careers site rather than through the announcement.
For small-business owners, the loan expands the pool of capital available through ACE, a lender that serves businesses that may not qualify for conventional bank credit. Whether that capital leads to new hiring at borrowing firms will depend on the individual loans and businesses, and the bank made no projection of jobs tied to the $10 million.
Sources
- JPMorganChase, “JPMorganChase Expands Support for Atlanta Small Businesses through Hiring, Coaching and a $10M Loan to Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs,” October 21, 2026. https://media.chase.com/news/jpmc-expands-atlanta-smb-support
- ACE | Access to Capital for Entrepreneurs, “About,” accessed October 22, 2026. https://aceloans.org/about/
Featured photo: A Chase Bank branch in Knoxville, Tennessee, photographed Nov. 1, 2025. Representative image; not an Atlanta branch. Photo: Harrison Keely, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0). Cropped from the original.
