IonQ Hires Quantum Veteran From JPMorgan

IonQ said quantum-computing veteran Marco Pistoia was joining the company. (COURTESY IONQ)

IonQ is a rising star in the quantum world, and its reputation is burnished by pulling in an industry veteran into its orbit to oversee partnerships.

IonQ said Monday that Marco Pistoia had joined as senior vice president of industry relations. Pistoia hails most recently from JPMorgan Chase , where he headed the bank’s applied research and quantum computing division since 2020.

Barron’s connected with Pistoia earlier this year after the bank published the results of an experiment conducted with Quantinuum, the quantum-computing company majority-owned by Honeywell, and two federally backed research lab. As part of that study, JPMorgan scientists crafted an algorithm to generate random numbers, which ran on a Quantinuum machine.

“Quantum has this incredible promise of achieving very powerful computational capability,” Pistoia told Barron’s at the time. “With a quantum computer, you will eventually be able to solve problems more efficiently and more accurately than any classical supercomputer. The experiment that we published is just the tip of the iceberg.”

While working at IBM Research in 2018, Pistoia learned JPMorgan was hiring engineers and mathematicians to test International Business Machines’ quantum computer prototypes. This struck him as “exciting” and served as a testament to the bank’s enthusiasm for the technology, which was still in its infancy. Just a few years later, Pistoia found himself “on the JPMorgan Chase side of the game,” where he oversaw research across several fields of technology.

Marco Pisotoia previously worked at JPMorgan Chase and IBM Research. Photo: COURTESY JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.

“I officially concluded my time at JPMorgan Chase two days ago and began an exciting new chapter yesterday, without skipping a beat,” Pistoia wrote Thursday in a LinkedIn post. “I am profoundly grateful for the insights and knowledge I gained from this incredible group.”

The new role marks a departure from Pistoia’s past as a researcher. Instead, he will focus on “driving partnerships, collaborations, and advocacy efforts to advance IonQ’s position within the quantum computing and quantum networking sectors,” the company said.

Shares have rocketed 441% over the past 12 months. However, most of those big gains came before 2025, and shares are up just 2.7% so far this year. As IonQ and peers have yet to turn a profit, they trade largely on headlines, which have caused shares to swing wildly.

IonQ notched record intraday and closing gains in May after CEO Niccolo de Masi said he saw the company becoming “the Nvidia player” in the quantum computing space. In a statement Monday, de Masi said the company was “thrilled” to welcome Pistoia to its ranks.

“Marco has long been one of the most influential figures in applied quantum computing and quantum networking,” de Masi said, nodding to the company’s main areas of focus. Pistoia’s extensive record in areas including quantum cryptography and algorithms “makes him an ideal fit for IonQ’s mission” the CEO continued.

The stock reversed earlier gains and fell 0.7% to $42.87 following the announcement Monday. Shares of peers were mixed. Rigetti Computing was up 2.6% while D-Wave Quantum, and Quantum Computing slipped 2%, and 0.9%, respectively.

Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com