The Most Powerful Women in Banking

In 2012, BNP Paribas was the largest global custodian without a presence in North America and it wanted to change that. It found its leader in Claudine Gallagher, then the global head of depositary receipts at J.P. Morgan. Four years later, le succés.

Karen Peetz has myriad responsibilities as president of the world's largest custody bank, not the least of which is managing relationships with Bank of New York Mellon's 500 largest clients.

During American Banker's Most Powerful Women in Banking gala last year, Marianne Lake laid out the "30-5-1" challenge: each week, spend 30 minutes having coffee with a talented junior woman, five minutes congratulating a woman on a recent success and one minute talking up that woman to another senior peer.

A lot of what Cathy Bessant knows about directing a team can be traced back to her days as patrol leader of her Girl Scouts troop.

Avid Modjtabai's big job at Wells Fargo got even bigger this year when she took on responsibility for the company's operations group and added its 10,000 employees to the 55,000 she already oversaw.