How to apply for The Most Influential Women in Payments, 2025

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2024 Women in Payments honorees pose outdoors with their trophies.
Honorees from 2024's Most Influential Women in Payments celebrate at Payments Forum in Hollywood, Florida.
Marcy Vanegas Photography

American Banker's Most Influential Women in Payments celebrates senior executives guiding the future of the global payments industry, while also examining topics of leadership, mentorship and inclusion.

This award recognizes the achievements of these women and promotes discussion of topics that are important to the advancement of the next generation of leaders. Those who earn a spot on the 2025 list will be celebrated during the annual Payments Forum conference, taking place in March in San Francisco.

Nominations are not restricted by geography. If you have any questions, please contact daniel.wolfe@arizent.com.

View last year's Most Influential Women in Payments.

Eligibility
Applicants must be employed by a private sector firm — whether financial services, fintech or retailer — and must focus on payments as a primary job responsibility. Women primarily employed at any type of trade association, regulatory agency, or law, accounting, or other professional services firm are not eligible for this program. Eligibility is not restricted by geography.

A separate award for women under 40 with C-suite potential, called The Most Influential Women in Payments: NEXT, is planned for later in 2025.

Applications are read by a selection committee made up of American Banker staff members. Judges will consider qualities such as leadership, teamwork and personal initiative, demonstrated through action.

All information provided, excluding personal contact information, may be used for publication.

Deadline

Individual applications must be submitted by Thursday, October 31, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. ET to be considered.

Important instructions:
Please do not hit the "submit" button at the end until the application is fully completed. Please note that we are not accepting printed nomination forms.

Partially completed forms may be saved in the system until ready to be submitted. If you choose to save and exit, you will be given a link. You must retain the link, or you will not be able to return to the partially completed application. We do not have access to your link so cannot help if it is misplaced.

You will be given the option to have an email sent to you with the link. The email you receive in this case will come from noreply@formstack.com. You will still need to remember your link, however.

Once you hit submit, you will not be able to access your application again.

Begin individual application for the 2025 Most Influential Women in Payments award here.

Application preview:

Before clicking above, make sure you have:

  • Nominee's name, date of birth, title, employer, email address, phone number, X/Twitter handle (if applicable)
  • A high-res color photo of the nominee
  • The nominee's resume
  • Employer's website, X/Twitter handle
  • An alternate contact (executive assistant, media relations, etc.) with email and phone number

Additionally:

  • Tell us a bit about the nominee and her current job
  • Time employed by current employer, time in current role, time in the payments industry
  • Person to whom nominee reports
  • Number of direct reports nominee has
  • Nominee's education

We ask that the nominee answer these four questions, with the answers intended to be excerpted for publication. We recommend providing answers that are at least 300 words each, to give judges a full understanding of the nominee's views and experiences.

  • What was a major challenge for you, your company, or your team in the past year and how did you overcome it?
  • What's a specific example of how junior employees have different opportunities or challenges in your industry than you faced when you were in their position?
  • What is the best lesson that you have learned, and since passed on to a junior colleague as advice?
  • What is the most overrated trend in your industry? What should the industry be focused on instead?

Additionally, we ask that the nominee provide concise answers, of 100 words each, to the following two questions for publication:

  • What skill does a rising person in your field need to succeed today? (100 words)
  • What is one thing you did to advance your career that paid off?

There will also be a field where you can provide any additional information about the nominee other than what we asked.

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Women in Payments
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