When Maria Hackley started recruiting talent at Georgetown University early in her career at Citigroup, impressing her managers was an accidental result. 

“Part of one’s success is the incremental things that one does outside of their day job that help senior leaders meet their goals,” Hackley explained. 

It was the early 1990s and Hackley was a coverage banker at Citi. In her free time, she flew from New York City to Washington, D.C. seeking new talent among the women, Latinos and members of the LGBTQ community at her alma mater. 

For four decades, Russell Investments has reached individual investors through financial advisers, retirement plans and other go-betweens. But this year, the firm launched a suite of actively managed ETFs designed to be accessed directly by consumers.

“We view this as a pivotal moment for the firm,” said Kate El-Hillow, Russell’s president and chief investment officer, noting that the move opened new channels for growth. “It’s not just about a new product line. It’s a strategic shift that expands our relevance across a wider client spectrum.”

The launch coincided with Russell’s 40th anniversary of providing products for retail investors. The Seattle-based company, which manages assets of about $355 billion, attracted net investor inflows of $24 billion in 2024, the firm’s strongest growth in more than a decade, according to El-Hillow. Revenue grew by double digits.

Just six months after Kourtney Gibson was promoted from chief institutional officer to CEO of TIAA Retirement Solutions, global stock markets crashed in response to jitters over U.S. trade tariffs. For Gibson and the nearly 900-employee retirement solutions business, the market volatility represented a pressing challenge.

“During April 2025’s significant market disruption, our clients faced tremendous uncertainty with regards to their retirement plans,” said Gibson, who became CEO last October. “It was essential our teams remained calm and confident, particularly while call volumes spiked, and were agile enough to pivot with our clients’ changing needs.” (Gibson was ranked on her 2024 title of Chief Institutional Client Officer.)

Amid the market turbulence, TIAA clients poured money into the company’s flagship fixed annuity, TIAA Traditional. This, according to Gibson, demonstrated investors’ growing interest in guaranteed asset classes as part of a diversified portfolio.

Michal Katz has an ambitious growth strategy to make Mizuho Americas, a division of Tokyo-based Mizuho Financial Group, a key player in investment and corporate banking in the U.S.

In 2023, Katz spearheaded a $550 million acquisition of Greenhill, a boutique investment bank specializing in M&A and restructuring. The purchase brought 370 bankers under Katz’s remit and at least $300 million in annual revenue. Katz continues to build out her team with strategic hires and internal promotions. 

“While success is hardly ever linear, I’m proud to say that the acquisition has been a ‘win win,'” Katz said. “Greenhill clients now have access to Mizuho’s robust balance sheet, lending and capital markets capabilities, while Mizuho clients benefit from world class advisory capabilities.”

Christina Minnis is addressing one of the most important trends taking place in finance today: the emergence and growth of private credit as a powerful tool for clients. 

Earlier this year, Christina Minnis was named the first Global Head of Credit & Asset Finance and head of Global Acquisition Finance within the newly created Capital Solutions Group at Goldman Sachs. Her unit is responsible for a significant portion of the new group’s business. “I’m most proud of having been asked to lead that effort, working with many of my partners to execute the mission that David [Solomon, CEO] and John [Waldron, president and COO] laid out,” she said.

“That mission is to bring together the best structuring capabilities of the firm with the best distribution capabilities in order to create global, very bespoke solutions to our clients on the issuing side. And, on the investing side, to continue to have a very strong relationship and sourcing engine for our asset and wealth management division, ” she explained.

When doing a lot of public speaking, a background in theater comes in handy.

Samara Epstein Cohen, Blackrock’s first chief investment officer of ETFs and index investments, holds a bachelor’s in theater arts from the University of Pennsylvania. In the last year, she’s spoken at more industry events and has been a guest on panels, podcasts, and news outlets like CNBC and Bloomberg. 

Acquisitions can change the essential shape, dynamics and performance of any company. No one knows this better than Martina Cheung. Appointed as president and CEO of S&P Global in November 2024, Cheung’s experience with the global firm began in 2010.  Prior to moving into her current role, she was president of S&P’s Global Ratings business. (American Banker’s methodology requires that a woman be in her role for at least one year, so Cheung is ranked based on her performance leading S&P Global Ratings, not her current position as CEO of S&P Global.) To her, one of the defining moments of that journey was leading the due diligence for S&P Global’s $44-billion acquisition of rival IHS Markit in 2020.  

Now 15 years in at S&P, she helms a company worth about $150 billion. Even more significant are the levers S&P can move with its pronouncements on the creditworthiness of the world’s leading companies and governments. In such an environment, the impact of acquisitions takes on even greater weight. S&P has executed some high-profile acquisitions during 2024 and in the beginning of 2025, including Visible Alpha, World Hydrogen, Proton LP. Clearly M&A activity will continue to drive growth and transformation for S&P. 

Banks and payment companies have been fighting to capture small business banking customers, and for American Express’ Group President of Global Merchant Network Services

Anna Marrs, much of last year was spent working on that goal. 

2024 was a year marked with economic and political uncertainty, and that provided Amex an opportunity to more deeply engage with its small business clients, said Marrs, who until earlier this year was Group President of Amex’s Global Commercial Services and Credit & Fraud Risk (Marrs was ranked on her 2024 title for this year’s list.) Her division is the company’s second largest business by revenue and card member spending, and  accounted for approximately 25% of American Express’s total revenue in 2023.

As Citigroup undergoes a massive restructuring, Ida Liu, head of Citi Private Bank, is focused on the engagement and morale of a 3,000-employee team spread across 52 offices in 20 countries.

Liu’s methods include traditional efforts such as frequent communication through emails and town halls and less conventional techniques that include inviting a nutritionist to advise on eating and a doctor to discuss sleep. She organized a competitive bake sale at the London branch and once invited a Buddhist monk to discuss guided meditation.

Anu Aiyengar can measure the change in her role over the last year by the miles she has traveled.

As global head of advisory and M&A for J.P. Morgan, Aiyengar circled the planet in May. Her journey, which included a mix of internal and external meetings and conferences, began in southern California and touched down in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney and Melbourne. At every stop, she met with employees in town halls, small groups and one-on-ones.

Aiyengar has been global head of M&A at J.P. Morgan since 2023, and she still spends time advising clients on deals. But her role expanded in 2024 as part of an internal merger of the bank’s investment, corporate and commercial banks. She is one of four investment banking executives on the combined bank’s executive and operating committee, which also has representatives from the other business lines.