In mid-August, Cathy Bessant traveled nearly 8,000 miles from Bank of America’s headquarters, in Charlotte, to the world’s tallest, free-standing mountain, on the Kenya-Tanzania border.
Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro had not been on Bessant’s bucket list — but even so when the opportunity arose last year to help lead a hike with business students from the University of Michigan, her alma mater, she took it.
To prepare, Bessant trained early in the morning, climbing the stairs before sunrise to the top of BofA’s headquarters. She frequently walked home this summer, carrying all of her gear in the North Carolina heat. She wore her hiking boots with her business suits — including during one of her weekly broadcast meetings with 9,000 company managers across the world. (And yes, she received many compliments on her outfit.)
Bessant even carved out time for mental preparation, meeting with hikers who had previously climbed Kilimanjaro and other mountains, to get their advice.
“Pushing myself to new limits is part of my DNA, and this goal is no different than other challenges I’ve faced,” said Bessant, BofA's chief operations and technology officer. “It’s all about mental fortitude and preparation, dealing with 100% certain adversity and 100% certain discomfort.”
In many ways, the hike was a fitting trip for Bessant, this year’s Most Powerful Woman in Banking. At BofA, she consistently pushes boundaries as part of her job — and, in the process, made her company one of the industry leaders in tech.
“I live my personal life with the same level of prescriptive direction as my professional life,” she said, drawing parallels between her hike and her career.
Earlier this year, for instance, Bessant was one of those who oversaw the launch of Erica, BofA’s virtual assistant. The service, which is powered by artificial intelligence, is now available to more than 26 million mobile customers. As of mid-July, more than 2 million customers had used Erica for basic services such as searching transactions or obtaining account balances.
Meanwhile, BofA customers have continued to rely more heavily on the company’s mobile app, as logins rose 21% in 2017 from a year earlier, to 4.6 billion.
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Bessant also has pushed BofA to improve its back-end technology. She oversaw training this year for 15,000 employees on agile development, an engineering process designed to improve the pace at which new products and services are released. Additionally, by the end of 2019, approximately 80% of BofA’s workloads will be housed on the private cloud, allowing the company to more efficiently manage its computing resources.
In total, Bessant manages more than 95,000 employees in 35 countries. She also runs a $15 billion budget, roughly the equivalent of
One major area of focus for Bessant has been advocating for new technology like artificial intelligence to be developed in an ethical matter.
She was instrumental in founding the Council on the Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence at Harvard University this year. The council, which is funded by BofA, will explore how companies can prevent bias – particularly against
“By being thoughtful and deliberate about how we develop and use AI, we can realize the promise of this game-changing technology and ensure it serves people — not the other way around,” Bessant said.
Additionally, the council will explore the effects of automation on U.S. workers, looking at the types of job training skills that employers will demand in the future.
“Society has benefited from nearly every technological advancement in the past,” Bessant said. “There is no excuse for failing here; We as business leaders know what’s coming.”
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