Most bank chief operating office teams keep the trains running on time: managing staffing, dashboards, and making sure data lands correctly in the CRM. The Mizuho Americas' COO team does all of that but it also closes deals. Lots of them.
The team — 19 of 32 members are women — sits inside Mizuho's investment and corporate banking division, and are led by Michal Katz, head of investment and corporate banking.
Katz and her colleagues pride themselves on spotting marketplace trends and then executing a plan to develop new business opportunities to address them.
Managing Director Michelle Carroll cites the team's annual client roadshow in Japan as one such example. Katz built the idea around the country's recent "economic awakening."
"For the past two years we've taken a cohort of bankers to Japan," Carroll said. "We've hosted a total of more than 150 client meetings … plus teach-ins, internal networking events and meetings with economists."
They've seen tangible results: investment banking and M&A transactions that are both inbound to and outbound from Japan.
When Elon Musk said he wanted to bring in retail investors for the SpaceX IPO, Katz and the team pitched the company on Mizuho's ability to bring out Japan's retail, high-net-worth and institutional investors.
"Japan had one of the [SpaceX IPO's] biggest allocations to retail investors, and we were the lead bank on that," Katz said."We also advised JERA on their $1.5 billion acquisition of GEP Haynesville II in the US."
Mizuho, one of Japan's top three banks, has more than $2 trillion in assets and lends to or advises over 80% of publicly listed companies on the Nikkei. "Our ambition is to be a top 10 global investment bank," Katz added.
Katz credits her team's cohesion to history: she and Carroll worked together at RBC, and she and Melissa Mendel, who handles communications for the team, worked at Lehman Brothers. ( Mendel spent the past decade building Mizuho's CRM and reporting infrastructure from scratch.) "There's trust, and I'd say common training," Katz said.
The results show up in the numbers: Michal's banking division, which has more than doubled in revenues since she started in 2019, is a major growth driver in the Americas; it contributes roughly 25% of the net operating profits to Mizuho Financial Group globally. During this same period, the division significantly strengthened its market position, rising from #25 in transaction volume in 2019 to #12 in 2025, according to Dealogic. The team also helped integrate 370 professionals after Mizuho's 2023 acquisition of Greenhill and Co.
"Mizuho came from a place where it wasn't as well known, and now we're showing up everywhere, and our clients — and the industry — are recognizing that," said Katz.
The executives frequently reference the bank's 10-year transformation.
"It's been a complete transformation of the business," said Melissa Mendel, managing director, head of business marketing, investment and corporate Banking. "We went from essentially a corporate banking, balance-sheet-driven bank to a full-service investment bank. Along the way we built products and hired talent we didn't have before."
Katz's team also plays a critical role in keeping Mizuho's roughly 1,000 or so bankers informed about what the latest geopolitical developments mean for the business.
"Whether it's the Mideast conflict in Iran or Russia-Ukraine, as soon as something happens," Katz explained, "I work with the COO team to put a program in place to empower our bankers and put content in their hands, so when they speak to clients they're well versed on the impact of that disruption on the sector, the geography and the client's business, and can come up with solutions."
In other words, this team isn't managing a pipeline, they're creating one.
Team Members
Michal Katz, Head of Investment & Corporate Banking
Michelle Carroll, Managing Director
Melissa Mendel, Managing Director
Chika Oyama, Director
Bari Bressman, Vice President
Jennifer Langell, Vice President
Peggy Lee, Vice President (Promoted to Director April 2026)
Akiko Miyagawa, Vice President
Jessy Monge, Vice President
Aria Wen, Vice President
Hannah Zeitlin, Vice President
Francoise Gonzales, Associate
Caitlin Heraghty, Associate (Promoted to Vice President April 2026)
Coralie Joseph, Associate
Mihoko Takechi, Associate
Hanae Terashima, Associate (Promoted to Vice President April 2026)
Christina Yu, Associate
Tamette Wong, Senior Executive Assistant
Rema Alzaza, Executive Assistant
Liliana Guzman, Executive Assistant
