The Latest from Women in Banking

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.