The Infatuation: Both Sides of the Table

Context

In 2021 JPMorgan Chase acquired The Infatuation, Zagat included, to make the Chase Dining thesis permanent. I helped build Chase Dining around it from the bank’s side; now I lead product here.

Goal

Integrate onto the firm’s rails and prove return, while the brand and its audience keep growing. Both, or it failed.

Problem

An acquired brand inside a bank fails two ways: absorb it and kill what was bought, or leave it alone and never prove return.

Constraints

• Trust, twice: bank-grade controls and reader-grade honesty.
• Tech: a startup’s stack meeting the firm’s rails without freezing the roadmap.
• Brand: grow its own audience while serving the dining strategy.
• Org: editorial, product, engineering and bank in blended roles.

Options Considered

1. Option A: absorb — run it as a bank channel. Full control, dead moat.
2. Option B: preserve in amber. Living brand, unprovable return.
3. Option C: integrate the rails, protect the voice.

Decision

Option C. The line is drawn at the voice: everything beneath it integrates, nothing above it does. Holding it spans product, design and technology — the case for a blended role.

The Mechanism

Metrics

• Primary: discovery that converts to dining.
• Guardrails: editorial integrity absolute; the firm’s standards without exception.
• Strategic: the brand’s own growth.

Risks & Mitigations

• The voice erodes a compromise at a time → the line written down, held by product.
• Integration freezes the roadmap → transform and deliver in parallel.
• Measured like a bank product → return framed on the acquisition’s terms.

Where It Stands

Live: the platform integrating to the firm’s standards while the brand grows as itself.