Special Program Root Tag

With the future of Fannie and Freddie still up in the air, Diana Reid has spent significant time strategizing for the different possible outcomes. It would have been easy to get engulfed by all the contingency planning, but Reid has kept a steady hand on deals in the pipeline.

Theresa McLaughlin has substantial credibility as a marketer. Time magazine put one of the TV spots for Citizens Bank on a Top 10 list, and her work for Horizons for Homeless Children received an Emmy. At least as valuable to RBS Citizens is the holistic approach that McLaughlin brings to problem-solving.

Amy Brady, Keycorp's new technology and operations chief, has quickly brought an "on time, on budget" philosophy to the Cleveland-based company, which previously struggled with the delivery of strategic projects.

Patti Husic, absent from our ranking last year, returns after making a series of bold moves at the $311 million-asset bank she runs in Harrisburg, Pa., and at the Pennsylvania Bankers Association, which she began chairing in July.

Collen Taylor's goal this year for the treasury management division of Capital One has been nothing less than the complete transformation of the group's service and support models.

For years Zions First National Bank has been a top SBA lender in its markets, but Lori Chillingworth keeps finding ways to make this highly profitable business even stronger.

As Citigroup's liaison to legislators and policymakers around the globe, Candi Wolff still uses her deep Rolodex of government contacts to put out political fires that flare up and threaten to harm Citigroup's interests.

In the two years since we last featured Shaza Andersen on this list, she raised $28 million in new capital for WashingtonFirst Bank, doubled its assets to $1.1 billion through the acquisition of Alliance Bankshares, and took the combined company public on the Nasdaq exchange.

You hear a lot of talk about business line executives in banking wanting to get closer to their customers. At Chicago-based BMO Harris Bank, they have more freedom to do just that because of Ann Benschoter.

A commercial banker with deep experience covering the apparel, jewelry and retail sectors, Diane D'Erasmo took on a new role at HSBC last October, overseeing the flow of foreign business into the company's U.S. subsidiary.

She had neither the time nor the resources to install a state-of-the-art customer relationship management system, but Associated Banc-Corp's Donna Smith still pulled off major infrastructure improvements her company needed to close the gap with rivals in the middle-market lending arena.

With Morgan Stanley taking over sole ownership of the Smith Barney franchise, Ruth Porat's already heady Street influence has grown even more authoritative.

Lisa Carnoy, who started at Merrill Lynch in 1994, has emerged as a strategist behind some of the largest IPO and block-trade deals since the financial crisis, through her Global Capital Markets team at Bank of America.

Under Barbara Byrne, Barclays' investment banking division finished the first half of 2013 in the top three on Dealogic's league tables for U.S. mergers and acquisitions and global debt capital markets, and it was a bookrunner on seven of the 10 largest initial public offerings.

Running the securities side of the house with co-head Pablo Salame, Isabelle Ealet helped Goldman Sachs' institutional client services division generate net revenue of $9.5 billion in the first half of 2013 while also focusing on compliance issues.

The color is still going to be orange, but there's a lot changing at ING U.S. Retirement Services under CEO Maliz Beams.

Margaret Keane has spent the last two years readying GE Capital Retail Finance for the virtual worlds of its digitally active customers. So far, so good: customers now generate 4 million mobile logins a month and about 10 percent of them use mobile devices exclusively for account interaction.

A new chapter possibly awaits Nicole Arnaboldi. The 28-year investment banking veteran could soon be leading a spin-off unit servicing the assets of Credit Suisse affiliate DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, which in July was reported to be in talks to be sold by its parent.

Cost control is a mantra for Charlotte McLaughlin, who prods her PNC Capital Markets managers and employees to be as sparing as possible when it comes to business expenses. The result is a flattening expense structure that is producing an improved efficiency ratio as revenues rise.

For the second year in a row, Candace Browning saw her Bank of America Merrill Lynch team ranked the top global research firm by Institutional Investor, based on surveys of buy-side firms on which Wall Street analysts provided the most helpful insights in a dozen countries and regions.