Special Program Root Tag

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. 

Not only does the banking industry have a problem developing more female senior leaders, it also struggles with ethnic diversity. Kimberly Moore-Wright is working to change that.

Nancy Pinckney, chief human resources office, has overseen a string of new policies meant to bolster employee retention and create a positive work environment at Fifth Third.

Patricia Husic co-founded Centric Financial in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 2007. Then came the Great Recession. 

Cathy Owen has been in the banking industry for almost 50 years, so she well remembers the days when she was the lone woman among her peers. 

Wendy Cai-Lee launched Piermont bank in 2019 with a goal of helping entrepreneurs access financial services through a digital platform. 

Irene Oh has been chief financial officer of East West Bank since 2010. Under her leadership, the bank's total assets grew from $20 billion to $61 billion as of the end of 2021.

As chief audit officer at BNY Mellon, Paulette Mullings Bradnock was charged with keeping tabs on the whereabouts, utilization and movement of almost $500 billion in assets.

As part of American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance program, we have selected five Top Teams for 2022.

For Marianne Lake, innovation is not a straight line. "You can zig, you can zag, you can bob, you can weave, you can iterate and that's how you get to the right place," Lake said during a moderated discussion held on JPMorgan Chase's "Women on the Move" leadership day in October 2021.

The consumer and community banking division at JPMorgan Chase surpassed $1 trillion in deposits in 2021, up 51% from 2019. But while the New York-based bank is the biggest in the U.S., serving more than 66 million households, customers should feel the bank is unique for them, Jennifer Piepszak, co-CEO of consumer and community banking, said during the bank's "Women on the Move" leadership day in October 2021.

Making banking easier for every customer is the mission of Mary Mack, who leads 67,000 employees in Wells Fargo's consumer and small-business banking division. Last year, Mack led the app's relaunch, making it easier to use and more secure for Wells customers. "There are alerts and speed bumps along the way to prevent fraud," she says.

When Nandita Bakhshi took a job as a part-time bank teller in 1986, she found an environment far removed from today's. "The expectation for anyone who didn't fit expectations was to conform as best we could to a very narrow definition of 'professionalism,' " says Bakhshi, who took the teller job after moving from India to the U.S. to support her husband's academic career. "Times have changed," she says.

In her fourth year as CEO of City National Bank, Kelly Coffey is expanding the types of lending her bank offers while also increasing diversity in her leadership team. Since Coffey was named CEO in February 2019, business has grown substantially.

As U.S. Bancorp's vice chair and chief administrative officer, Kate Quinn is leading a $573 billion-asset company she says is focused on "meeting customers where they are and how they want to do business." Quinn joined the bank in 2013 and was appointed to the chief administrative role in 2017.

Stephanie Cohen has been at Goldman Sachs for more than 23 years. She started as an analyst in 1999 and has held a series of leadership positions in mergers and acquisitions. In January 2021, she was appointed global co-head of consumer and wealth management.

The Regions Bank website has many of the financial education features consumers have come to expect from banks: information about banking, saving for college and saving for retirement.

As KeyBank relies more heavily on automation and cloud-based services, Amy Brady knows the bank will need more engineers. But she also wants more diversity in the engineering group, which has lagged the national average of 8% for Black engineers.

BMO Financial Group is poised for a dramatic expansion of its U.S. banking business later this year when it closes on its $16.3 billion acquisition of Bank of the West, the U.S. operations of BNP Paribas. Laying the groundwork for the merger is Erminia "Ernie" Johannson, BMO's group head for North American personal and business banking.