American Banker Magazine - August 2020

The Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next

The 15 executives selected for our Most Powerful Women in Banking: Next list all have remarkable stories. Over the past year each of them has taken on a major project for their company and produced impressive results. Yet none are older than 40.

The head of social media at the Columbus, Ohio, company, Alexander is also charged with making sure that social media “has a seat at the table” when it comes to decision-making, from how to roll out new products to how to do business during a pandemic.

Andersen fought through a series of personal challenges, including her own battle with cancer, to lead the integration of a key acquisition and develop a new commercial banking division focused on the health care sector for Silicon Valley Bank.

BMO is among the financial firms using artificial intelligence to reduce false positives and find the true perpetrators of crime lurking in its transaction records. Das is a leader in that effort.

Less than three years ago, Guo was the second hire on a new health care team at Wells Fargo Strategic Capital. Today, she's a director at the group that has made five equity investments in health care firms, including one that recently went public.

She is younger and has less experience than most of her team at OceanFirst Bank, but during her four years overseeing the 33 people who work in the accounting division, Ho has managed to create enviable engagement and trust.

Brought in as a consultant in 2015, Koontz so impressed Zions' management with her work ethic and ability to inspire that she was hired full-time in 2018 to help lead the bank's core transformation.

By implementing a less-confrontational approach to collections, Masterson aims to improve debt recovery PNC Bank.

Matlock's concerted effort to improve internal communication at Truist's insurance arm has resulted in higher employee engagement, greater productivity and fewer errors.

In her role leading a team of small-business bankers, Miller created a unit that caters to women- and minority-owned businesses in greater Baltimore. The initiative has been so successful that M&T plans to roll it out in other markets.

Success in integrating two acquisitions propelled Ryan to her newest role as finance chief of one of Ally's chief business lines.

What initially looked like a dead-end job became a career launching pad for Sacher.

A tech transformation Sacknoff led at TD's contact centers helped reduce wait times and improve customer satisfaction and employee retention.

Rajinder Singh first spotted potential in Shim when he was part of a group buying BankUnited from the FDIC in 2009. Now he is CEO and Shim heads one of the bank's most important business lines.

Regions had some ambitious goals when it set out to revamp its commercial credit underwriting processes in 2018 that centered on improving both efficiency and the customer experience. It turned to Stephenson to get the job done.

Straub's latest promotion, to vice president of deposits marketing, is her sixth in 13 years at Discover.

Business owners are changing banks at three times normal levels, a trend researchers attribute to their difficulty in obtaining emergency loans. If the forgiveness stage of the Paycheck Protection Program proves arduous, that rate could climb much higher.

Reading Cooperative Bank recently launched a program that aims to hire young Black and Hispanic adults from low-income communities. Its leaders say it’s part of a broad strategy to develop new pipelines of talent and better serve low-income communities.

Bank leaders should embrace the decision in their efforts to guard against reputational and workplace risks.