Most Powerful Women in Banking 2022

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.

How can empathy and understanding translate into banking? In about 600 ways, according to M&T Bank's Aarthi Murali. 

When Priscilla Sims Brown took over as head of Amalgamated Bank, she made her goals clear. The company would increase profits and market share. Accomplishing those aims would, in turn, expand the bank's voice on social issues.  

For years, Sound Community Bank in Seattle organized its workforce around bank branches and specialists for retail lending, commercial banking and home mortgage. But in the last year, "we threw all that out the window," said Laura Lee Stewart. 

Julieann Thurlow is working to ensure that smaller institutions don't get left behind as the megabanks make better use of new technology. 

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.

Patricia Husic co-founded Centric Financial in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 2007. Then came the Great Recession. 

Cathy Owen has been in the banking industry for almost 50 years, so she well remembers the days when she was the lone woman among her peers. 

Wendy Cai-Lee launched Piermont bank in 2019 with a goal of helping entrepreneurs access financial services through a digital platform. 

Irene Oh has been chief financial officer of East West Bank since 2010. Under her leadership, the bank's total assets grew from $20 billion to $61 billion as of the end of 2021.

As chief audit officer at BNY Mellon, Paulette Mullings Bradnock was charged with keeping tabs on the whereabouts, utilization and movement of almost $500 billion in assets.

As part of American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance program, we have selected five Top Teams for 2022.

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.

Making banking easier for every customer is the mission of Mary Mack, who leads 67,000 employees in Wells Fargo's consumer and small-business banking division. Last year, Mack led the app's relaunch, making it easier to use and more secure for Wells customers. "There are alerts and speed bumps along the way to prevent fraud," she says.

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.

In her fourth year as CEO of City National Bank, Kelly Coffey is expanding the types of lending her bank offers while also increasing diversity in her leadership team. Since Coffey was named CEO in February 2019, business has grown substantially.