Tara Latini, country head of wealth and personal banking for HSBC USA, has been a key decision-maker as the bank has shifted away from the mass-market retail business in the U.S., focusing instead on "globally connected affluent and high-net-worth clients."

Olga Hoff's proudest accomplishment in the past year? She created a small-business diversity banking program at Zions.

How can empathy and understanding translate into banking? In about 600 ways, according to M&T Bank's Aarthi Murali. 

When Priscilla Sims Brown took over as head of Amalgamated Bank, she made her goals clear. The company would increase profits and market share. Accomplishing those aims would, in turn, expand the bank's voice on social issues.  

For years, Sound Community Bank in Seattle organized its workforce around bank branches and specialists for retail lending, commercial banking and home mortgage. But in the last year, "we threw all that out the window," said Laura Lee Stewart. 

Julieann Thurlow is working to ensure that smaller institutions don't get left behind as the megabanks make better use of new technology.