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If you happened to be at Mt. Everest base camp last year, you might have noticed a rather important VIP in one of the tents: A bank executive hell-bent on making sure your money is safe—even at insane altitudes.
That executive would be Ruchira Ghosh, head of customer authentication (CIAM) for TD U.S. She's the one heading off fraud, staying one step ahead of criminal syndicates, and ensuring all customers are who they say they are. [Editor's note: After The Most Innovative People in Finance ranking was completed, Ghosh left her role at TD Bank.]
That's a high-stakes job, where any misstep could have huge consequences. Like, say, planting a foot wrong on Everest. So, it's no wonder that Ghosh thrives in one of the more challenging environments on the planet.
"I love to push boundaries," says Ghosh, whose next challenge this summer is Africa's Mt. Kilimanjaro. "I compare my career progression to my base camp hike: Be present, focus on the right outcome, take baby steps in the right direction. It's about resilience, and mental strength, and taking care of the people around you. It's the journey that matters, not the destination."
That kind of determination and focus is critical in her current role. Fraud has always been a problem for financial institutions, of course, but the rise of generative AI has taken threats to the next level.
Individuals, transnational organizations, and even state-level players are using AI to crack systems at a scale never before seen. News headlines tell nightmare stories of deepfakes, and bot swarms, and voice impersonation, all geared towards getting into your financial accounts. And since such tools are constantly learning, their efforts are improving every day.
Of course, AI can be used for good, too. That's Ghosh's challenge as she walks into the office every day: "To focus on keeping the bad guys away, and making it tough for them to get your money," she says. "You can never eliminate fraud entirely, but you can reduce it, and mitigate it early on so that the impact is much less."
As she trudges up peaks around the world, Ghosh's personal corporate climb has taken her from Fidelity Investments, to Bank of America, to senior director at Visa, to her current role that she began in 2023. In stints as a developer and in operations and product, having a "seat at every table" has given her a deep understanding of the needs, and opportunities, and vulnerabilities of financial institutions.
Her taste for innovation has earned her over a dozen patents along the way, six while at TD, including one related to document verification that recently won a prestigious award, beating out 800 other nominees.
Over the past 12 months, Ghosh has led four digital transformation initiatives. In 2025, TD's U.S. investment for digital transformation initiatives was roughly $50 million.
Her taste for innovation has earned her over a dozen patents along the way, five while at TD. (Under her leadership, a sixth patent is pending for the bank's document verification service.)
Indeed, in such a role you have no choice but to be extremely innovative, and think a few chess moves ahead. "This is unknown territory, because AI is impacting fraud in a way that's never been seen," she says. "It's become very hard to differentiate between humans and machines.
"Fraudsters only need to get it right once. We need to get it right every single time."
