Most Powerful Women in Banking 2022

For Marianne Lake, innovation is not a straight line. "You can zig, you can zag, you can bob, you can weave, you can iterate and that's how you get to the right place," Lake said during a moderated discussion held on JPMorgan Chase's "Women on the Move" leadership day in October 2021.

The consumer and community banking division at JPMorgan Chase surpassed $1 trillion in deposits in 2021, up 51% from 2019. But while the New York-based bank is the biggest in the U.S., serving more than 66 million households, customers should feel the bank is unique for them, Jennifer Piepszak, co-CEO of consumer and community banking, said during the bank's "Women on the Move" leadership day in October 2021.

Dorothy Savarese stepped down this year as president and CEO of Cape Cod 5, the bank she led for 17 years. But as executive chair of the bank in Hyannis, Massachusetts, her schedule remains packed even if it's more compact.

Stephanie Cohen has been at Goldman Sachs for more than 23 years. She started as an analyst in 1999 and has held a series of leadership positions in mergers and acquisitions. In January 2021, she was appointed global co-head of consumer and wealth management.

BMO Financial Group is poised for a dramatic expansion of its U.S. banking business later this year when it closes on its $16.3 billion acquisition of Bank of the West, the U.S. operations of BNP Paribas. Laying the groundwork for the merger is Erminia "Ernie" Johannson, BMO's group head for North American personal and business banking.

For much of last year, Titi Cole wore multiple hats. She was head of operations and fraud prevention for Citi's consumer bank, where she launched new fraud-detection capabilities, strengthened risk controls with enhanced governance oversight for issue and third-party management, and invested in controls automation and digital monitoring.

Sandy Pierce was in the midst of transforming how Huntington Bank delivered advisory services when her counterpart in the company's community banking unit left for a new job.

Making banking easier for every customer is the mission of Mary Mack, who leads 67,000 employees in Wells Fargo's consumer and small-business banking division. Last year, Mack led the app's relaunch, making it easier to use and more secure for Wells customers. "There are alerts and speed bumps along the way to prevent fraud," she says.

When Nandita Bakhshi took a job as a part-time bank teller in 1986, she found an environment far removed from today's. "The expectation for anyone who didn't fit expectations was to conform as best we could to a very narrow definition of 'professionalism,' " says Bakhshi, who took the teller job after moving from India to the U.S. to support her husband's academic career. "Times have changed," she says.

In her fourth year as CEO of City National Bank, Kelly Coffey is expanding the types of lending her bank offers while also increasing diversity in her leadership team. Since Coffey was named CEO in February 2019, business has grown substantially.