Kara McShane, managing director and head of commercial real estate (CRE) at Wells Fargo, leads with a hands-on approach and builds teams that are ready to roll up their sleeves.

Through leading by example, she has created a culture where she expects people to work “side-by-side”, and through which CRE has grown to be a powerhouse inside Wells Fargo’s corporate and investment bank. 

That growth has netted out over a rash of deals, including a $10 billion take-private of real estate investment trust AIR Communities for Blackstone in June 2024, a deal McShane said was emblematic of the agile, collaborative approach she wants to drive.

After a summer internship in 2000 at Morgan Stanley, Sharon Yeshaya joined the financial services giant as an investment banking analyst the following year. Since then, she’s climbed the corporate ranks in eight different roles. She’s held her current position — executive vice president and chief financial officer — since 2021.

Her career trajectory, however, hasn’t been a smooth climb. As a female executive and the daughter of immigrant parents, Yeshaya openly acknowledges the challenges she has faced. But rather than let those challenges knock her down, she embraces them as “opportunities to grow.” These challenges “teach me to ground myself in preparation, remain focused on the long term, and make decisions with intention,” said Yeshaya.

It’s that preparation, long-term focus and intentional decision-making that have helped her gain a seat in the C-suite at the $7.9 trillion-asset Morgan Stanley. Today, she sits on the firm’s operating and management committees. 

Having amassed 39 years of experience in financial services, Katy Knox is one of the longest-tenured female leaders in the U.S. private banking sector. Knox, president of Bank of America’s Private Bank since 2018 and a member of BoA’s executive management team, views her visibility as both a responsibility and an opportunity.

“As Marian Wright Edelman said, ‘You can’t be what you can’t see.’ For many associates at Bank of America, especially those early in their careers, it’s powerful to see leaders who reflect the communities we serve,” said Knox. “Our industry has a unique opportunity to engage emerging sources of wealth with fresh perspectives and talent, and we’re committed to developing that talent internally.”

Pennington is moving Edward Jones from its traditional role as a stock brokerage firm into a new orientation as a financial-planning company. 

Of her 20,000 financial advisors, a record for the firm, she now has 5,000 Certified Financial Planners. This ramp-up will help Edward Jones “meet a growing and urgent need for trusted, personal financial advice,” in a world where 52% of affluent households want financial planning, compared to 29% who sought this type of advice in 2018, she said. This year, Edward Jones also launched its Generations private client service, its first foray into high-end wealth management. 

“We’re meeting this moment by expanding how we serve, moving toward a client-segmented model and aligning our compensation with the value we deliver to clients and their families,” she said in an email.

When markets swooned in April, NYSE Group President Lynn Martin was ready. Years of investment in cutting-edge technologies and processes had prepared the world’s largest exchange to weather the volatility and surging trading volumes wrought by tariff concerns. 

In a CNBC op-ed, she reassured investors that the “beating heart of the global financial system” had met the challenge, handling more than 1 trillion messages on two separate days with a median processing time of 30 microseconds.

“I felt it was my responsibility to remind people that the NYSE has been around 233 years. We’ve survived wars, pandemics and geopolitical uncertainty, so don’t panic,” she explained now. “We’re quite proud that our financial markets showed their resilience and strength during that time.”

For the fifth consecutive year, Donna Milrod, executive vice chair and chief product officer of Boston-based State Street Corporation, is a Most Powerful Women in Finance honoree.

At State Street, Milrod is responsible for leading the product development strategy, value propositions, and growth of the Investment servicing business. She leads a team of 600 and has  eight direct reports. Additionally, she serves on the executive committee and reports to Joerg Ambrosius, State Street’s head of investment services.

Milrod is also responsible for leading strategy, value propositions and growth of the company’s asset servicing business, which represents  more than 80 % of State Street’s overall business.

Over the past year, financial markets have been driven by higher rates and a potential shift toward deglobalization. In response, Hanneke Smits, global head of investment management at BNY, has aligned the bank’s portfolio strategies to meet evolving client needs.

This includes launching Pinpoint, a data-driven portfolio consultation service that has led to new client opportunities in Switzerland; debuting Pershing X Wove, a wealth-management platform for North American clients; and expanding a partnership with alternative credit specialist CIFC Asset Management, which allows clients around the world to access private credit exposure.

Emily Portney is the Global Head of BNY’s Asset Servicing business, which provides custody, fund services, private market support and data solutions to asset owners, traditional and alternative investment managers, insurance companies, banks and broker-dealers. She is a member of BNY’s Executive Committee.

Previously, Emily was BNY’s Chief Financial Officer, responsible for the company’s global financial strategy, accounting functions, the business-aligned CFO teams, treasury, capital management, tax, corporate development, investor relations, procurement and real estate. Prior to becoming CFO, she led the global client relationship, sales and service teams for Asset Servicing and oversaw the business in the Americas.

Before joining BNY, Emily was CFO for Barclays International, where she led a global organization spanning the Corporate and Investment Bank, the Private Bank, and the Cards and Payments businesses. She began her career with J.P. Morgan and held various leadership roles in her more than 20 years with the company. 

Emily is a member of the board of directors for MarketAxess, a publicly traded corporation. She holds a Master of Business Administration from Columbia Business School and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University.

In just her second year as president and co-head of Bank of America’s Merrill Wealth Management business, Lindsay Hans has met those challenges head on.

In partnership with Eric Schrimpf, president and co-head of the 25,000-employee Merrill Wealth Management unit, Hans boosted year-over-year revenue by 9% in 2024 and increased the AUM balance of the Investment Advisory Program by 18% year-over-year, among other accomplishments.

The unit’s success has continued into 2025. During the first half of this year, Merrill Wealth Management posted nearly $10 billion in revenue, and wealth management advisors added 12,700 clients and more than 20,000 households. As of March 31, Hans and Schrimpf oversaw client balances of $3.5 trillion.

Yie-Hsin Hung entered the financial services sector after earning a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from Harvard University. Her first stop after college: investment banking.

Although she enjoyed “the fast-paced environment and the opportunity to work on complex, high-stakes transactions” in investment banking, Hung eventually desired work that was “more enduring and purpose-driven.” She found work as the CEO of New York Life Investments from 2015 to 2022 and today as president and CEO of State Street Investment Management, formerly State Street Global Advisors. She’s been head of the world’s fourth largest investment management firm since 2022.