Under the lights and surrounded by glitz and glamour, women in banking recounted their long fight for professional equality at a New York City celebration held to keep progress on gender diversity in finance moving forward.
The early October evening affair was a red carpet event. In elegant attire, the attendees at American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking Gala convened at the Midtown Manhattan venue The Glasshouse NYC. They gathered to honor and inspire those who are breaking the so-called "glass ceiling" for women's career advancements.
Women Ascend, the gala's theme, captured today's moment in banking, a time when more women are reaching top leadership positions but many are still demanding equitable career opportunities.
And the trailblazers in the room, who now sit in the C-suites of the most influential financial institutions, matched the gala's theme with words of experience and wisdom.
"The one way I would describe these women who have ascended to the top levels of their organizations is a sentiment around sheer determination," Lynn Martin, president of the New York Stock Exchange, said during the event's keynote address.
Martin spoke about how her own career has shaped the impact she wants to make today.
The "reformed technologist," who entered the professional world at IBM in 1997, said she turned to artificial intelligence to help her prepare for the event.
"What does it mean for a woman to ascend?" Martin said she asked the AI service ChatGPT. The response she got was a quote from the American writer Marianne Williamson about how a woman's life purpose is to rise "to the throne and rule with the heart."
Women facing unique professional challenges exemplify dedication that goes beyond just financial gain, Martin said: "They are inspired to change the world."
Martin also acknowledged the "male allies" throughout her career who "took chances on me and who looked at me and saw that I was fit for a role that I had never imagined."
Since becoming only the second female president of the 231-year-old NYSE, a division of the Intercontinental Exchange, Martin has helped lift corporate diversity from a peripheral activist cause to a standard for doing business in the U.S.
The motivation "on my mind daily" is how to engage the 2,400 CEOs whose companies are listed on the NYSE to continue diversifying their executive teams, boardrooms and workforces, she said.
Among this year's honorees include Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, who won the top overall award for this year's
Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of JPMorgan Chase's asset and wealth management group, was the top honoree for the
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Tasnim Ghiawadwala, Citigroup's global head of commercial banking, was chosen as the top honoree for
Another speaker, Sandy Pierce, a retiring senior executive vice president at Huntington Bancshares, admonished the attendees to keep going.
"There will always be barriers," Pierce said from the stage. "In my professional journey, I've had to go over, under, around and through barriers."
Pierce, a 45-year banking veteran, said she has adopted three principles that helped her continue to further her career: understanding what it means to lead, treating everyone as equally valuable, and the importance for women in banking to support other women.
"Your influence becomes your real power," Pierce said. "It isn't easy, so why do it? Because I truly believe that what's on the other side of hard is everything you want."
