Joel Berg

Only six years ago, KeyBank was nowhere to be found in a ranking of the top 25 banks for lending to developers of affordable housing. Last year, under the leadership of Angela Mago, the bank finished in the No. 2 spot, sandwiched between Citi at No. 1 and JP Morgan Chase at No. 3, according to Affordable Housing Finance.

As a technology executive for PNC Bank, Deborah Guild has long been helping women blaze career pathways in the business world. Now she's helping them in what seems a most unlikely field: auto racing.

Maria Hackley, managing director and global co-head of industrials, banking, capital markets and advisory at Citi, understands how crucial it is for bankers to create strong, original content to distinguish themselves during client presentations.

One of the basic assumptions of the wealth management industry is that investing professionals should be based in the same cities as their clients. Gunjan Kedia asked her team at U.S. Bancorp to challenge that belief.

Like its peers, PNC Bank has stepped up investments in technology over the last few years. But Charlotte McLaughlin feels the bank can move faster in the capital markets group she leads.

Suni Harford ran into several obstacles after she set out to boost the number of women serving on the boards that oversee funds managed by UBS Asset Management.

As a child, Lynn Martin nurtured her love of technology and coding on a Commodore 64 in her parents' home in Smithtown, New York. But it was not until her first job in coding that she felt the pull of Wall Street.

When Abigail Johnson, the chair and CEO of Fidelity Investments, was recently asked to advise those in the early stages of their career, she emphasized the core values that she and her firm have embraced for decades. "Don't doubt yourself. Keep at it. Stay looking ahead. Stay committed and stay true to yourself," she said.

The team at JPMorgan Chase's asset and wealth management division crunched the numbers on diversity at the end of 2021 and found that portfolio managers who are women and/or people of color manage 60% of the unit's assets.

For Marianne Lake, innovation is not a straight line. "You can zig, you can zag, you can bob, you can weave, you can iterate and that's how you get to the right place," Lake said during a moderated discussion held on JPMorgan Chase's "Women on the Move" leadership day in October 2021.

The consumer and community banking division at JPMorgan Chase surpassed $1 trillion in deposits in 2021, up 51% from 2019. But while the New York-based bank is the biggest in the U.S., serving more than 66 million households, customers should feel the bank is unique for them, Jennifer Piepszak, co-CEO of consumer and community banking, said during the bank's "Women on the Move" leadership day in October 2021.

When Nandita Bakhshi took a job as a part-time bank teller in 1986, she found an environment far removed from today's. "The expectation for anyone who didn't fit expectations was to conform as best we could to a very narrow definition of 'professionalism,' " says Bakhshi, who took the teller job after moving from India to the U.S. to support her husband's academic career. "Times have changed," she says.

As KeyBank relies more heavily on automation and cloud-based services, Amy Brady knows the bank will need more engineers. But she also wants more diversity in the engineering group, which has lagged the national average of 8% for Black engineers.

BMO Financial Group is poised for a dramatic expansion of its U.S. banking business later this year when it closes on its $16.3 billion acquisition of Bank of the West, the U.S. operations of BNP Paribas. Laying the groundwork for the merger is Erminia "Ernie" Johannson, BMO's group head for North American personal and business banking.

Sandy Pierce was in the midst of transforming how Huntington Bank delivered advisory services when her counterpart in the company's community banking unit left for a new job.

Dorothy Savarese stepped down this year as president and CEO of Cape Cod 5, the bank she led for 17 years. But as executive chair of the bank in Hyannis, Massachusetts, her schedule remains packed even if it's more compact.

KeyBank exec hones banking technology while looking to diversify IT workforce.

Now that dispersed workforces are expected to be the long-term norm, banks are taking steps to maintain a sense of teamwork and giving managers new training in troubleshooting.

Americans are changing jobs in record numbers, posing a challenge for all employers. Here's how the Best Banks to Work For are redoubling their efforts to recruit and retain talent.

A focus on getting work done more efficiently has prompted these midsize banks to rearrange responsibilities, eliminate red tape and use technology to automate repetitive or tedious tasks. Some are also enhancing leadership development and increasing employee benefits amid an increase in turnover.