Simon E. Bland is the Director of the Office of Business Liaison (OBL) within the Office of the Secretary. The primary mission of the office is to represent private sector interests through strategic engagement on behalf of the Secretary of Commerce.

The office liaises with the leadership of the 12 bureaus within the Department to keep a pulse on business engagement and seeks to build pro-active, responsive relationships with the business community.

Before his appointment at OBL, Mr. Bland was a Managing Director and Senior Banker at JPMorganChase in New York. He has extensive experience advising Fortune 500 CEOs and broad expertise in finance, relationship management, leading people, and the banking system. In addition to his client-facing responsibilities, Simon served as the co-Chairman of the JPMorgan Global Wealth Management Technology and Innovation Council, played an integral role in advancing and advocating client needs related to the development of new systems, and served on the steering committees for multiple large-scale projects. He concurrently served as a JPMorgan Chase Ambassador and was the firm-wide Executive Sponsor for recruiting at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Bland holds a Master’s degree in Intelligence from the American Military University and was issued the Department of Defense’s Intelligence Fundamentals Professional Certification by the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. He previously graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2016, Simon was selected to be a Presidential Leadership Scholar. He is a member of BENS (Business Executives for National Security) and an associate member of INSA (Intelligence and National Security Alliance) and AFIO (Association of Former Intelligence Officers). He lives in Washington D.C.