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Banks went into 2024 already juggling seismic change. Throughout the year and into 2025, executives were forced to prioritize trade-offs between growth, innovation-fueled transformation and safety in their strategic decision-making, capital allocation and appetite for risk.
Several economic and market factors directly influenced how bankers framed their growth strategy—higher-for-longer interest rates that raised deposit costs and pressured borrowers, growing concerns over consumer credit quality, and new interest in “alternatives” to banks increased competition.
At the same time, financial executives had to contend with President Trump’s return to the Oval Office, with his tariff strategy and pro-business, pro-crypto deregulatory agenda creating complexity for executives seeking to effectively manage through it.
The industry has also been confronted with new business realities—all driven by innovation, from the launch of spot Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds to the growing issuance of stablecoin payments to the rise of agentic AI.
These are indeed extraordinary, somewhat chaotic times. But if wide-ranging industry shifts and chaos are “the ultimate proving ground for resilience and reinvention,” as former Intel CEO Andy Grove believed, then who is leading financial institutions and how they are doing so requires significant adjustments to meet this unprecedented moment.
For leaders in The Most Powerful Women in Banking™ 2025, success this year lay in flexibility and agility. There remain only two CEOs in the top 50 U.S. institutions by assets, Citi’s Jane Fraser at #1 and U.S. Bank’s Gunjan Kedia at #4—a doubling of the number since last year when only Fraser held the title. (This marks the fifth consecutive year that Fraser has been ranked in the top spot.)
JPMorganChase has a majority of the Banking list’s top five spots, with Jennifer Piepszak, Marianne Lake and Lori Beer coming in at #2, #3 and #5, respectively.
What follows is a deeper look at the 25 top-performing executives whose management styles, strategic thinking and bold moves reflect the changing dynamics of leadership in an industry that powers the global economy.