Abigail Johnson, known to all as Abby, runs her family’s old-school asset management firm with a focus on alternative investments that couldn’t even be traded on an exchange a year ago. 

Fidelity Digital Assets, which provides custodial and trading services for the crypto holdings of institutional and high-net worth clients, operates as an independent subsidiary and has become a core contributor to the $6.4 trillion-asset company, which grew to $32.7 billion in 2024 revenues. (The company has about $16.4 trillion under administration.)

Mary Callahan Erdoes arrives for a meeting seven minutes late, apologizing profusely. The CEO of JPMorganChase’s mammoth asset and wealth management (AWM) business moved into the company’s gleaming new headquarters at 270 Park Avenue a day earlier and underestimated the return time to her office after escorting a client to the entrance. “This building is the craziest thing that’s happened to New York City in a long time,” she said.

If you really want to see something crazy, look at the high-energy Erdoes’ workload—and her results. Over the past year she’s shepherded the bank’s high-net-worth clients through a volatile spring, flown around the world to meet with heads of state and billionaires, spoken at big forums, including the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and even helped fetch a record price for a venerable sports franchise. She also played a high-profile role as the most senior member of Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon’s operating committee.

With digital commerce growing rapidly, it’s important to pick up the pace of development, Bridgit Chayt says.

“Last year has shown a lot of progress in the way we work,” said Chayt, executive vice president and head of commercial payments and treasury management. “We have been able to onboard at the ‘speed of fintech’ rather than the ‘speed of banking,’ which is gratifying.” 

Chayt was pivotal to Fifth Third’s acquisition of Rize Money in late 2023 and the subsequent launch of Newline, the bank’s embedded payments business. Embedded payments refers to payment products that are integrated into software or a platform. Consumers or businesses use embedded payments to complete a transaction without leaving an app or website. Embedded payments are often grouped with embedded finance, which refers to the delivery of banking services via relationships with third parties, another strategy that is a big part of Fifth Third’s business.

Hope Dmuchowski is senior executive vice president and chief financial officer for First Horizon Corporation. She has responsibility for accounting, treasury, financial planning & analysis, line of business finance, banking data analytics, loan and deposit pricing, corporate development, and investor relations. In addition to her financial management responsibilities, she also has responsibility for corporate properties, sourcing, and procurement.

Dmuchowski has over 25 years of experience in banking and brings a wealth of finance, accounting and merger expertise having served in several key roles running integrated business and economic models, budgeting, forecasting, financial analysis, regulatory reporting, and operations. Prior to joining First Horizon in 2021, Dmuchowski worked at Truist and the predecessor bank BB&T in numerous roles, including head of financial planning and analysis and management reporting, chief financial officer of corporate banking, commercial banking and corporate groups, chief financial officer group director as well as chief financial and operating officer of enterprise operations services. Dmuchowski began her banking career in the Leadership Development program for the sales and trading division of Deutsche Bank.

Dmuchowski has a passion for serving her community and is an avid volunteer in every city where she has lived. She currently serves on the non-profit boards for the National Salvation Army, where she is currently the treasurer, 4Word and the Baptist Hospital Foundation. She also serves on St. George’s Independent School board of directors.

Dmuchowski holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and a Master of Science degree in Business Management both from Saint Elizabeth University, as well as a Women in Leadership certification from Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business.

Jill Castilla knows what success looks like.

Castilla took the helm as CEO of Edmond, Oklahoma-based Citizens Bank of Edmond in 2009, when the bank was reeling from the still-unfolding global financial crisis. In the intervening years, Castilla has not only turned the bank back from the brink of failure, but also expanded its size and profile into a stable and successful bank with more than $416 million of assets.

But success can be defined in a number of different ways, Castilla said, and many of the ways that bankers traditionally measure success may not capture some of the initiatives that make a difference for customers. As a privately-owned and primarily employee-owned business, Castilla faces less pressure for quarterly earnings results than many of her publicly-traded peers, which she says helps her focus less on short-term profits and more on long-term goals, such as securing inexpensive deposits to make loans. The bank’s core deposits grew 35% between November 2023 and May of this year.

Last year, Jodi Richard’s job was particularly fraught amid a landscape of market volatility, cybersecurity concerns, the growing impact of artificial intelligence and the ever increasing speed of payments.

As the vice chair and chief risk officer for the $678 billion-asset U.S. Bank, Richard drives every decision related to risk and controls, including credit risk, liquidity and interest rate risk, and fraud risk. “Successfully managing liquidity and interest rate risk has been of paramount importance as we continue to navigate economic uncertainty and market volatility,” Richard told American Banker.

In 2020, less than one year into becoming Wells Fargo CEO, Charles Scharf tapped Ellen Patterson to lead the bank’s legal department. The job promised to be a challenge: Well Fargo faced a mountain of federal investigations plus class action lawsuits and overall concern it could not manage risk.

Four years after coming over from TD Bank, Patterson said, “I feel really good about the progress we’ve made putting a number of historical matters behind us.”

Tasnim re-joined Citi in October 2021 to lead Citi Commercial Bank (CCB), a key business area for the bank. CCB provides full scale banking products and services to mid-sized companies across the globe delivering tailored solutions to this exciting and fast-growing client base. Commercial Banking clients represent a significant global growth opportunity as their needs closely align with Citi’s core value proposition that enables clients to grow cross-border by leveraging sophisticated platforms and solutions. Tasnim is executing on an ambitious growth strategy to capture the mid-market opportunity with an emphasis on talent investment, digital transformation, and expansion into new markets.

Most recently, Tasnim was the UK Corporate Bank Head at Barclays plc where she focused on growing target segments, building solutions, enhancing client experience and developing talent. Tasnim implemented National Industry verticals to serve corporate clients and set-up a Public Sector business to drive growth through industry specific insights and solutions. Tasnim played a leading role in the deployment of the UK Covid-19 Government Loan Schemes and was a strong voice for financial services during the pandemic.

Prior to Barclays, Tasnim was Head of Commercial Banking in Europe, Middle East and Africa at Citi where she led Citi’s expansion of the business in the region, including launching into new markets and driving innovation and digitization. During her more than 20-year career at Citi, Tasnim held various roles in Investment Banking, Corporate and Commercial Banking as well as Senior Regional Management.

Earlier in her career, Tasnim worked at JP Morgan and Commercial Union; and she is a Chartered Management Accountant. Tasnim is passionate about equality in the workplace especially for women and has led several diversity initiatives and chaired various Committees across her career in banking. In 2023, Tasnim was honored as the number one woman to ‘Watch’ in the American Banker’s Most Powerful Women lists and in 2024 she was also recognized on the publication’s Most Powerful Women in Banking list. Additionally in 2023 and 2024, Tasnim was included in Financial News’ 100 Women in Finance list, recognizing leading women across European financial services.

Additionally, Tasnim is a member of the Board of Directors of Foro Holdings Inc, a Fintech based in Charlotte, North Carolina; a Governor of Central Foundation Girls’ School in London and a Trustee of Developments in Literacy UK, a charity with a focus on girls’ education.

Tasnim graduated from Kings College London with a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Management.

Moving Comerica’s back-office employees into new digs in Farmington Hills, Michigan, was about more than just a change of scenery — it was a concrete manifestation of a recently adopted core value of making “the bigger possible.”

That’s the view of Megan Crespi, Comerica’s chief operating officer. The new office has more natural light, sit-stand desks and 32-inch curved computer monitors, all designed with employee input.

Tammy LoCascio is Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for First Horizon Corporation. LoCascio is responsible for technology, operations, data and business transformation functions as well as many of the company’s counter-cyclical and national businesses (FHN Financial, Mortgage Warehouse Lending, Correspondent Banking, Franchise Finance and Mortgage).

Prior to this role, LoCascio served as the Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer since the merger with IBERIABANK. From 2013-2020, she also served as Executive Vice President and Director of Retail Banking and then consumer banking, responsible for the strategic direction and support of retail banking, private client, wealth management, small business, mortgage and consumer loan delivery and the contact centers. LoCascio has also previously held senior leadership roles at Regions and National City Bank.

LoCascio has received noteworthy accolades such as the Woman of Impact by the Memphis American Heart Association, as well as the American Banker Most Powerful Women in Banking Teams award in 2022 and 2024 and Most Powerful Women in Banking Individual award in 2024. She was celebrated as a Super Woman in Business in 2018 by the Memphis Business Journal.

LoCascio is active throughout Memphis and the West Tennessee community. She currently serves on the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce as an executive committee member and Chairman’s Circle participant. She is also on the executive committees of the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Memphis, Memphis Riverparks Partnership and the Mid-South Minority Business Continuum. LoCascio also joined the board of directors of Jack Henry & Associates in 2024. 

LoCascio holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration-Marketing from the University of Florida.