No. 14: Susan Skerritt, Deutsche Bank

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    Deutsche Bank hired Susan Skerritt just last year to run global transaction banking for the Americas, but her influence at the company is already being felt globally.

    September 22
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    September 22
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Susan Skerritt
Head of Global Transaction Banking Americas, Deutsche Bank

Susan Skerritt is intent on advancing the careers of women. When she joined Deutsche Bank as head of global transaction banking for the Americas two years ago, the business unit's executive committee was made up of five men and one woman. As part of a broader plan to break down silos and improve communication across the bank, she expanded the executive committee to include representatives from human resources, finance and global technology, and now that committee has far more gender balance: six women and five men.

Skerritt also created a senior women's leadership group within Deutsche Bank North America. The first-of-its kind group is made up of 12 high-ranking women and its mission is to improve diversity within male-dominated business lines at the bank.

Skerritt was recruited from the Bank of New York Mellon to improve the transaction banking unit's performance, and she has certainly done that. Thanks largely to a cross-selling campaign she implemented early on, revenue was up for 2014. Perhaps more notably, her unit generated a larger share of Deutsche's transaction banking revenue worldwide in the first quarter than it did a year earlier.

Skerritt's stature has risen sharply since joining Deutsche. She regularly gets invited to deliver keynote speeches at major industry conferences and at times even fills in for Deutsche Bank's North American CEO, Jacques Brand, at meetings of the Supervisory Board of the Clearing House. Her commitments outside of work include serving on the boards of trustees for the Brooklyn Hospital Center and for Hamilton College, her alma mater.

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