When Amy Harris learned in 2014 that UMB was hiring an in-house litigator, she leapt at the chance to work at the bank.

An associate at a law firm in Kansas City, Missouri, Harris enjoyed the courtroom. But she wanted a change from law-firm life. Plus, she added, “Those in-house litigation positions are kind of few and far between.”

She continued to bring cases to court after joining UMB, but the bank’s general counsel asked her to take on special projects alongside her litigation work. It culminated in a request to oversee how the bank’s legal team could incorporate new technologies.

Carmen Chan’s office is at the north end of Times Square, where Barclay’s U.S. Corporate and Investment Bank is headquartered, but her view is strictly global. As managing director of internet investment banking, her portfolio of both targets and clients may be filled with U.S.-based tech players, but Chan knows that each of them plays in a world without boundaries or borders.

According to Barclay’s Kristin Roth DeClark, global head of tech investment banking, the technology IPO market is in for a stellar year, with more than $50 billion worth of deals predicted in the coming 12 months, as part of the expected $3.1 trillion in global IPO and M&A activity. In such an environment, Chan’s worldly view will be a critical tool for success.

Hanen Alkhafaji, a senior software engineering manager at PNC Bank, supervises a cross-functional team of developers.

Her work at the $554 billion asset bank’s Dayton, Ohio offices was recently punctuated by a major internal restructuring of the advisor portal team. She guided them through the transition with confidence and reassurance, according to her superiors, and kept the team on track with its current projects.

As a first generation college student, Janel Taylor had no idea what she wanted to do when she graduated. But a human resources internship at Southern Company, an energy company, gave her a new direction. 

“I fell in love with every step of an employee’s life cycle at an organization,” Taylor said. “From talking to them about the opportunity and recruiting them and selling them on the position, the team, the organization, to the excitement of them accepting that job, into when there are performance challenges that we need to help support them through, or development experiences that we need to create for them so that they can develop their skills and grow.”

When you first meet Stephanie Cherrin, one of the immediate things that strikes you is her clarity of thinking—on what she does, why she does it and, even more, how she looks at the early-stage companies in which she might invest and their potential impact on the market.

The 38-year-old partner in J.P. Morgan Technology Ventures, the bank’s under-the-radar technology investment arm, is charged with identifying and making investments in fintech and cybersecurity companies. Cherrin’s demeanor—direct, candid and intentionally thoughtful about the process of investing—stands in sharp contrast to the bank’s desire to remain rather opaque about how much it invests annually in startups, the number of deals it did in 2024, or the types of investments its tech venture team is considering this year. When asked, she declined to answer questions on all of this, citing company policy.

Christine Ferris spent more than 17 years at J.P. Morgan, most recently as global head of CLO primary. In January, Ferris jumped to SMBC Nikko Securities America as head of securitized products — an unexpected career move that she couldn’t resist.

Until joining SMBC, Ferris had spent her entire career at J.P. Morgan, where she said she “was given excellent opportunities to grow as a leader.” She had no plans to leave the company. However, during a pitch meeting with SMBC Nikko Americas executive Scott Ashby, she learned about his vision for expanding SMBC’s investment banking business in the Americas. The plan laid out by Ashby, head of capital markets and investment banking, intrigued Ferris so much that she accepted an offer to run the securitized products business at SMBC Nikko Securities America.

Carolyn is responsible for leading the end-to-end strategy, risk management, governance and financial performance across U.S. Personal and Business Banking, including branch channels, Virtual Contact Center, specialty teams and Product & Headquarter functions. Her responsibilities include representing U.S. P&BB on the Risk Management Committee, U.S. Regulatory Committee and U.S. Management Committee. She is passionate about building diverse, engaged teams and working collaboratively to deliver an exceptional customer experience.

Carolyn started her career in 1991 as a part-time teller, and over the next decade took increasingly more senior roles, including Branch Manager, Account Manager, District Vice President and Head of U.S. Distribution and Business Banking which she was appointed to in 2018 before rising to her current role in 2024. Prior to her roles in the U.S., Carolyn was Senior Vice President for the Atlantic Provinces Division, for the bank’s Canadian Personal and Commercial business units.
She was twice awarded a Top 50 CEO award by Atlantic Business Magazine for her support and leadership within the Atlantic Canadian business community.

Since arriving in Chicago, Carolyn has been making inroads in supporting local women’s business advocacy and charitable activities. Carolyn is a member of the International Women’s Forum and has helped launch various initiatives to support women business owners including the BMO Celebrating Women Grants Program and supports the United Way of Metro Chicago Women’s Leadership Council. She also supports BMORE, a program that seeks to remove barriers to employment in African American and Latino communities and serves as an advisor on the U.S. P&BB Advisory Senate to further develop talent at BMO from all lines of business.

Since 2016, Carolyn has been part of BMO’s team of female leaders and was included on American Banker’s 2022 list of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Banking and Finance.

Carolyn is a member of the U.S. WISE Advisory Board, BMO’s employee resource group for women, and actively mentors a number of other executives in the company. She serves on the Board of Directors for Skills for Chicagoland’s Future and is an Executive Mentor for the BMO Harris / 1871 Innovation Program, and serves on the executive committee of Junior Achievement of Chicago. She has an undergraduate degree from McGill University and holds an MBA in Services from Dalhousie University.

Amanda K. Allexon is a Partner in Simpson Thacher’s Financial Institutions Practice. Based in Washington, D.C., Amanda advises domestic and foreign banks, bank holding companies, other regulated financial institutions and investors on the full spectrum of transactional, governance, regulatory and supervisory matters, including complex high-profile mergers and acquisitions. She routinely represents clients before the Federal Reserve, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and U.S. state banking regulators. She also advises on private equity investments involving banks and bank holding companies, and Volcker Rule issues.

Examples of Amanda’s work includes advising:
– BTG Pactual in its entry into the U.S. banking market through its proposed acquisition of M.Y. Safra Bank
– BMO in its acquisition of Bank of the West*
– Umpqua in its merger with Columbia*
– Mechanics Bank in its acquisition of Rabobank*
– Huntington in its acquisition of TCF*
– BB&T in its merger of equals with SunTrust*
– Independent Bank Corp. in its acquisition of Enterprise Bank
– Sterling Bancorp in its acquisitions of Astoria, Hudson Valley and Provident New York, as well as the merger with Webster Financial*
– Numerous transactions involving small and medium sized banking organizations*

In addition to her private practice experience, Amanda worked in the Legal Division of the Federal Reserve Board, including serving as Senior Counsel. During which time she evaluated merger and acquisition applications subject to review under the Bank Holding Company Act, Home Owners’ Loan Act, Bank Merger Act, Change in Control Act or Federal Reserve Act, and other applications and interpretive issues under these statutes. Amanda was a primary Federal Reserve contact for matters related to extensions of credit by banks to their insiders (Regulation O), regulation of holding companies (Regulation Y and LL), and matters related to the control of depository institutions and holding companies. Amanda also assisted the transition of savings and loan holding companies to Federal Reserve supervision and rules after the financial crisis, reviewed and established key policies related to control and private equity investments in bank holding companies, and served as a liaison to the U.S. Treasury related to post-crisis investments in banks.

*Includes experience prior to joining Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Sumeet Chabria is Founder and CEO of ThoughtLinks, advising Fortune 500 banks and capital-markets leaders on technology innovation and AI-driven transformation. He brings deep, enterprise-wide expertise across retail, commercial, wealth, capital markets, and payments, and is a trusted partner to top firms, fintechs, VCs, and boards. He focuses on technology-enabled growth, efficiency, risk, resilience, and the future of work.

Previously, he was Global COO for Technology & Operations and Head of Global Business Services at Bank of America, and Global CIO for Banking & Capital Markets at HSBC. He teaches executive education on technology and AI at Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College, holds senior advisory roles with leading firms, and serves on the board of Liberty Science Center. He was named to Business Insider’s 100 People Transforming Business.

Irina Berkon is the Chief Financial Officer of Metallicus, a San Francisco-based leader in digital asset technology. Under her leadership, Metallicus has made remarkable progress in bridging the gap between cryptocurrency and traditional finance, building the infrastructure needed for regulated, real-time payments and digital asset innovation.

With a mastery of financial governance and regulatory frameworks, she ensures Metallicus operates at the highest standards, fully aligned with BSA, AML, GDPR, and ISO 20022. Her precision in compliance and institutional trust makes Metallicus the strongest bridge between blockchain and banking at scale.
In addition to her responsibilities at Metallicus, Irina is also a Managing Director at Golden Seeds, an angel investor network dedicated to funding women-led companies and creating opportunities for women disrupting their industries.