The Most Powerful Women in Banking 2024: Top Teams

October 1, 2024 6:30 AM

Each year, we honor five teams in banking that have collectively faced and conquered tough challenges. This year, the enterprise payments team at Citizens worked to establish the bank as a leader in payments and invested in payments technology that would benefit all of its business lines. Meanwhile, the integration team at BMO onboarded 2 million Bank of the West clients after last year's acquisition, and completed more than 1,500 requirements to unify 330 systems.

Learn more about how these teams—and three other Top Teams—came together to solve some of their institutions' most pressing challenges.

Also check out:

The Most Powerful Women in Banking

The Most Powerful Women in Finance

The Most Powerful Women to Watch

BMO

Integration team

In 2023, BMO Financial Group acquired Bank of the West. Erminia "Ernie" Johannson, BMO's group head of North American personal and business banking, led the integration.

Executives at BMO saw possibilities in Bank of the West from the first meeting. BMO had built its mobile banking, payments, and capital platform capabilities. Bank of the West was expanding on the West Coast and has a wealth management business, both of which complement BMO's product offerings and geography. "We knew we needed to grow," Johannson said.

Learn more about how Johannson and her team handled this massive integration.

Citizens Bank

Enterprise payments team

Last year, Citizens Bank hired Taira Hall as head of enterprise payments, one of its most important growth areas. Citizens had recognized an opportunity to establish itself as a leader in payments, Hall said.

With the team-of-teams approach, the idea was to share an enterprise-wide view on payments development and invest in payments technology that would benefit all of the bank's business lines, she said.

See how Hall and her team built an enterprise-wide payments system.

First Horizon

Executive management committee

Women play a major role in First Horizon's leadership, with 60% of the executive management committee consisting of women.

These leaders helped the bank quickly change its strategy when a $13 billion acquisition by TD Bank fell through due to regulatory concerns. The scuttled deal came amid several high-profile bank failures, challenging First Horizon to come up with a plan to compete without TD's ownership.

Pivoting to a go-it-alone strategy fell on the bank's senior management.

Learn more about how the executive committee calmed employees', investors', and customers' nerves in the wake of the canceled TD deal.

Huntington National Bank

Commercial bank leadership

As many regional banks retrench, Huntington Bancshares, the holding company for Huntington Bank has bet on new markets and verticals. Propelling this expansion are six women in the commercial bank.

"It has not been an easy time in banking," said Karen Davies, executive managing director of specialty banking at Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington. "But we are not shrinking. Huntington is intentionally growing."

Learn more about how the leadership team built up the bank's commercial business.

Zions Bancorp.

Core systems team

Zions Bancorp has spent more than a decade transforming the digital system that acts as the hub for all deposit and loan accounts at the bank, aptly known as a core banking system—a feat comparable to changing a plane's engine in mid-air, according to experts who have consulted with banks on the task.

Kristiane Koontz, executive vice president and director of banking transformation at Zions, has led the majority-woman team in its day-to-day operations. Jennifer Smith, chief technology and operations officer, has provided executive oversight to the project, which has enabled the bank to simplify its processes and deliver on critical initiatives.

See more about how the core systems team transformed the bank's digital system.