Zames will serve in an unpaid advisory role and will join his former JPMorgan Chase colleague Frank Bisignano, who is the Social Security commissioner, according to the report.
The Social Security Administration did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.
According to the CNBC report, Zames led technology and cost-cutting initiatives at JPMorgan Chase during his five years as the bank’s COO.
Later, Zames became president of private equity firm Cerberus, where he oversaw tech investments, and then started an advisory and restructuring firm, per the report.
Zames has also served on advisory groups at the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, according to the report.
As a special government employee, Zames will be limited to 130 days in his role at the Social Security Administration, though those days could be spread over a longer period of time because he will not be a full-time employee, per the report.
Bisignano’s nomination to lead the Social Security Administration was approved by the U.S. Senate in May 2025. Bisignano had most recently been CEO of Fiserv since 2020.
During a Senate Finance Committee hearing on his nomination, Bisignano pledged to improve the Social Security Administration’s efficiency and reduce its error rate.
“Fundamentally, Social Security is a payments-based, customer-facing program,” Bisignano said. “On the phone, I’m committed to reducing wait times and providing beneficiaries with a better experience. Waiting 20-minutes-plus to get an answer will be [a thing] of yesteryear.”
Ahead of that hearing, Bisignano said he planned to tap artificial intelligence to find Social Security fraud.
“The objective is not to touch benefits,” Bisignano said in a TV interview. “The objective is to figure out, there could be fraud, waste and abuse in there. And we build AI to find fraud, waste and abuse for a living. It’s going to be a tech story.”
The Social Security Administration said in a June press release that over the past year, the agency has made double-digit improvements in all client-facing service metrics.
