As businesses increasingly employ artificial intelligence (AI), Ann Fogarty is studying agentic AI through a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) course, to learn how to write prompts and otherwise optimize its use. 

“I want to really understand the opportunities there,” she said.

Fogarty leads the global delivery of State Street’s investment services, the firm’s largest business unit. In July 2025, she was appointed chief operating officer of investment services, with a remit to align expertise from across State Street to address challenges and develop solutions. (American Banker’s methodology requires that a woman be in her role for at least one year, so Fogarty is ranked based on her performance as head of global delivery, not her current position as COO of investment services.)

For Lori Heinel, helping women in the workplace requires more than just chatting over lunch. 

“If you’re going to mentor women, you have to be willing to stand up for them, advocate for them and not let the narrative around their behaviors override their capabilities and their expertise,” she said.

Over the past year, world events including the ongoing strife between Russia and Ukraine and daily dispatches from the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East have increasingly shaped the investment bank’s debt offerings and bond issuance. But even in this chaotic environment shaped by “geo-political unrest, market-moving elections, and central bank pivots,” Barbara Mariniello, global co-head of debt capital markets at Barclays, noted that it is “more important than ever to be level-headed, and not overreact to short-term market moves.”

After starting as a summer intern at Barclays, Meghan Graper spent more than two decades steadily rising through the ranks to become global co-head—and, at the end of 2024, sole global head—of debt capital markets. Given the DCM group’s standout results on her watch, her promotion was hardly a surprise.

Under her leadership, Barclays’ DCM business grew revenues 8% year-over-year in 2024—following a record 2023—the largest year-over-year move for Barclays since before the pandemic. Her group’s full-year 2024 revenue hit $554 million, and 2025 is on pace to exceed that mark. Through the first half of this year, revenue totaled $413 million. She has 20 direct reports, and 173 people on her team. (Graper is ranked based on the co-head role she held prior to her promotion in late 2024, as per American Banker’s methodology requiring a woman to be in her position for at least one full year.)

“I was raised in a family where you needed to earn what you had,” said Pourchet, head of corporate and institutional banking, Latin America, at BNP Paribas, where she leads 980 employees and helps manage nearly $2.6 trillion of client assets. “You need to persevere and you need to be very thankful.”

Pourchet later emigrated to New York, with a husband and three children in tow, to become head of commodity structured debt in Latin America at BNP Paribas.

Melissa Stevens is moving colleagues and customers to digital banking, but she is also growing Fifth Third Bank in a more traditional way: Increasing the number of physical branches.

Stevens’ expansive role at the Cincinnati-based lender includes head of enterprise workplace services, which puts her in charge of Fifth Third’s properties. Between 2019 and 2023, Fifth Third opened 107 new branches in the Southeastern states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, according to the bank.

Hope Holding Bryant commands nearly half of First Citizens Bank’s balance sheet. 

Last year, the North Carolina-based financial institution increased general bank loans by $3.9 billion, a 6.3% year-over-year growth. As of Q4 2024, general bank loans accounted for $66.8 billion – 48% of total loans. On the other side of the balance sheet, last year general bank deposits grew $9.4 billion to $73.1 billion, which accounts for 47% of total bank deposits. 

Holding Bryant, the vice chairwoman, attributes this success to serendipitous acquisitions over the past few years. In April 2019, First Citizens acquired Biscayne Bank. In January 2022, First Citizens merged with CIT Group. And in March 2023, the bank acquired Silicon Valley Bridge Bank. 

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.