#11 Diana Starcher

No one who ever set foot in Diana Starcher's office could possibly be left in any doubt as to her management style. Prominently displayed on the wall is her motto: "Aim low: boring. Aim high: soaring."

As a daughter of the South, she may be coy about her age but she's far from shy about being demanding and setting high standards for her staff, and makes no apologies for that. The mitigating factor, however, is that she places even higher demands and standards on herself.

She has certainly lived her credo. Over a 26-year career with Wells Fargo she's "soared" to the high reaches of management. Starcher is now responsible for more than 11,400 staff over several major business units with operations in 28 states and a combined 2008 budget of $1.1 billion.

Reporting directly to CEO John Stumpf, she oversees myriad areas critical to the bank's functioning, including multiple call centers, and payment, check and statement processing, to name just a few. Her areas directly support the bank's wholesale as well as retail operations, and are integral to contributing to the bank's bottom line.

Starcher's areas of responsibility are technology-driven and she's put Wells Fargo at the forefront of banking industry transitions to ever more efficient operations through the adoption of new technologies. She's overseen Wells Fargo's strategy of replacing paper-based processing and storage with electronic imaging. Wells Fargo was first to introduce innovations such as envelope-free deposits at automated teller machines. She's also overseen the enormously complex effort of consolidating operations and call centers.

Perhaps most significantly, she's been the driving force behind developing cross-selling throughout the bank's sales and customer service channels, transforming the culture of the bank.

Starcher sits on Wells Fargo's high-level managing committee, as well as the bank's ethics committee.

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