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.

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. 

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.

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.

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

Anne Clarke Wolff is a 30-year transformational leader in the financial services industry with expertise managing large scale global businesses and working with companies through financial life cycles – from initial public offerings to mergers and acquisitions.  In 2021, Anne founded Independence Point Advisors (“IPA”), a women-owned investment bank and advisory services firm, where she serves as its Chief Executive Officer.  Prior to IPA’s launch, Anne spent the majority of her career managing businesses focused on banking relationships, access to capital markets as well as treasury transformation.  During her roles building Bank of America’s $10B Global Corporate Banking business, and as Head of Sales for JP Morgan’s Treasury and Securities Services business, Anne drove double digit revenue growth and built best in class teams to extend the banks global capabilities in serving multinational clients.  She also served as Head of North America Corporate Banking at Citigroup and has been repeatedly recognized as one of The Most Powerful Women in Banking by American Banker and Notable Women in Finance by Crain’s New York.

Under Candace Browning’s leadership, Bank of America’s global research team has continued to do what it does best: collaborating with colleagues across regions and asset classes to bring clients thoughtful, timely insights.

In March, when Visa, Mastercard and American Express reneged on their earlier agreement in September 2022 to use a merchant category code that would help to identify gun purchases, Priscilla Sims Brown, the CEO of Amalgamated Bank, took the companies to task.

After seven years of leading Bank of the West, Nandita Bakhshi took on a new role this year.

She is now special advisor to BMO Financial Group, the Montreal-based bank that bought Bank of the West from its former parent, Paris-based BNP Paribas, in February. The merger dramatically expanded BMO’s footprint in the U.S. The bank now has more than 1,000 branches in 32 states.