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.

Meghan Shue is responsible for helping manage the end-to-end asset allocation process, developing market research, and communicating the investment team’s market outlook and positioning to clients and prospective clients. She is a member of the Investment Committee, which is responsible for deriving the firm’s strategic and tactical asset allocation positioning. 

Meghan also oversees the firm’s portfolio construction process — including implementation of asset class views through a variety of proprietary, non-proprietary, passive, active, and factor-based solutions — and chairs the Portfolio Management Committee.

Prior to joining Wilmington Trust, Meghan was an investment strategist at Bessemer Trust, where she helped manage the asset allocation decision and implementation process, performed asset allocation and market research, and published pertinent thought leadership.

She holds an MBA with a concentration in finance from the University of Miami, where she was valedictorian of her graduating class. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering, with a concentration in operations research and financial engineering, from Princeton University, where she was also captain of the swimming & diving team. 

Meghan is a regular CNBC contributor and is frequently quoted in financial media communicating the firm’s economic and market views. She was also named to American Banker’s 2022 Most Powerful Women in Banking: NEXT list.

Kristin Lesher is chief wholesale banking officer for Truist Financial Corporation, a purpose-driven financial services organization committed to inspiring and building better lives and communities.

Named to her current position in February 2024, Lesher leads Truist’s Wholesale Banking teams in providing comprehensive financial solutions to meet the diverse needs of clients served by our commercial and corporate banking, commercial real estate, enterprise payments, investment banking and capital markets, and wealth management businesses. She is also a member of Truist’s Operating Council.

Most recently, Lesher served as executive vice president and head of Commercial Banking Coverage for Wells Fargo where she managed a national team providing local coverage and specialized industry expertise to companies in a wide variety of industries and subsectors, as well as government, institutional and not-for-profit corporations. Previously, Lesher served as co-head of Investment Banking Coverage at Wells Fargo Securities. She has held several senior positions in investment banking, corporate treasury, corporate development, and mergers and acquisitions.

Lesher has served on the Board of Girls on the Run International, including as Chair of the Board from 2019 to 2021, and she is actively involved in Wake Forest University as a member of the Parent’s Advisory Council.

Lesher earned a bachelor’s degree from Duke University and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management, where she was an F.C. Austin Scholar.

Alli Yttreness took a circuitous route back to banking after starting out as a teller while attending the University of Minnesota. Yttreness joined the $675 billion-asset U.S. Bank 11 years ago from the American Academy of Neurology, where she had served in the Office of the General Counsel. 

“I knew that I wanted to be in banking law, but it was really about finding where my passion was,” Yttreness said.

Aileen Thomas joined the $60 billion-asset Synovus as a consumer product team member in 2018. Within just two years, she was promoted to consumer product lead. Thomas was promoted, according to nominating executive Liz Wolverton, head of consumer banking and brand experience, because it was “evident she possessed high leadership potential and what we look for in executive leaders. Her exceptional intellect, courage, expertise, work ethic and people skills allowed her to quickly expand her visibility and responsibilities.”

Banking came naturally to Aidis Suever, who grew up in a banking family in which both her parents were bankers in their native Albania. 

“We love numbers,” said Suever. “I was raised in a household where being in the banking industry was really what I knew.”

When Chun Schiros moved to the U.S. from China after graduating from college, it was in hopes of becoming a facial-recognition engineer and working under the Tennessee professor who had written the textbook she’d studied in Beijing. But that professor had retired from teaching, so she instead headed to Alabama, where she completed master’s and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering and statistics at Auburn University. Then she began work as a medical researcher, a career step that made sense for someone interested in how to use data in new ways.

Heather Orrico’s career in finance got its start at a field hockey game. Orrico was a member of Yale University’s field hockey team, and after a game, she got into a conversation with an alumni who worked in finance. “She told me that I should consider sales and trading,” she recalled.

Ashley O’Neal’s first job in banking was a turnaround. 

She’d been hired into a management-trainee program at National City Bank in 2006, after she graduated from the University of Missouri–Columbia, and then put in charge of a struggling branch. 

The assignment came with a daunting list of problems for a new branch manager: “The branch had a huge employee issue. Employee morale, unethical behavior and turnover were all high at this branch,” she recalled. “I went in with a lot of issues to correct.”