Forging her own path: Michelle Conklin’s journey from Cold War Belarus to a career in leadership

“We packed up our entire lives into a couple of suitcases,” Michelle Conklin recalls. “I vividly remember standing by our house, saying goodbye to our relatives. As a child, you’re not quite sure how to wrap your head around going across the ocean to a completely new world.”

Conklin immigrated from Belarus to the United States in 1989 at seven years old. Today, she is a Managing Director at JPMorganChase, leading Global Receivables and Public Sector Product and Operations.

The journey from Belarus to the United States was neither direct nor easy, but it instilled the adaptability and resilience that would later define her leadership. Before being approved to immigrate, Conklin and her parents followed a path common to many Soviet refugees, spending time in Austria and Italy, where they awaited processing and resettlement. Their eventual arrival in the Chicago suburbs during a sweltering August marked both the end of a long journey and the beginning of a new chapter, in a climate and culture vastly different from the world they had left behind.

“The first two words I remember learning in English were parking and banana,” Conklin says. “After growing up in the Soviet Union, where shortages were a reality of life under communism, something as simple as a banana represented possibility. It was one of my earliest reminders that we were beginning a very different chapter.”

Learning to Decode the Unfamiliar

Conklin entered second grade unable to speak English and without ESL support. While her parents worked tirelessly to establish themselves in a new country, she learned to navigate an unfamiliar world largely on her own. Her father commuted 15 miles by bicycle; he had found it in the trash, to a job sweeping floors at a local commercial bakery. Years later, that same job would lead to a partnership stake in the business, a testament to the resilience, determination, and belief in opportunity that defined her family's journey. Those values became the foundation upon which they built their American dream.

At school, ordinary differences could quickly become isolating. She sometimes wore the same outfit on consecutive days because daily wardrobe changes had not been the norm in the resource-scarce Soviet Union. Her mother packed salami for lunch while classmates ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

“I’m opening a stinky lunch box while everyone else is snacking on PB&J sandwiches, chips, and fruit snacks,” she recalls.

A defining moment came at the chalkboard. When her teacher asked her to erase a specific portion of the board, Conklin misunderstood and erased the entire thing. The class laughed as the teacher told her to stop.

“The teacher’s telling me to stop, the entire class is laughing, and I’m crying,” she says.

The experience was painful for a seven year old, but it changed the way Conklin approached the unknown. She learned to observe closely, decode ambiguity, adjust in real time, and keep moving even when she did not have all the information.

Creativity Born from Constraint

Conklin’s creativity did not begin with a crisis, but rather with the daily work of adapting: learning a new language without formal support, recognizing unspoken cultural cues, and finding ways to connect when familiar reference points no longer applied. Those experiences taught her that creativity is not limited to generating new ideas. Rather, it is the discipline of observing what a situation requires, using the resources available, and pivoting quickly when the first approach does not work.

That same mindset shaped her early career. At 22, Conklin joined JPMorganChase directly out of college and accepted an overnight leadership role managing 30 processing professionals, many two to three times her age. She could not rely on tenure or a conventional management formula. Instead, she studied the human dynamics of the team and tailored her leadership to the people in front of her.

“In order for me to thrive in a completely foreign environment, I had to understand what drove every single person,” she explains.

She recognized that the operational challenges of an overnight workforce were inseparable from employees’ personal realities and family responsibilities. Years of navigating unfamiliar situations had taught her that understanding comes before influence. By listening carefully, bridging cultural differences, and remaining relatable, she found practical ways to lead a team whose experience and circumstances differed significantly from her own.

This became a repeatable leadership approach: question assumptions, look beyond the obvious problem, and connect people, resources, and ideas in ways that produce a workable solution. Rather than waiting for perfect information or a prescribed answer, Conklin learned to create momentum through observation, empathy, and action.

A Leadership Style Tested Under Pressure

When the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted workplaces around the world, Conklin relied on the same leadership instincts that had guided her throughout her career.

As much of JPMorganChase’s workforce transitioned to remote work, the manual lockbox processing business led by Conklin remained essential and on site. Between 3,500 and 4,500 employees reported to operations sites each day, despite rapidly changing safety guidelines and personal circumstances . Processing global receivables was critical to helping companies pay employees and continue serving their own clients.

The crisis exposed a gap between quickly evolving employee needs and the protocols designed to support them. Conklin focused on the underlying problem instead of allowing established processes to define the response.

“Our employees were making real-time decisions about how to support their families while continuing to show up to work for our clients,” she says. “Some found that by the end of their shift, basic necessities had disappeared from store shelves. For those who had lived through shortages in the former Soviet Union, it brought back memories they never expected to experience again.”

When internal resources could not move at the speed the situation required, Conklin drew on an unconventional network – her father. Now a partner in a large commercial bakery (the same one he started sweeping floors upon arrival to the U.S.), he identified suppliers to provide staples in bulk. Conference rooms and garages were converted into food pantries and refrigerators were sourced to store staples. Employees received groceries and household essentials, including toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, peanut butter, and dry goods.

The team also adapted continuously as public health guidance evolved. Workspaces were reconfigured, protective barriers installed, distancing measures implemented, testing protocols incorporated as they became available. Site practices changed repeatedly as new information emerged. The work required speed, judgment, and constant recalibration.

These actions were not isolated acts of improvisation. They reflected a leadership method built over decades: understand the real need, work with the resources at hand, move quickly, and keep adjusting as conditions change.

The Through Line

The experience also reinforced one of Conklin's beliefs about leadership: people can move quickly when they're trusted to exercise judgment. “I was given full autonomy to make whatever decision I needed,” she says. "Once we understood the magnitude of what we were dealing with and the impact on our employees and clients, I was never told no. Never."

But the larger story is not about the pandemic. It is about the experiences that prepared Conklin to lead through it, and the belief that continues to guide her today: barriers can become opportunities when leaders are willing to see possibilities others may overlook.

Through programs such as Autism at Work and Second-Chance hiring, Conklin has helped create pathways for people whose potential might otherwise have been overlooked. For her, these efforts are more than workforce initiatives; they reflect a belief that talent often emerges when someone is given an opportunity and trusted to succeed. It is a principle rooted in her own experience and one she now seeks to extend to others.

Whether developing talent or transforming businesses, Conklin's approach remains consistent: challenge assumptions, focus on the underlying problem, and remain open to possibilities others may not yet see. That mindset has helped drive the adoption of automation, robotics, and machine learning to reimagine highly manual processes once considered fixed constraints.

At its core, her leadership is grounded in a simple belief: there will not always be a roadmap, and waiting for one can become its own risk. Progress depends on the ability to read the situation, make informed decisions, and adapt as conditions change.

The circumstances have changed throughout Conklin’s life, but the lesson has remained constant: when the path forward is uncertain, leadership means having the courage to create it.