The Most Powerful Women in Banking

The $5.6 billion-asset multibank holding company hired Fontaine to replace Ed Hooks, who has been its counsel since 1992 and who will retire at the end of the year.

JPMorgan Chase's Eileen Serra is giving up her CEO title (for a very interesting reason); CIT Group's Ellen Alemany is getting to work sooner than expected with a big housecleaning; and Meredith Whitney resurfaces with an insurance company. Plus, inclusion confusion, the "Person of the Year" (it's a woman for the first time in 29 years), and Saudi Arabia.

Eileen Serra, 61, the chief executive of the Chase Card Services unit, will step down in January and become an adviser to the company on growth initiatives, according to a memo Wednesday from Gordon Smith, JPMorgan's CEO of consumer and community banking.

Eileen Serra is stepping down as chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase's credit-card business and will be replaced by Kevin Watters, who is currently head of mortgage banking.

CIT Group will pay about $60 million in severance to 14 executives who have been dismissed or left the company, as it continues to shuffle its executive lineup following its August acquisition of OneWest Bank.