Most Powerful Women in Finance: No. 6, Emily Portney, BNY Mellon

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors.

Having run both businesses and client-relationship organizations, Emily Portney, chief financial officer of BNY Mellon, brings a well-rounded vision to her oversight of the firm's finance functions, which include tax, treasury, capital management and investor relations — where she regularly articulates and advocates the value of the franchise to the public.

Prior to becoming CFO in July 2020, Emily led the global client coverage organization for asset servicing, BNY Mellon's largest business, where she was responsible for end-to-end client experience and long-term revenue growth in diverse market segments such as hedge funds, insurance companies, pension plans, and endowments. 

BNY Mellon recently embarked on an effort, co-sponsored by Portney, targeted at reducing bureaucracy and increasing efficiency across the firm. The effort requires the entire 50,000-person company to challenge and change how many areas operate by attacking old, bureaucratic processes and ways of thinking. To assist with the program, Emily and her co-sponsor took several dozen high-potential employees out of their day jobs for several months.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Portney said that the management of digital assets could create a meaningful source of revenue for BNY Mellon as early as 2023-24. However, several regulatory hurdles that need to be overcome in the short term before her organization can "lead the charge" into the cryptocurrency business. "There are proposals in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission that haven't yet been approved on whether ETFs can actually hold digital assets directly versus futures," she said. She says she's optimistic regulators will provide better clarity to the markets in the near future. 

Portney is a tireless advocate for talent development, with an emphasis on diversity and teaching employees new digital and other skills.

She will soon be taking on a new role with BNY Mellon, where she is set to lead the bank's treasury and credit services in addition to its clearance and collateral management functions. She will remain on the BNY Mellon executive committee and continue to report to the firm's CEO. 

For the last 15 years, Portney has been a leading supporter of Cycle for Survival, which raises funds for rare cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 2021, she founded a global BNY Mellon team to participate in the then-virtual fundraiser, and this year established the first in-person BNY cycling team. 

Since 2017, she has been a board director of MarketAxess Holdings, a leading electronic bond trading platform for institutional investors that has long been at the forefront in transforming and democratizing the global bond market. 

Portney is a champion for greater access to higher education; this year she founded an undergraduate scholarship award at her alma mater, Duke University, in honor of her mother. The scholarship is designated specifically for exceptional students who are in need of financial aid.