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.

Ranjana Clark has long been committed to working seamlessly across borders. The COVID-19 pandemic, of course, made that more challenging. But as the pandemic's restrictions eased in 2022, Clark was able to lean more aggressively into that commitment.

As Global Chief Information Officer of JP Morgan Chase, Lori Beer manages a $14 billion budget and more than 55,000 technologists across the bank's businesses.

When Peetz joined Citi in 2020, she was returning to work after three and a half years of retirement from a career that included leadership positions at Bank of New York Mellon, where she led the financial markets and treasury services group, and at JPMorgan Chase, where she had a variety of commercial lending, sales, and management positions.

Over the past year, Jane Fraser, Citi's first female CEO in the firm's history, completed a strategy refresh at the world's most global bank. Despite an implausibly volatile geopolitical environment, she steered Citi to robust first quarter 2022 earnings—returning $4 billion to shareholders, while commanding 200,000 employees globally, and serving millions of consumers and businesses across 95 countries.

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.

Ida Liu became head of Citi's North American private bank in 2019 and then went on to beat her projections by 12% in 2020 despite the pandemic. That helped her get a promotion last year to global head, running 50 offices across the globe and overseeing more than $500 billion in client business.

Kara McShane took over as head of the commercial real estate team at Wells Fargo at an inauspicious time: February 2020, when COVID-19 was heading toward pandemic status and offices were starting to empty out.

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.

From the outside, Teresa Heitsenrether's career is a straight-line path of success. After earning a master's degree in finance at New York University, she began work at JPMorgan Chase in 1987.

For Elif Zapparoli, the pandemic-era shift from in-person to remote work is similar to the trend she has seen in the financial services industry over the last 20 years.

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.

Helga Houston's corporate risk team played a critical role in Huntington completing its acquisition of Twin Cities-based TCF Financial.

Stephanie Novosel, head of commercial banking at PNC Bank, faced one particularly significant challenge last year — helping with the acquisition of BBVA's American banking business.

As head of new product development at U.S. Bank, Vanessa Angeles leads a team that creates cash management solutions for corporate and commercial clients.

At the end of 2020, when Melissa Stevens began running both digital and marketing for Fifth Third Bank, fewer than 10% of new customer checking accounts came through the digital channel. Now the bank is on track to end 2022 with more than 25% of sales originating online or on mobile. 

Tara Latini, country head of wealth and personal banking for HSBC USA, has been a key decision-maker as the bank has shifted away from the mass-market retail business in the U.S., focusing instead on "globally connected affluent and high-net-worth clients."

Olga Hoff's proudest accomplishment in the past year? She created a small-business diversity banking program at Zions.

Not only does the banking industry have a problem developing more female senior leaders, it also struggles with ethnic diversity. Kimberly Moore-Wright is working to change that.