Under Candace Browning’s leadership, Bank of America’s global research team has continued to do what it does best: collaborating with colleagues across regions and asset classes to bring clients thoughtful, timely insights.

In March, when Visa, Mastercard and American Express reneged on their earlier agreement in September 2022 to use a merchant category code that would help to identify gun purchases, Priscilla Sims Brown, the CEO of Amalgamated Bank, took the companies to task.

After seven years of leading Bank of the West, Nandita Bakhshi took on a new role this year.

She is now special advisor to BMO Financial Group, the Montreal-based bank that bought Bank of the West from its former parent, Paris-based BNP Paribas, in February. The merger dramatically expanded BMO’s footprint in the U.S. The bank now has more than 1,000 branches in 32 states.

Sandy Pierce is a seasoned veteran not just of banking, but bank mergers as well.

She was CEO of Detroit-based First Merit when Huntington Bancshares acquired the lender in 2016. Following that merger, Pierce settled into a largely wealth management role at Columbus, Ohio-based Huntington, running the private bank while also overseeing the bank’s operations in Michigan.

Citigroup’s Pam Habner is leading her bank into the fiercely competitive and lucrative high-end credit card market against giant competitors like American Express, Capital One and JPMorganChase. 

“I’ve been in financial services for more than 30 years and the competition has always been fierce but today it is at a new level,” said Habner, head of branded cards and lending for Citigroup, noting the rush of new and relaunched premium cards that are entering the market. Habner played a major role in the launch of Strata Elite, Citi’s first card for high-end consumers in four years. This comes as Chase recently refreshed its Sapphire card with new travel, fitness and experience perks, and higher fees, and Amex plans a refresh of its Platinum card for 2025. Strata Elite has an annual fee of $595, less than Sapphire’s $795 and Platinum’s $695.

Tanya Sanders brings an engineer’s approach to the way she runs Wells Fargo’s auto division. 

Sanders, who studied mechanical engineering in college, began her career designing gas turbine and power plants at General Electric. She later shifted into finance at GE Capital, which had a large consumer lending portfolio at the time.

EagleBank, of Bethesda, Maryland, specializes in commercial real estate lending. For most of its history, said president and CEO Susan Riel, that’s been a profitable part of the business.

With multiple interest rate hikes, average inflation of 8%, a war in Ukraine, problems with commercial real estate and the question of a recession hanging over the economy, this has been a challenging year for both the banking industry and for Carissa Rodeheaver, chairman, CEO and president of First United Bank & Trust in Oakland, Maryland.

To Kavita Mahtani, the key to successfully navigating big changes at work is constant communication and transparency.

And, as chief financial officer of the Americas for HSBC, her 1,000-person team has seen plenty of changes over the last couple of years.