The Most Powerful Women in Banking

Call for Nominations
The Rankings

Honorees gathered at Tiffany's Landmark building in New York City, where American Banker interviewed them about the industry's trajectory and leadership lessons they've learned in their careers.

The rankings of the Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance include some familiar faces but also plenty of newcomers. We also look at the courage women demonstrate balancing work with their personal lives and a call to action from SEC chair Mary Jo White.

September 29
10 Min Read
  • Marva Smalls has gotten comfortable with being uncomfortable throughout her career, and she advises others to do the same, particularly aspiring leaders.

    October 31
  • One of the hottest bank technologies is already repeating mistakes of decades past and showing just how far banks have to go to catch up with the times. Here is one easy way to make this emerging tech more appealing to today's customers.

    October 31
    Stessa Cohen
    Gartner
  • The president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank is best known for her dissenting votes on monetary policy, but that's not the only way she stands out. Her background as a farmer and former bank examiner gives her a unique perspective among Fed officials.

    October 30
    Esther George sketch
  • A report on women in the financial services industry illuminates some of the ways gender is still a factor holding them back. One problem is unstated ideas about qualities for success, which have been decided over decades by men. It seems that gender diversity initiatives aren't helping, but a couple of headhunters have some suggestions for how banks can do better and so does Debbie Matz. "Equity" screenwriter Amy Fox talks about what she learned from women on Wall Street, and the film is set to become the basis of a new ABC television series.

    October 27
  • The last movie about female executives on Wall Street was "Working Girl" in 1983. The end of the movie left the audience feeling euphoric. But in creating the movie "Equity," we set out to explore — as authentically as possible — the experiences women have in this field, and the truths that we encountered in our interviews were not pretty.

    October 27

The latest news and perspective on women in the industry | The Most Powerful Women in Banking program convenes and empowers the community of female executives in financial services.