The Most Powerful Women in Banking: What Leadership Looks Like When Writing a New Playbook

Published October 1, 2026 7:06 AM

6 Min Read

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In the span of 18 months, bank executives were losing sleep over a shipping lane in the Persian Gulf, an auto-parts supplier in Ohio, AI-cloned voices initiating wire transfers, and a new federal law raising the stakes for digital money. Rates, rules, credit, competition, and even the definition of money all moved at once—and no traditional assumption was safe.

In April 2025, sweeping new tariffs sent markets reeling. While big banks posted solid first-quarter profits, their CEOs warned of corporate clients postponing decisions until the dust settled. U.S. merger activity in April 2025 fell to its weakest monthly total since 2009, according to Oliver Wyman, and several companies pulled planned initial public offerings. "We are entering a new phase of globalization—one less defined by cooperation, and more by strategic self-interest," Citi CEO Jane Fraser said in a May 2025 essay to shareholders and customers. "Long-held assumptions are being challenged, not just by tariff announcements but by a deeper confidence shock."

The same tariff turmoil had a silver lining for trading desks, where volatility drove a surge in client activity and revenue.

Just as the trade shock began to fade, interest rates delivered a subtler test. After a series of cuts in 2025, the Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate at 3.50 to 3.75 percent through the first half of 2026. The war with Iran disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and pushed Brent crude from roughly $72 a barrel to nearly $120 at its peak. CFOs had to protect margins for a rate path that could now bend either way.

While executives watched the rate outlook, risk was building in places no one was watching closely. In September 2025, subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings collapsed amid fraud allegations that it had pledged the same collateral to multiple lenders. That same month, auto-parts maker First Brands Group filed for Chapter 11 with more than $9 billion in liabilities, in part tied to alleged factoring fraud. This raised the question: How well do banks understand their exposures?

If credit scares put banks on the defensive, Washington was moving in their favor. In November 2025, regulators finalized a rule easing the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio for the largest banks. M&A deals are one place where freed capital went. With regulators approving large mergers much faster, dealmaking hit a four-year high: the third quarter of 2025 brought 52 U.S. bank deals, the most of any quarter since 2021, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

As M&A-fueled competition mounted, new rivals were taking aim at the industry. The GENIUS Act, which created the first federal framework for stablecoins, had banks worried that deposits could migrate to stablecoin issuers. But the law also left banks with a path: It excludes tokenized deposits from its stablecoin definition. (Banks got another incremental win when the CLARITY Act failed to pass the Senate cloture vote in September.)

If digital assets, tokenization and blockchain challenged how money moves, artificial intelligence (AI) defied how banks work. Generative and agentic AI are moving from pilot projects into production, with more business use cases being examined and the pursuit of scale coming into sharper focus. Yet the same AI tools are also empowering financial criminals, giving them a faster, more sophisticated way to commit fraud.

For the leaders recognized in The Most Powerful Women in Banking™ 2026, the geopolitical, technological and risk complexities proved challenging, but choosing to toss aside the traditional playbook—instead writing a new one to better position their institutions—has generated notable results.

The Most Powerful Women in Banking comprises five distinct rankings: Banking, Finance, Women to Watch, Top Teams and NEXT. For the Banking, Finance and Women to Watch lists, quantitative data such as year-over-year 2025 and Q1 2026 financial performance (or similar metrics for roles without P&L responsibility) and qualitative factors such as new technology investment, product development, gains in operational efficiencies, and demonstrated commitment to the employees, customers and communities they serve are considered to determine rank. (Women must be in their role for a minimum of one year to be eligible for the Banking or Finance rankings.)

On this year's Banking list, Citi's Fraser captured the #1 spot for the sixth consecutive year, while U.S. Bank CEO Gunjan Kedia jumped two spots to the #2 position. Fraser, who delivered $85.2 billion in revenue last year—the bank's highest level in more than a decade—and Kedia, who posted a 46% stock gain in her first year as CEO, remain the only two women leading top-50 U.S. banks.

JPMorganChase continues to have a commanding presence in the ranking, with Marianne Lake (#3 and the now-former CEO of Consumer & Community Banking), Jennifer Piepszak (#4) and Lori Beer (#5) rounding out the top five spots.

On the Finance list, Mary Callahan Erdoes is ranked #1 for the fourth consecutive year, delivering spectacular asset and wealth management results for JPMC in 2025 and into 2026—long before her "Summer of Capital" theory—that space, superintelligence and sports are driving investments—began to inform her asset and wealth management strategy.

Also topping the Finance list are Fidelity Investments' Abigail Johnson (#2), Franklin Templeton's Jenny Johnson (#3), Nasdaq's Adena Friedman (#4), and TIAA's Thasunda Brown Duckett (#5).

Meanwhile, the Women to Watch ranking saw Santander U.S.'s Christiana Riley jump four spots to the #1 position this year, followed by

Bank of America's Sharon Miller (#2), Fidelity Investments' Cynthia Lo Bessette (#3), Ally Financial's Lindsay Sacknoff (#4), and Franklin Templeton's Sandy Kaul (#5).

This year, the Top Teams are ranked, with HSBC securing the #1 spot for its startup-focused Innovation Banking team, followed by Sound Community Bank (#2), BNP Paribas (#3), Mizuho Americas (#4) and Fifth Third (#5) for their outstanding team performances on a specific project, initiative, business unit or group.

The NEXT list, which ranks leaders aged 40 and below based on their growing contributions to their banks, saw Morgan Stanley's Ambreen Sayed take the top spot, followed by Goldman Sachs' Anne-Victoire Auriault (#2), KeyBank's Emily Gessner (#3), Bank of America's Alison Whelan (#4), and Servbank's Shayna Arrington (#5).

The growing influence posed by on-chain finance, AI and risk is evident in a number of notable newcomers to the rankings. In addition to Fidelity Investments' Lo Bessette, head of digital asset management, and Franklin Templeton's Kaul, EVP and head of digital assets & innovation, Citi's Ryan Rugg also makes her debut in the Women to Watch ranking as global head of digital assets, Treasury and Trade Solutions. On the AI and risk fronts, CIBC U.S.'s Brittany Scott, CIO of U.S. Technology, Data and AI, and Ally Financial's Stephanie Richard, chief risk officer, are also new to the ranking.

And in a first, First Citizens Chair Hope Holding Bryant and her niece, First Citizens Regional EVP Perry Bailey, were both named honorees this year, with Bryant making the Banking list and Bailey named to the NEXT list.

Finally, Amy Brady, former CIO of KeyBank, is the recipient of The Most Powerful Women in Banking 2026 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the industry for more than 35 years. (In September, Brady joined MAI Capital Management, an investment advisory firm, as a managing partner.)

For all the pressure, this period opened doors for leaders prepared to move in new directions, and it made good advice more valuable for customers who could not make sense of the moment on their own.

What follows is a look at the leaders who came out ahead because they did not wait for a new playbook. Instead, they began writing their own.

Links to the rest of the rankings:

The Most Powerful Women in Finance

The Most Powerful Women to Watch

The Most Powerful Women in Banking Top Teams

The Most Powerful Women in Banking NEXT

The Most Powerful Women in Banking Lifetime Achievement Award

Jane Fraser, Citi

Chair and CEO

Jane Fraser is accustomed to analysts prodding her about the future of Citi and how the bank, which has been in turnaround mode, will improve profitability and elevate shareholder returns.

The level of curiosity ramped up last spring, ahead of Citi's high-stakes investor day on May 7. Fraser had been leading the bank through a massive overhaul for more than half a decade, and analysts were itching to know what was next in terms of Citi's profitability targets and how it planned to close its long-standing performance gap with peer banks.

"All eyes were focused on, 'What are the numbers, and what is a credible path to get there?'" Glenn Schorr, an analyst at Evercore ISI who has covered Citi for nearly three decades, told American Banker. "The number couldn't have been too low because the Street wouldn't have been interested, and it couldn't have been too high because it wouldn't have been realistic."

Gunjan Kedia, U.S. Bancorp

CEO

Gunjan Kedia took the reins as CEO of $726 billion-asset U.S. Bancorp in April 2025 and hasn't looked back. Under her leadership, U.S. Bancorp has already acquired capital markets firm BTIG, partnered with Amazon to issue the retailer's new small-business credit card and struck a landmark deal with Commissioner Roger Goodell to be the official bank and wealth management sponsor of the NFL.

It's a coming out, Kedia says, for a "beautiful brand" that doesn't get the national recognition it deserves. "We're spreading out from here," she gestures past the windows of a conference room in the company's Minneapolis headquarters. "Our goal is to be known and loved everywhere the NFL is known and loved."

Learn more about Kedia's leadership.

Marianne Lake, JPMorganChase

CEO, Consumer and Community Banking

Marianne Lake knew that being top dog could be precarious. At a June 9 investor conference, the then-CEO of consumer and community banking for giant JPMorganChase talked about her unit's multiyear run of earnings and customer growth, and the challenges of being on top.

"What does the competition do?" she asked. "They look for chinks in our armor, right? They look for things we're not doing very well. …They then build a beautiful thing to fill that gap."

Less than three weeks later, Lake announced her retirement from JPMC, reportedly taking $50 million in unvested stock with her after learning that commercial-side executives Doug Petno and Troy Rohrbaugh were being named co-presidents. Rohrbaugh, formerly co-CEO of the commercial bank, replaced Lake as CCB's head.

Learn more about Lake's performance last year.

Jennifer Piepszak, JPMorganChase

COO

To get some insight into the mind of one of the world's most powerful women in banking, look no further than a legendary American basketball coach.

Mike Krzyzewski—known as 'Coach K'—led the Duke Blue Devils to five national championships, and one key to his success was a core philosophy: "Next play."

JPMorganChase's Jennifer Piepszak hews closely to that approach when dealing with all the adversities that come with being COO of the world's most valuable bank.

"If you can, just move on and not dwell on it," Piepszak recently advised

Lori Beer, JPMorganChase

Global CIO

For over a decade, Lori Beer has led the complex and ever-evolving technology operations behind JPMorganChase.

As the bank's global chief information officer, Beer's job is to effectively bring the latest technology and innovation to the bank and its 86 million active customers. Beer's department works on over 7,000 applications and nearly an exabyte of data (or 1 million terabytes) with an $19.8 billion tech budget, all of which allows the company to process around $12 trillion in digital payments every day.

Holly O'Neill, Bank of America

President of Consumer, Retail and Preferred

7.250805_WIB_Holly_O_Neill_0304-2025-CS — Holly O'Neill, head of Bank of America's consumer business

Holly O'Neill's extensive career at Bank of America can be traced back to an ad in a print newspaper (circa 1996), which she answered via the U.S. Postal Service. Some 30 years later, the now-president of the consumer, retail and preferred division is focused on deepening the bank's relationships with nearly 70 million customers.

Since assuming the role last year, O'Neill has been playing offense, setting—and hitting—big targets for the institution whose predecessor companies date back to the first days of American democracy.

Pam Habner, Citi

Head of U.S. Consumer Card

Modernizing Citi's card portfolio by delivering digital-first, client-centric products has been Pam Habner's focus for the past several years, and the resulting contribution to the bank is significant. The U.S. consumer cards business drives roughly 20% of the firm's revenues and shapes how nearly 70 million consumers engage with the bank across payments, credit, and everyday spending.

That effort requires a laser focus on product development and the customer experience, most recently through an AI operating model that she is establishing to rapidly integrate AI tools across the business to drive efficiency, improve customer engagement and identify new revenue generating opportunities. Since the beginning of 2025, the head of U.S. consumer cards and her team have launched eight new or refreshed products and upgraded five core payment and loyalty platforms.

Learn more about Habner's role at Citi.

Hope Holding Bryant, First Citizens Bank

Vice Chairwoman

Hope Holding Bryant loves a good jigsaw puzzle, and she's been working on a particularly challenging one lately. The vice chairwoman of $237 billion-asset First Citizens Bank, where she's also head of the core general bank, is playing a key role integrating a complex-but-promising series of recent acquisitions.

Since 2022, the Raleigh, N.C.-based company has quadrupled in size and expanded nationally by acquiring commercial lender CIT Group (including the old One West Bank franchise), the remains of failed Silicon Valley Bank from the FDIC, and 138 branches from BMO. Pulling everything together under one roof has become Bryant's passion.

Learn more about Bryant's role at the bank.

Jill Gateman, TD Bank

EVP and Co-Head of U.S. Commercial Banking and Head of Corporate Banking and Sponsor-Backed Finance

When Jill Gateman joined the $1.5 trillion-asset TD Bank three years ago, she made what some considered a counterintuitive decision: She told people to stop selling and focus on strategy. "Just stop—stop selling transactions," said Gateman, EVP and co-head of U.S. commercial banking and head of corporate banking and sponsor-backed finance. "Bring strategy to the client and new business will come."

If there were ever any doubts about Gateman's strategy, her remit's strong performance has put them to rest. In 2025, commercial bank revenue rose 7% year over year to a record $3.4 billion, and performance continues to accelerate in 2026. Revenue for the commercial bank was $890 million in the first quarter of this year, up 5% year over year for the same period. Earnings hit $296 million, up 52% year over year, and return on equity jumped 480 basis points to 12.7%.

Learn more about Gateman's role at the bank.

Kristin Lesher, Truist

Chief Wholesale Banking Officer

For some clues about Kristin Lesher's approach to leadership, look no further than the greens of the famed Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, N.C.

The site of the PGA Tour's Truist Championship, its 18 holes wind through rolling, wooded terrain. While Lesher isn't necessarily an avid golfer herself, she sees the sport as a rich source of competitive lessons.

"Golf is in many ways about finding balance—about where things are going well, and where you have opportunities to improve," she says. "In every round, on every single hole, you experience moments you want to celebrate, when everything is working the way you want it. Then you have other moments where you have to take a step back and reevaluate. There are a lot of similarities to my leadership approach."

Learn more about Lesher's performance last year.

Bridget Engle, Wells Fargo

Senior EVP and Head of Technology

In three decades driving technology change in the financial industry, Wells Fargo Senior EVP and Head of Technology Bridget Engle has had to adapt quickly, whether to big crises—think 9/11 and the COVID-19 pandemic—or routine business challenges posed by innovation.

In the aftermath of 9/11, she was part of an IT/operations team at Lehman Brothers that improvised a dynamic virtual private network and a makeshift voice over internet protocol switchboard for clients after the firm lost its data center when the North Tower collapsed. As CIO and head of engineering at BNY Mellon, she spearheaded a rapid transition to remote work for thousands of staff during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Carolyn Booth, BMO

Head of U.S. Personal and Business Banking

Carolyn Booth, head of U.S. personal and business banking at BMO, is ringing up some impressive numbers for the business while driving brick-and-mortar and AI growth.

In fiscal 2025, year-over-year net income in Booth's $288.6 billion business unit rose by 29.4% to nearly $2.2 billion, and year-over-year revenue climbed 2.9% to almost $8.2 billion. Meanwhile, expenses fell 0.2%.

Anthony Hudson, head of distribution for U.S. personal and business banking at the $1.5 trillion billion-asset BMO, highlighted one area in particular where Booth shines: the high-margin wealth management segment.

Jodi Richard, U.S. Bank

Vice Chair and Chief Risk Officer

The current business environment is beset with new and ever-more-baffling risks, from deepfake impersonations to interest rate risk to AI.

But to Jodi Richard, vice chair and chief risk officer at U.S. Bank, this moment is also one that banks can use to streamline operations and develop new and profitable relationships. Those risks also tend to influence one another, she said, meaning that savvy bankers need to consider not only headline events but what the secondary effects of those events might be.

"As risks have become more intertwined, they often compound on one another," Richard said. "For example, geopolitical risks can create market volatility, interest rate fluctuations, inflation, cyber risks, sanctions exposure, or model fluctuations. We must manage risks together and not in a silo."

Read more Richard's performance in 2025.

Wendy Stewart, Bank of America

President of Global Commercial Banking

Leading 2,000 relationship bankers and support staff in Bank of America's Global Commercial Banking, or GCB, unit, Wendy Stewart prioritizes collaboration. Her frequent mixers bring together clients from diverse industries to question top bankers about the bank's views on key issues ranging from geopolitics and economics to the impact of artificial intelligence. And to talk to each other.

"Clients are often our best ambassadors," she said.

Shyam Reddy, president and CEO of BlueLinx Corp., a small-cap, Atlanta-based building-products distribution company, recalled meeting CEO Brian Moynihan at such events. Just as important, he said, clients can discuss best practices and issues ranging from local-market dynamics to the still-mysterious ways of Gen Z staffers.

As a collaborator by nature, he said, "It's not surprising that she's constantly bringing people together."

Learn more about Stewart's role at the bank.

Kate Danella, Regions Financial

Head of Consumer Banking Group

Throughout 2025 and into 2026, Kate Danella has maintained stability in Regions Bank's consumer banking group since becoming head of the business unit in 2022.

It has been an unusually difficult time for a consumer franchise of Region's size, given that several traditional engines of consumer banking — loan growth, deposit economics, housing activity and fee revenue — were under pressure at the same time, while customers expected much better digital experiences.

Regions has largely succeeded in this careful balancing act. In 2025, full-year revenue for the consumer banking group was $3.9 billion, exactly what it posted in 2024 and down slightly from 2023's revenues of $4.0 billion. Similarly, pretax income last year was $1.2 billion — again mirroring that of 2024 ($1.2 billion), but down from 2023 ($1.5 billion). The funding side of the business finished roughly 2% higher year over year: Consumer deposits grew to $80.1 billion in 2025, up from $78.5 billion the previous year.

Teresa Heitsenrether, JPMorganChase

Chief Data and Analytics Officer

Teresa Heitsenrether sees the hype that surrounds the latest AI models frequently nowadays, and she couldn't be less impressed. The chief data and analytics officer for JPMorganChase said AI's ultimate power lies in its ability to help employees with mundane tasks so they can be more efficient and serve customers better.

"AI, or any technology for that matter, is only valuable if it's used to solve real business problems," said Heitsenrether, chief architect of the New York bank's industry-leading data and AI strategy.

Learn more about Heitsenrether's approach to AI at the bank.

Jennifer Barker, BNY

Global Head of Payments and Trade and Depositary Receipts

23.250805_WIB_Jennifer_Barker_0341-2025-CS

Jennifer Barker, global head of payments and trade and depositary receipts at BNY, describes herself as a translator. Trained as an engineer, she quickly discovered that what interested her most wasn't necessarily the technology itself, but helping businesses understand how new things could solve old problems.

That mindset shaped a career spent modernizing payments, and, over the past year, guiding BNY's approach to AI, digital assets, and new payments technologies.

"I love to grow things. I love to build things. I love to help clients solve their problems," Barker said. For her, payments offer the ideal challenge, combining technology, regulation and commercial opportunity.

Learn more about Barker's work at BNY.

Danielle Johnson, HSBC

Global Head of Institutional Clients

Seeking new challenges throughout her career has been standard operating procedure for Danielle Johnson. In her first 21 years as a banker at Goldman Sachs, she held a variety of leadership roles before tackling venture capital at Credit Suisse, then digital assets and data centers at Galaxy Digital Services before moving to HSBC to become global head of its institutional clients.

Adaptability, risk-taking and perpetual learning are strengths that have enabled her moves across firms and markets, Johnson said, and they were critical in perhaps her biggest career shift—into banking. In an atypical move, she was a professional dancer with the New York City Ballet until an injury necessitated changing course. The intense training of her ballet days followed her into banking.

Jennifer Doyle, Wells Fargo

Global Co-Head of Structure Products Group

Jennifer Doyle built one of Wall Street's leading structured products franchises over three years. Now she has been handed the keys to the entire fixed income distribution business.

Doyle, who was promoted to global head of fixed income distribution on June 30, 2026, oversees credit, municipals, macro and the structured products group she co-led. It's a scope that spans multiple client bases, market-making businesses and trading cultures. She is direct about where she wants to start. "The first priority is keeping the client at the center of everything we do," she said. "Rather than optimizing individual product areas, I'm focused on how we operate as one distribution organization and deliver a more coordinated experience for our clients."

Tasnim Ghiawadwala, Citi

Global Head, Citi Commercial bank

Tasnim Ghiawadwala runs one of the world's largest commercial banking franchises out of New York, but she leads from the field, wherever Citi's clients are. This summer she was in Poland one week, Brazil the prior month and Hong Kong and Shanghai before that.

"I'm a big believer that you have to be there with the teams, to talk directly with the folks on the ground and make sure there's a good alignment of strategy and vision," Ghiawadwala said. "I could go to a country 15 times and there is always something new to learn," from her bankers and Citi clients.

Learn more about Ghiawadwala's role at Citi.

Jill Castilla, Citizens Bank of Edmond

Chairman, President and CEO

After Citizens Bank of Edmond launched a digital-first bank focused on service members in August 2023, word of mouth reeled in 671 accounts by the end of 2024.

The bank, confident in the technology behind the initiative, called ROGER, rolled out a limited social media campaign at the start of 2025, according to Jill Castilla, chairman, president and CEO of the $440 million-asset Citizens, based in the suburbs of Oklahoma City.

Within four months, the bank added about 2,500 accounts, outpacing the ability of its capital to support it, Castilla said. "We knew that it was going to resonate. We just had no idea that it was going to be such an immediate hit."

Hope Dmuchowski, First Horizon Corp.

Senior EVP and CFO

Coming out of college, Hope Dmuchowski thought being a CFO looked like the most boring job in banking — basically, a glorified accountant consumed by GAAP compliance and audit reviews. She changed her mind watching the role transform over two decades in the industry.

"I spend more time on 'how do we increase shareholder value, than accounting minutia," she said. "It's my job to figure out how to fund that: How do we layer in new branches, new technology, and how do we deliver for shareholders while continuing to invest?"

Dmuchowski became CFO of publicly traded First Horizon in 2021, at 42. She handles a diverse slate of responsibilities beyond strategic financial planning, including Treasury, Wall Street investor relations, corporate real estate, bank data analytics, product pricing and, yes, accounting.

Learn more about Dmuchowski's work at the bank.

Bridgit Chayt, Fifth Third

EVP, Head of Commercial Payments

If one were to ask Bridgit Chayt last year if two acquisitions, not one, were on her Bingo card, the answer would have probably been no.

2025 was a year marked by having to plan for the unplanned, said Chayt, who heads Fifth Third's $1 billion-revenue commercial payments business.

"There are those times when the year changes for leaders, and it's more of an exercise of putting on the brakes or shifting or getting in a different car," Chayt told American Banker. "The acquisition of DTS Connex that we did in the cash logistics business, and the acquisition of Comerica, changed the year from what the original plan was."

Jennifer Taylor, Citi

Chief Compliance Officer for Citibank, N.A., Banking & International and Client

Even when a bank does business in just one country, compliance can be a headache. But when its on-the-ground operations span more than 90 nations, compliance professionals must navigate a much denser thicket of issues.

Jennifer Taylor is Citi's chief compliance officer for Citibank, banking and international. She sits atop a team of around 2,000 employees, with a portfolio as sprawling as the megabank's footprint.

The job's geographic reach has contracted a bit since 2021, when New York-based Citi announced plans to exit retail banking in 14 countries, including China, India, Russia, Australia, Mexico and South Korea.

"That enables us to focus on the more institutional businesses around the world," Taylor told American Banker. "Once we've exited the consumer business, that does simplify your risk-management profile."

Julieann Thurlow, Reading Cooperative Bank

CEO

The 2025 merger between Reading Cooperative and Wakefield Co-operative banks is yielding healthy results for CEO Julieann Thurlow and her team.

Perhaps most notably, net interest margin, or NIM, for the combined bank — which retained the Reading Cooperative name — rose from 2.59% in 2024 to 3.18% in 2025 and 3.36% in the first quarter of 2026. Thurlow attributes last year's NIM gain to an easing of short-term rate pressures and the first-quarter gain to a falling cost of funds.

The bank's bigger asset base of $1.2 billion came at slight cost, though. The deal temporarily curbed profitability growth, with return on assets, or ROA, at 0.38% last year and return on equity, or ROE, at 5.6%. But annualized ROA increased to 0.66% in the first quarter of 2026 and annualized ROE climbed to 8.7%. And while merger-related expenses elevated the bank's efficiency ratio to 84.7% in 2025, the ratio dropped to 81.28% in the first quarter of 2026.