Special Program Root Tag

Many women are unhappy with the service they get from wealth managers — and in some cases their attitude, a global study by Boston Consulting Group found.

The setting was festive and the fashions elegant, but when Heidi Miller took the stage to accept her award as Most Powerful Woman in Banking, pride turned to near defiance ...

Many of the women being honored in this issue say female CEOs would have had more diverse management teams that would have reined in the institution long before losses began piling up like leaves in the woods on a windy fall day.

The financial market meltdown of September 2008 was a career-ender for some Wall Street bankers, but for Karen Peetz and her team at BNY Mellon, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.

Most payments executives found themselves pulled to the center of a perfect storm this year, and Pamela Joseph, U.S. Bancorp's vice chairman of payment services, has weathered it remarkably well.

Few women in banking have a bigger job than Barbara Desoer. She has led all major merger activities at Bank of America over the last three years, including deals for MBNA and U.S. Trust in 2006, LaSalle Bank in 2007 and Countrywide Financial in 2008.

It's not easy to distract Carrie Tolstedt. The senior executive vice president of community banking at Wells Fargo not only faced the same economic storm that hit all bankers this past year, but she also had to manage the massive integration of Wachovia.

If capital is king these days, then Peyton Patterson, the chairman and chief executive at NewAlliance Bank, should be wearing a crown.

Sometimes, the key to achieving results is knowing when not to sprint.Case in point: When a UK branch employee recently asked Barclays UK Retail Banking chief executive officer Deanna Oppenheimer if she'd be willing to participate in 31-story climb to benefit a children's charity, she agreed immediately.

Responding to the economic crisis has meant lots of meetings and not much sleep for Mary Callahan Erdoes, the chief executive officer of global wealth management for JPMorgan Chase & Co.

When Diane Thormodsgard began working in the wealth management business, she admits she didn't even know what corporate trust was.

Julie Monaco made our 2008 Women to Watch list for the impressive growth strategies she implemented at Citigroup's North American global transaction services business. Turns out she plays defense just as well as she plays offense.

It didn't take Lynn Pike long to make an impact at Capital One Financial Corp. Six months after becoming the president of Capital One's bank, Pike said she would like to see the company make another acquisition to start bridging "the white space" between far-flung operations along the Gulf Coast and Northeast.

Industry leaders are still finding the time to coach up-and-coming female executives, despite the turbulent market.

Whether she's hosting a mid-year conference call with 5,000 employees or broadcasting live to 11,000 real estate agents, Heiden thrives on trying to engage thousands of employees in a common pursuit.

While other bankers fretted about foreclosures and defaults this year, Avid Modjtabai spent her days (and a few nights) worrying about ATMs. Twelve thousand of them, to be exact.

At least one winner emerged from the mortgage crisis. Donna DeMaio, chief executive officer of MetLife Bank, took advantage of rock-bottom prices to buy two mortgage companies last summer.

For Sunflower Bank, 2009 was a time for looking inward. The company operates in markets that are slow-growth even in good times, and the past year was not among banking's better times. So the company, under the leadership of Mollie Hale Carter, undertook a new initiative called Execution 2009.

Diane D'Erasmo can't type. Her mom didn't want her to learn when she was growing up. "She felt that if somebody knew you knew how to type that they would make you sit at a typewriter and type and be a secretary," she says.