The Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next 2023

July 19, 2023 9:00 AM

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Each year, in advance of our Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance list, American Banker puts together a list of 15 women who are rising stars at their banks. The honorees, all women 40 years and younger, are nominated by an executive at their institution who believes that she has the potential to ascend to the C-Suite. And many of them appear to be well on their way.

There are four managing directors on this year's list, and five director-level women. The honorees work across nearly all lines of business from capital markets to operations and compliance to national sales.

Eight of the 15 women started their careers in banking and finance. Among the seven women who came to banking from another profession, one was a member of the Peace Corps, one was a medical researcher, and one was a family practice lawyer.

But regardless of whether they started as a teller in high school like Hilary Nelson of Lexicon Bank, or they worked as an associate in a law firm like Vivian Kim of Hanmi Bank, the women on the list have risen through the ranks through their hard work and determination.

Congratulations to our 2023 Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next honorees. Read on for more highlights of this year's honorees.

Jennifer Auerbach-Rodriguez, Merrill Wealth Management, Bank of America

Managing Director, Head of Acquisition, Strategic Growth and Retention

Jennifer Auerbach-Rodriguez is on a mission to democratize access to the financial advisory industry.

While most American don't know how to search for a financial advisor, and one-third of affluent Americans aren't currently working with an advisor, research shows that the problems are significantly more pronounced among diverse communities.

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Michaela Diverio, Barclays

Managing Director, Head of Consumer Retail Equity Capital Markets

Michaela Diverio started her career in finance after graduating from William & Mary in 2007. She joined Morgan Stanley as an associate, and spent the next six years in equity capital markets and investment banking. She next worked at Goldman Sachs and spent 11 years in the equity capital market covering tech, media and telecom.

She joined Barclays in July 2020 and runs the consumer and retail equity capital markets desk at Barclays. As part of that role, she oversees a team of 10 and drives the execution of initial public offerings, follow-ons, and block trades for clients in the sector.

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Jessica Faris, Fifth Third Bank

Director, Credit Risk Management Administration

When Jessica Faris joined Fifth Third Bank six years ago, she quickly emerged as the "go-to" person to delve into new areas such as the impact of new corporate tax rates on the bank's commercial loan portfolio. Before joining the $211 billion-asset Cincinnati bank, Faris had been practicing family law.

"I knew nothing about banking before I got here, and suddenly I had to become an expert on risk," said Faris. "I developed a reputation for being the go-to person for anything new that came down the pike."

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Melissa Garcia, BMO

Managing Director, National Sales Manager, U.S. Personal and Business Banking

Melissa Garcia started in banking in 2009 as an assistant manager at a Wells Fargo branch. A little more than a year later, she joined as a branch manager at BMO Harris Bank and started her ascent through the bank's ranks. She eventually rose to be the head of U.S. business relationship management before being promoted to national sales manager for U.S. personal and business banking in April 2022.

A year earlier, BMO announced that it intended to acquire Bank of the West. The acquisition was completed in February 2023, resulting in a $245.8 billion-asset bank.

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Vivian Kim, Hanmi Bank

Chief People Officer, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary

Working at Hanmi Bank in Los Angeles is not just business to Vivian Kim — it's personal.

Hanmi was created 40 years ago with the mission to help bank the Korean American community, a segment that was overlooked by other mainstream financial institutions. Kim is Korean American. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. in 1990 and are small-business owners operating several laundromats.

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Erin Komorowski, M&T Bank

Director of ESG and Sustainability

Tracy Woodrow, chief administrative officer at M&T Bank, called Erin Komorowski an "unlikely banker."

"Erin has C-suite potential because she is empathetic and fearless," Woodrow added.

Prior to joining the Buffalo, N.Y.-based institution, Komorowski's resume was filled with stints at nonprofits — including two years with the Peace Corps. It was during her time working in Dominica, a small island in the Caribbean with a population just over 70,000, that eventually led her to business school and banking. In Dominica, she worked with a nonprofit that provided training and mentoring to help entrepreneurs gain access to credit from banks and through grants.

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Kimberlene Matthews, PNC Bank

Asset Liability Director

A two-day exploratory seminar at an insurance company set a teenaged Kimberlene Matthews on a path to becoming an actuary. Now she runs the Pension and Enterprise Solutions group in PNC's Institutional Asset Management arm. "I love math; I always did," she said.

A Jamaica native and the oldest of seven children, Matthews immigrated to the Chicago area with her family at age 9 and still lives there. As an actuary student – "It was the perfect fit for what I wanted to do" – Matthews interned at Allstate Insurance, then at consulting firm Mercer. She failed the actuarial exam twice, but decided to sit for two of the exams at the same time, redoubling her studying and passing the tests.

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Hilary Nelson, Lexicon Bank

SVP, Director of Operations and Compliance

Overseeing compliance at a bank can be difficult in the best of circumstances. Doing it for an institution headquartered in Sin City can make the task downright daunting.

But Hilary Nelson, director of operations and compliance at Lexicon Bank, takes it all in stride.

"I was born and raised here so it's just normal for me," she said.

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Victoria O’Brien, KeyBank

SVP, Head of Equity Acquisitions KeyBank Community Development Lending and Investment

The U.S. has long been in the thralls of an affordable housing crisis, with a shortage of more than 7 million rental homes for people living at or below the federal poverty line. In the aftermath of the pandemic, supply shortages, inflation and rising interest rates have made the problem even worse. And it has also made the job of Victoria O'Brien, head of equity acquisitions KeyBank community development lending and investment, even more challenging.

O'Brien has spent the bulk of her banking career in loan originations. She spent close to four years at Boston Capital working in originations before joining KeyBank in June 2014. She was promoted to her current position in December 2020. KeyBank is the second largest affordable housing lender in the country.

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Ashley O’Neal, Midwest BankCentre

Senior Vice President, Retail Market Manager

Ashley O'Neal's first job in banking was a turnaround.

She'd been hired into a management-trainee program at National City Bank in 2006, after she graduated from the University of Missouri–Columbia, and then put in charge of a struggling branch.

The assignment came with a daunting list of problems for a new branch manager: "The branch had a huge employee issue. Employee morale, unethical behavior and turnover were all high at this branch," she recalled. "I went in with a lot of issues to correct."

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Heather Orrico, BNP Paribas

Managing Director, Co-Head of Global Macro Americas

Heather Orrico's career in finance got its start at a field hockey game. Orrico was a member of Yale University's field hockey team, and after a game, she got into a conversation with an alumni who worked in finance. "She told me that I should consider sales and trading," she recalled.

After graduating from Yale in 2007, she started her finance career on a trading desk at UBS. At the time, UBS and other banks held AAA mortgage-backed securities as a liquidity buffer. "My job was to check Fitch and Moody's ratings," she said. "I had to call my boss one night at 8 p.m.

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Chun Schiros, Regions Bank

Senior Vice President, Head of Enterprise Data Science

When Chun Schiros moved to the U.S. from China after graduating from college, it was in hopes of becoming a facial-recognition engineer and working under the Tennessee professor who had written the textbook she'd studied in Beijing. But that professor had retired from teaching, so she instead headed to Alabama, where she completed master's and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering and statistics at Auburn University. Then she began work as a medical researcher, a career step that made sense for someone interested in how to use data in new ways.

"I'm continuously drawn to numbers, patterns, and the stories data can tell," she said.

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Aidis Suever, Ally Financial

Executive Director, Auto Customer Care Group

Banking came naturally to Aidis Suever, who grew up in a banking family in which both her parents were bankers in their native Albania.

"We love numbers," said Suever. "I was raised in a household where being in the banking industry was really what I knew."

Suever moved with her family to Walled Lake, Michigan, when she was 12 years old. After graduating from Kalamazoo College, she landed a job at Ally Financial in 2009 — and has worked at the $196 billion-asset Detroit bank ever since. Though Suever started as an internal auditor and then as a compliance analyst, she quickly moved into management, taking on bigger roles with increased responsibilities every two to three years.

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Aileen Thomas, Synovus

Senior Director, Consumer Product

Aileen Thomas joined the $60 billion-asset Synovus as a consumer product team member in 2018. Within just two years, she was promoted to consumer product lead. Thomas was promoted, according to nominating executive Liz Wolverton, head of consumer banking and brand experience, because it was "evident she possessed high leadership potential and what we look for in executive leaders. Her exceptional intellect, courage, expertise, work ethic and people skills allowed her to quickly expand her visibility and responsibilities."

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Alli Yttreness, U.S. Bank

Director of Regulatory Controls

Alli Yttreness took a circuitous route back to banking after starting out as a teller while attending the University of Minnesota. Yttreness joined the $675 billion-asset U.S. Bank 11 years ago from the American Academy of Neurology, where she had served in the Office of the General Counsel.

"I knew that I wanted to be in banking law, but it was really about finding where my passion was," Yttreness said

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