The Most Powerful Women in Banking, No. 6, Wendy Stewart, Bank of America

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The incoming questions from Wendy Stewart's middle-market corporate banking clients this spring was universally similar. Across industrial, marketplace and geographical settings, companies were asking about strategies surrounding trade, tariffs, inflation, interest rates and even immigration, in the wake of recessionary worries ramping up across both Wall Street and Main Street.

"I'm hearing a lot of things that start with a 't' or an 'i'," said Stewart, the Atlanta-based president of Bank of America's Global Commercial Banking unit. "We started off the year expecting to go in one direction, and it clearly went in a very different direction."

But under Stewart's direction, the bank's commercial banking services continued to attract and maintain American businesses' confidence, gaining 8% year-over-year growth in middle-market loans and a 15% gain in deposits to over $600 billion. This follows similarly strong results in 2024 that saw 4% annual growth in loans and 6% t in deposits, from companies in 115 U.S. and Canadian cities (plus another 15 international markets) with between $50 million and $2 billion in yearly revenues.

Digital adoption was a major driver of a 30% year-over-year increase in corporate payments totaling over $1 trillion on BofA's CashPro digital banking platform. CashPro fully integrates capital formation, treasury and banking services. The 82% adoption rate by corporate clients is the end result of the consultative, advice-based approach Stewart has guided her 1,500 employees to deliver over the past four years.

Brendan Hanley, a BofA commercial banking executive, also touts how Stewart was instrumental in the launch of BofA's Strategic Family Network initiative last year. The initiative served to ramp up discussions on M&A opportunities for more family-owned businesses. "In a discussion with a client she realized many clients are diversifying away from their core business and would benefit from a more diverse flow of acquisition opportunities," said Hanley, who is co-head of emerging growth and regional coverage.

Stewart has been involved with commercial banking for most of her 10 years at BofA, including her role as the former regional commercial banking president in Atlanta.

As part of her current position, she helps oversee the institution's community development banking initiatives. Last year, that accounted for $7.8 billion in debt and equity financing that created or preserved 12,600 housing units for individuals or areas of need. Among those efforts involved Stewart's own local role in a $50 million (and counting) capital campaign to revitalize the Grove Park neighborhood in northwest Atlanta. "She raised a lot of money for the community to make a difference in housing, arts, education and healthcare, and that tied back to the business community," said Katie Kirkpatrick, president and CEO of the Metro Atlanta Chamber.

Georgia Power CEO Kim Greene, another close friend of Stewart's from the Atlanta business community, credits her with enhancing a local employee training task force by lending a full-time BofA employee steeped in workforce development experience to help out with the program.

Stewart, who played multiple sports growing up—"I'm a Title IX kid," she said, also involves herself locally by promoting the Augusta National Women's Amateur, a junior-circuit golf tournament that precedes the Masters Tournament each April.