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Accepting her award as the "most powerful woman in banking" at American Banker's annual awards dinner at the Waldorf Astoria on Thursday, KeyCorp's Beth Mooney anticipated a time when female leaders in the industry are so commonplace that gender is merely an afterthought.
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'Lady, you got a lot going on,' a customs agent recently told American Banker's Most Powerful Woman in Finance, upon learning she was an American banker working from JPMorgan Chase.
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Bertha Garza, who has used her role at IBC Bank in Brownsville, Texas, to help spread financial literacy, was given American Banker's Community Impact Award, presented for the first time at our annual gala celebrating the industry's most powerful women.
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This year's most powerful woman in banking is ready for a rendezvous with Janet Yellen.
"I can't wait to meet her," KeyCorp Chairman and CEO
So what would Mooney, No. 1 on the list of the
"I'd be tongue-tied," Mooney said.
Yellen was not among the 675 attendees at the annual awards dinner in New York at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, but her presence certainly was felt.
"This year, we could not have had better timing," said Heather Landy, American Banker Magazine's editor in chief, acknowledging Yellen's very recent nomination in her opening remarks at the gala.
The Federal Reserve vice chairwoman
Gala attendees saw Yellen's widely anticipated appointment as a source of inspiration for other women in banking who face logjams in the advancement pipeline.
"Women who find their way to the top create a draw for the people who are coming behind," Mooney said of the nomination.
"I'm so exuberant about Yellen," said LeeAnne Linderman, executive vice president of retail banking at Zions First National Bank in Salt Lake City. "Not just because she's a woman, but because of her experience and reputation. She's eminently qualified and she earned this, hands down. I'm hopeful that this sends another message about the incredible, deep talent among women in banking and finance."
American Banker Editor-at-Large Barb Rehm used Yellen's prospective tenure as Fed chair as an example of how having a woman in a key leadership role can make a meaningful difference to an institution.
"Janet Yellen isn't going to change the course of monetary policy drastically. She isn't going to get rid of the Volcker Rule, but there will be some priorities at the Fed that will reflect the fact that she is a woman and that will be progress, too," Rehm said in her remarks.
Yellen's historic nomination wasn't the only recurring theme Thursday night. Both Mooney and JPMorgan Chase's
The industry "learned hard lessons" during the financial crisis and its aftermath, Mooney said in her speech. "But I'm proud to be a banker Banking powers the dreams, hopes, and aspirations that are the legacy of this country."
Another oft-repeated phrase at the event, and one likely to surface at any gathering of professional women these days: "Lean in." Playing off the title of Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg's bestselling book, Mooney urged the powerful women of today to help up-and-comers "lean in" to their careers, while Rehm told the audience of bankers, "I'm sure a lot of you, like I did, bought [the book] for the younger women in our lives."
Women like Sandberg, Yellen and Key's own Mooney give Coyne ample hope for the next generation, she said. Coyne said that when she speaks to her daughter and daughter-in-law about their careers, "they feel the possibilities are infinite."
