Jeanine Oliva: Global Head of Tax Operations, Citadel

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Jeanine OlivaBy Jessica Darmoni

“I have built genuine trust and strong relationships with my team here at Citadel, which go beyond the day-today work,” says Jeanine Oliva, Global Head of Tax Operations at Citadel and Treasurer of WILD Gives Back. “Taking the time to get to know team members as individuals deepens trust, fosters collaboration and in my experience, high performance naturally follows.”

The Glass Hammer sat down with Oliva to learn more about her path to one of the world’s most demanding financial firms. It was not shaped by a master plan but by trusted relationships, a relentless work ethic and a refusal to let self-doubt have the final word.

Impactful Connections

Oliva has always been in roles that support middle and back office operations by understanding how global transactions are taxed. Her path to Citadel first emerged while she was a public accountant at RSM McGladrey.

“I was working with a close friend when he left to join Citadel,” says Oliva. “Soon afterwards, I was hired by a hedge fund administrative company that at the time was owned by Citadel.”

It was through this role that Citadel became one of her clients. The proximity gave her first-hand insight into the company’s culture.

“I saw their high standards and approach to excellence up close,” she explains.

Those qualities did not intimidate her but instead drew her in. She had kept in touch with her former colleague from McGladrey and when the opportunity presented itself to work at Citadel, she was ready.

The Human Endeavor in Leadership

“Being trusted as a leader at Citadel is one of my greatest motivators,” she says. “However, what really sustains my day-to-day are the people.”

This philosophy extends beyond her immediate team. She describes keeping in touch with former colleagues over the years, offering support in the form of a fresh perspective on a tricky problem, or a job reference at just the right moment.

Oliva is also the Treasurer of WILD Gives Back, a not-for-profit 501(c)3, which raises funds for students to study derivatives courses at the Associated Colleges of Illinois. She has a unique perspective from her vantage point.

“Some of the most meaningful moments in my career have been watching people I’ve worked with grow into their full potential,” she reflects.

The Value of Being Seen

Oliva thinks back on her career, which was more of a game of chutes and ladders, than a direct climb to the top. She describes a pivotal moment when early in her career, and pregnant with her first child, a former boss tried to bring her back to his team. She raised a concern that it might not be practical timing and his response has stayed with her ever since: “Half of Jeanine is better than no Jeanine.”

His comment was a critical reminder that genuine professional relationships are not transactional. For a woman in finance, navigating a career alongside pregnancy and motherhood, being told plainly that her presence was valued regardless of circumstance was a message that carried real weight.

Making Space

Oliva points to Harlan Ten Pas, lead partner of the Financial Services team at McGladrey, as another significant influence, shaping not only the early years of her career, but also her leadership.

“He was exceptionally sharp and always approachable, regardless of his seniority. He took a personal interest in each member of his team creating an environment where many colleagues felt like family.”

That mattered especially in the early years, when she was often one of the only women in the room.

“His warmth and investment in his people showed me that belonging was possible in a field that didn’t always make space for me.”

He also modeled something she values deeply. She says he taught her “that a successful career and a fulfilling personal life aren’t mutually exclusive.” Though he passed away last year, his influence continues to shape how she leads.

Turning self-doubt into fuel

While Oliva is secure in her industry knowledge, that does not mean she is not faced with moments of uncertainty.

“When resistance arises in a meeting, I lean into it rather than away,” she says. “At Citadel, being entrepreneurial from day one and challenging ideas constructively and constantly asking, “is there a better way?” is not just permitted, it’s expected.”

When self-doubt surfaces, her response is characteristically grounded because she doubles down on the work. This could mean reading up on recent regulations, talking through issues with colleagues, or building her understanding until she is confident.

“At Citadel confidence comes from knowledge, rigor, and continued curiosity, not complacency.”

A Human Mind Behind AI

Even when it comes to modern technologies such as AI and Machine Learning, Oliva believes the human element will still be an important one.

“Technology, including AI, is only as good as the human mind behind it,” she says.

In an era of rapid AI adoption in finance, this stance feels more relevant than ever. Questioning outputs and challenging existing processes, are not just encouraged at Citadel but expected. The culture of continuous improvement is something she genuinely values, and something she sees as essential for the next generation of leaders.

One of the most practical pieces of guidance Oliva carries is a healthy skepticism of doing “the same as last year.”

“The principle is straightforward,” she says. “Don’t accept inherited processes at face value. Rules and fact patterns can change. Understand the calculations. Know where the data comes from. Do the research.”

Leaders in a Crowd

When she thinks of the young women only starting out, she says, “Keep pushing toward what you want. Persistence and hard work generate dividends. Don’t be afraid to take a different path to get there, and if others doubt you, prove them wrong.”

She believes the leaders of tomorrow will be defined by the strength of their personal relationships and the ability to trust their own judgment.

“Relationships keep you grounded, keep you motivated, and open doors,” she said. “Critical thinking, the capacity to reason beyond what any algorithm can offer, is what ultimately distinguishes a leader from the crowd.”

It’s a vision of leadership that’s both deeply human and rigorously disciplined, which sounds a lot like Jeanine Oliva.

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Charlotte Weir: Head of Corporate Banking, EMEA at Wells Fargo

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Charlotte Weir“Leadership isn’t about directing from the sidelines,” says Charlotte Weir. “It’s about standing shoulder to shoulder with your team, celebrating success together and, when things don’t go to plan, being the first to own it.”

In a career spanning nearly three decades, Weir has operated by a consistent set of principles: be genuine, be present, and invest in people for the long term. It’s a philosophy that has defined her career, whether she is building client relationships lasting over 25 years, mentoring junior colleagues, or being candid with her team about the demands of balancing life and work.

Do What You Enjoy

“My philosophy is to do things you enjoy,” says Weir in explaining how she made her way to a career in finance. At first that meant a chemistry degree, pursued simply because she loved the subject. But once she graduated, she realized that she needed to find something that matched her energy.

“I’ve always been a high-intensity, competitive person,” she explains. “I wanted to be in an environment that was buzzy, fast-paced, and pushed me.” A recruitment firm landed her on a trading floor at Bear Stearns in London, where “the speed, the pace, being on the trading floor, it really excited me.”

What drew Weir specifically into debt capital markets wasn’t the products, but the relationships. “It’s about building relationships with clients while being very strong in your subject matter,” she notes, “building that trust so clients come back to you time and time again.”

After Bear Stearns, nearly two decades at Barclays followed, building seniority across UK, Northern European, and EMEA corporate teams. But the pandemic prompted a change of course.

“I had this moment where I thought, am I really doing what I want to be doing?” Weir recalls. “I was looking for a challenge. I was looking for the next opportunity to stretch myself.”

The challenge of building Wells Fargo’s corporate banking franchise in EMEA was the catalyst for Weir to make the move and step into a leadership role at Wells Fargo, with a team of about 50 people across London, Dublin and Frankfurt and a mandate to grow the business.

“My DCM background is still part of my DNA, but this role has challenged me to broaden my expertise, think more strategically, and help shape a team capable of taking the franchise to its next phase of growth across EMEA.”

Integrity and Showing Up

A defining feature of Weir’s leadership is integrity: doing what you committed to and not asking of others what you wouldn’t ask of yourself. That principle becomes most visible when things don’t go to plan. When a deal goes in the wrong direction, she doesn’t wait for someone else to manage the fallout.

“I am first on the phone to the client. I’m as much a part of the success as when things don’t go right.”

Rather than viewing those moments as setbacks, Weir sees them as some of the most powerful opportunities for growth.

“You learn so much more when things go wrong. It feels terrible in the moment, but you come out with lessons learned and much stronger.”

That same commitment to honesty and accountability carries through to how she shows up with her team internally. As the mother of 18-year-old triplets, Weir believes in being transparent about the realities of balancing work and family.

“I expect the team to work hard but it’s better if people know that home needs to come first sometimes,” she says. “Modeling that behavior helps other people realize it’s okay too. And that can change how they feel about work, because they know that there is flexibility there.”

Relationships and the Long Game

A defining thread in Weir’s career is her commitment to investing in relationships, especially when it comes to her clients.

“Some of my clients I’ve covered for 25 years. That creates an incredibly strong bond.”

That bond, she says, is what allows her to have conversations that go beyond the transactional and it means clients keep coming back, whether through market cycles or personnel changes.

Weir’s emphasis on relationships also shapes how she has approached mentorship and sponsorship. Rather than waiting to be noticed, she has consistently sought out senior leaders whose values resonated with her own, and asked directly for their guidance. At the same time, she is clear that while mentors and sponsors can open doors, it is equally important to learn how to advocate for yourself.

“While others may advocate for you, you also need to learn how to advocate for yourself, and it has to be done in a natural way, that feels like you.” For Weir, that meant connecting with senior leaders, often one or two levels above her direct manager, so that her contributions were visible beyond her immediate team.

“It’s about finding opportunities to help people recognize and realize what you’ve been involved in, what you’re doing, and how you’re driving the business forward. And doing it in a way that feels authentic to you.”

The mistake Weir made early on was assuming strong work would speak for itself. “There’s a mentality of put your head down, do your job really well, and you’ll get promoted. That’s not always the case.” Relationships, she learned, are not only how you serve clients, but also how you build and sustain a career.

Planting Seeds

Having entered the industry when she was, in her own words, “one of very few women,” Weir now channels that same long-term thinking into ensuring the next generation has an easier path. She is consistently involved in Wells Fargo’s campus recruiting and helped launch Treasurers and Bankers of Tomorrow, a Wells Fargo forum connecting junior bankers with junior finance professionals on the client side. The goal is simple: build authentic relationships long before anyone is in a position to do a deal.

“So much of my career comes back to relationships. If we can help our teams foster those connections early on, they’ll carry them throughout their careers.”

Switching Off

Outside the office, Weir stays active year-round through running, skiing, and paddleboarding. Running often becomes thinking time, while skiing offers something entirely different.

“It’s one of the only times when I can truly switch my brain off and enjoy being active in beautiful scenery.”

It’s fitting for a leader who believes in showing up fully: for her clients, her team, and herself. Knowing when to step back and recharge is what allows Weir to step forward when it matters most.

By Jessica Robaire

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Melinda Schramm: Founder and Chairman of The National Introducing Brokers Association (NIBA)

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Melinda SchrammBy Jessica Darmoni

“What an incredible purpose the derivatives markets play… price discovery and risk management together represent a massive economic purpose for being,” says Melinda Schramm. “Beyond traditional and agricultural markets, they are essential in emerging markets, shaping how we manage risk and our future. I am proud to be part of something that is essential to the American value of life.”

After more than four decades in the derivatives industry, Melinda Schramm still approaches the markets with the same clarity of purpose that first drew her in, because this work matters to her. The Glass Hammer first met Schramm in 2009 as Founder and Chairman of the National Introducing Brokers Association (NIBA). Since then, Schramm has spent her career not only navigating the complexities of futures and options products, but also helping others understand their essential role in the global economy. Today, NIBA is focused on educating their members and advocating for the Introducing Broker (IB), Commodity Trading Advisors, accountants, lawyers and market participants that have joined the NIBA network. Schramm’s work also continues in a new and evolving context that includes emerging products like prediction markets and crypto assets, and an ongoing dialogue with regulators.

A Voice in a Changing Regulatory Landscape

While speaking with The Glass Hammer, Schramm is preparing a comment letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on behalf of Introducing Broker (IB) members of NIBA. The topic is prediction markets, which is an area drawing increased attention as regulators seek input on how these platforms should function within the broader derivatives ecosystem.

For Schramm, the issue comes back to first principles. Do these markets serve a legitimate economic purpose?

“Price discovery is critical,” she emphasizes. “But we also need to understand how that price is formed and disseminated in prediction markets, and whether it contributes meaningfully to the system.”

The response from the IB community so far has been measured. Many are taking a “wait and see” approach, not out of resistance, but out of a need for deeper understanding. Prediction markets represent a shift—one that requires education before adoption.

“There’s interest,” Schramm notes, “but also a recognition that we need to understand how to approach it responsibly.”

Her comment letter reflects that balance: openness to innovation, paired with a clear focus on purpose, transparency, and market integrity.

Understanding the Purpose of Derivatives

That focus on purpose has been a constant throughout Schramm’s career. While derivatives markets are often viewed as complex or opaque, she sees them as fundamentally practical.

From agricultural hedging to managing financial risk, these markets allow participants to navigate uncertainty. They enable businesses to make decisions with greater confidence and stability.

“Once you really understand the futures and options business,” she says, “you see how essential it is, not just to specific industries but to the broader economy.”

That perspective has shaped her leadership and her long-standing commitment to education. Early in her career, she recognized that many people, even those in finance, lacked a clear understanding of how derivatives function.

Building Knowledge in a Fast-Paced, Ever-Evolving Industry

When Schramm first entered the industry, trading floors served as informal classrooms. They were places where newcomers could observe, ask questions, and learn by immersion. Today, those entry points no longer exist.

In response, she has helped build more structured pathways into the industry through education and outreach. Working through NIBA, she collaborates with institutions like DePaul University and the Illinois Institute of Technology Stuart School of Business to introduce students to the realities of derivatives markets.

“These efforts go beyond trading,” she says. “There are a wide range of roles that support the industry, including legal, compliance, operations, and technology. Many students have never heard of key functions like Futures Commission Merchants (FCMs) or Introducing Brokers.”

But once they do, something shifts.

“They start to see how the whole system fits together,” she explains. “And then they begin to see where they might fit within it.”

Lifetime Lessons from the Markets

Schramm’s longevity in the industry has required constant adaptation. Markets evolve daily, shaped by new data, global events, and regulatory developments. The ability to adjust quickly is not optional but essential.

“I tend to overthink decisions,” she admits. “But this business doesn’t allow for that. You have to be able to change your focus on a dime.”

Equally important is the ability to listen. Whether working with clients or engaging in regulatory discussions, understanding what is truly being asked—and what is actually needed—requires careful attention.

Resilience is another defining trait. Mistakes happen, especially in a fast-moving environment. Schramm’s approach is straightforward: address the issue, fix it, and move forward.

“You can’t take everything personally,” she says. “It’s about learning and continuing.”

Navigating Change and Challenging Assumptions

Over the course of her 50 year career, Schramm has also witnessed shifts in workplace dynamics. When she first started, women were rare in the field and often met with mixed reactions—either dismissed or treated with a kind of over-cautiousness that limited their effectiveness.

While progress has been made, challenges remain. Even today, she occasionally finds herself in rooms where she feels underestimated, whether due to gender or age.

“There are moments where I feel like I have to raise my hand to be heard,” she reflects. “There aren’t many women at this stage of life sitting at those tables.”

Yet her continued presence, and influence, speaks for itself. With decades of experience, she remains deeply engaged with modern markets, from traditional commodities to emerging digital assets.

Looking Forward

As Schramm helps lead preparations for NIBA’s 35th anniversary gathering this July at DePaul University, her focus is both forward-looking and grounded in experience. The event will address emerging topics like prediction markets while also recognizing the individuals who have shaped the industry with the introduction of a NIBA Hall of Fame, sponsored by the CME Group.

However, for Schramm, the work is ongoing. Whether through education, advocacy, or direct engagement with regulators, her goal remains consistent: to ensure that derivatives markets continue to serve a meaningful purpose.

That purpose, rooted in price discovery, risk management, and economic stability is what has sustained her career.

And as new markets emerge and new questions arise, it is also what continues to guide her voice.

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Julia Hoggett: CEO, London Stock Exchange

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Julia Hoggett“My entire career has been motivated by answering exam questions that I’m passionate about,” says Julia Hoggett. “I’ve had the privilege of being able to answer them in each of the seats that I’ve been in, and I’ve learned to trust that those questions and opportunities will manifest over time.”

When the Glass Hammer first spoke with Hoggett in 2012 when she was the Head of Covered Bonds and FIG Flow Financing at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, she was already thinking about her career in exactly these terms. Now, as chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, Julia Hoggett sits at the center of UK capital markets, having also held senior roles across banking, regulation and market oversight. She frames her path as a succession of problems worth solving, each transition driven by curiosity and the conviction that the next challenge would reveal itself when the time was right.

Following the Exam Questions

Hoggett trained as a sociologist specializing in sub-Saharan East Africa and originally entered the City to answer what she calls her first big exam question: “How does Malawi operate in the global economy?” She expected to stay in finance for two years and then return to postgraduate research. Instead, the pursuit of one question led to another, and after seven years advising clients on multi-billion dollar bond issues, DEPFA offered her the opportunity to run a bank funding program – the exam question there was that she had talked the talk for those 7 years, could she walk the walk?

Thereafter, Bank of America Merrill Lynch offered Hoggett the opportunity to advise on bank liquidity structures after the GFC, and she thought: “That’s a good exam question.” From there she held senior roles at the Financial Conduct Authority, including designing the supervision of investment-bank conduct in the aftermath of major market scandals, and steering oversight of the UK securities markets through Brexit and MiFID II.

Then came a moment in the summer of 2020 that changed everything. Apple’s market capitalization exceeded the entire FTSE 100 for the first time. Hoggett, then Director of Market Oversight, sat down that evening and wrote out everything she thought she could influence from a policy perspective. The next afternoon, the phone rang.

“It was a headhunter and the first words out of her mouth were, Julia, why haven’t you applied for the LSE job?” she recalls. “And I knew the next exam question.”

Today Hoggett is working on two exam questions simultaneously: “It’s not just how we create the best possible environment in the UK for great companies to start, grow, scale, and stay here,” she explains. “But also, how we reshape our capital markets over the next decade to make the best use of tokenization and digitization.”

The Risk of a Plan

Hoggett’s philosophy of following fascination over something like five-year plans is something she absorbed without quite knowing it until the day she heard her mother articulate it in a speech when she was Deputy President of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. When a female lawyer in the audience asked her mother how she had planned her way there, her answer was: ‘do what you’re doing to the utter best of your ability, trust that opportunities will come from that and don’t close yourself off to those opportunities however different they are from the path you’re on’.

“I almost started laughing,” Hoggett recalls. “I’d been asked a version of the same question the week before and given almost word for word the same answer. But my mother and I had never talked about it.”

When her mother graduated, there were six women and 94 men in her law cohort, one female judge, no female Law Lords, and the Supreme Court didn’t yet exist. Had she aimed at a visible target, she would have aimed too low.

“The risk of setting a plan is that what you think you’re capable of at the time is not what time proves you’re capable of,” Hoggett says.

Start With Where You Want to End Up

If Hoggett resists personal micro styled career planning, she is unambiguous about strategic direction. Her mantra is simply start with where you want to end up and work backwards.

“Don’t start with where you are and work forwards,” she says, “because the minute you do, you’ll be constrained by the first obstacle you hit. If you start with your vision and work backwards, you won’t constrain your ambition, and you’ll maximize the chance that you get there.”

Running an institution that has existed for over 300 years changes your relationship with time horizons. “Your job is not to be a day trader,” she says. “It’s to be there as this immutable piece of capability that others build their technology, their legal frameworks and their ambition to.”

Setbacks Are Data

Having navigated the Asian crisis, the Russian crisis, the global financial crisis, the sovereign debt crisis, the conduct crisis, Brexit, COVID and Ukraine, Hoggett treats each challenge as data whilst not underestimating the deeply human impact of so many of those crises.

“I assume I’m going to have one of those learning moments every day,” she says. “And usually you do.”

Her approach is twofold: brutal honesty about where things actually stand, combined with absolute confidence that with the right people in the room you can find a way through.

“Think of it like pushing off from the blocks as a sprinter. You need those blocks to be completely anchored into the ground, you need that solid foundation to push off from.
But you also have to create the space and the culture for that honesty to feel safe, rewarded and listened to.”

The Cloak of Post-It Notes

One of the most distinctive pieces of advice Hoggett shares came not from a mentor or a sponsor but from her ex-wife, a counselling psychologist.

Early in her banking career, Hoggett would write a to-do list on a Post-It note, scratch off items through the day, and then throw it in the bin when she left. Her ex-wife listened, then said: “Metaphorically, you’re throwing away all of your achievements at the end of every day.”

Hoggett started keeping a record instead, “thinking of each thing I struck off as one of life’s little victories, an accumulation of skills that I hadn’t necessarily had before I learned how to do it by doing that job. And then I started to think of it as a cloak made up of these metaphorical post-it notes. It was armor to take into the next thing that I did.”

The mental shift matters for navigating imposter syndrome, which she does not dismiss but reframes. “I think a certain amount of imposter syndrome is incredibly valuable. I get to do things in a day that most people don’t get to do. I’d never want to not recognize that that’s what they are.”

Mentors, Sponsors and Being Three-Up

Hoggett distinguishes between mentorship and sponsorship and emphasizes gathering the former from an unusually wide field.

“I don’t think of a mentor as having to have a particular shape,” she says. “Every day I am watching and observing all the people I work with whether they are male, female, more senior to me, more junior to me. I’m constantly observing how they do things and going, I like the way they did that, I would like to try and do it that way too.”

On sponsorship, she reflects on a colleague who moved teams and then approached her about a role elsewhere in the bank.

“She was three-to-‘more-than-one’ up on me. She knew me as an observer of the work I did. She knew the role she was sponsoring me into better than I did. And she knew the degree to which she was prepared to put her reputation on the line to sponsor me into that role.”

For Hoggett, the realization was when a sponsor approaches you, to recognise that they are operating with significantly more information than you are and to trust their willingness to place a step in your career in their hands.

Purpose Is Not a Buzzword

When asked about her why, Hoggett returns to where she started: an African development sociologist trying to understand how capital moves in the world.

“The capital markets are not there to make investment banks deal fees and league table position,” she says. “They are there as a convener, to bring together those who have capital, those who need capital, in service of an objective. Investment banks making deal fees is a byproduct of the purpose. It is not the object.”

That sense of fundamental purpose, Hoggett argues, is what allows strategy to flow and what allows thousands of people who may never be in the same room as a leader to feel connected to the work they do.

She has made repetition into a deliberate tool of culture, using phrases like 300-year-old fintech and convener of capital over and over again until they belong to everyone.

“The joke is it’s become Julia Bingo,” she says. “But there’s a pride in the fact that we all have that language, because that’s our shared articulation of our purpose. It’s not mine, it’s ours.”

It is, in the end, the same logic she applies to everything: not ownership, but direction. Not a plan, but a question worth answering, held lightly enough to let it evolve.

“I know that I am trying to do the thing I am doing right now to the utter best of my ability,” she says, “and I love it. What the next exam question is, and therefore what I do next, I don’t know yet and I don’t need to. I’ve learned to trust that the next exam question will manifest at some point, usually at the right moment.”

By Nicki Gilmour, founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com and Evolved People Coaching

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Powering the Future: Jamila Piracci, Founder of Roos Innovations

Jamila Piracci

By Jessica Darmoni

“Historically, much of the derivatives business has been passed down through oral tradition,” says Jamila Piracci. “People learned through mentorship or by being in the right place at the right time. While this helped some people, we need to make sure as an industry that we formalize an information sharing process and purposefully strategize succession.”

The Glass Hammer was first introduced to Jamila Piracci when she was the Vice President of Over-The-Counter (OTC) derivatives at the National Futures Association (NFA) where she led a team in designing one of the most significant regulatory frameworks in modern derivatives markets.

Following the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, Piracci was hired by NFA to establish its swaps regulatory program. The effort required coordinating within the well established futures industry self regulatory body to create processes, recruit staff, and develop oversight mechanisms for swaps market participants. By the time she left NFA to relocate to Texas with her family, the swaps program had approximately 120 professionals, including examiners, risk specialists, auditors, and quantitative experts.

The experience gave Piracci a front-row seat to one of the largest regulatory transformations in derivatives history. Her experience with swaps oversight at NFA, combined with her past roles at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and ISDA, provided a particularly valuable perspective as the markets evolved. She has a unique ability to help firms understand not only the technical requirements but the spirit of U.S. regulatory frameworks. For emerging leaders entering the futures industry, understanding both the structure of these markets and the policy forces shaping them can be daunting without a formal information sharing process.

Building the Future Workforce

Piracci is working to fix that with work grounded in education. As part of her involvement with the Futures Industry Association (FIA), she contributes to industry development initiatives designed to cultivate expertise across derivatives professionals.

Piracci serves on the FIA Board and is a member of the board’s Membership and Market Structure Advisory Committees. She also instructs a virtual “Swaps 101” course through the organization’s training programs. The course introduces newcomers to the fundamentals of swaps markets—an essential area of modern derivatives trading.

“FIA’s educational initiatives aim to build expertise from the ground up, ensuring a steady pipeline of knowledgeable professionals in the industry,” she explained.

Her own entry into the swaps world reflected a different dynamic. Early in her career, she was handed the 1999 ISDA Credit Derivatives Definitions booklet and told that if she wanted to understand the field, she should read it from start to finish.

“I learned a lot from that experience,” she recalls. “But I also had mentors along the way. That was partly because of where I worked. However, I started wondering what happens to talented people who don’t have access to those same networks?”

Programs like FIA’s educational initiatives aim to answer that challenge by making industry knowledge accessible to anyone interested in learning about derivatives markets.

Democratizing Knowledge

Piracci believes that education and transparency are essential for the long-term sustainability of financial markets.

The concept resonates with broader developments in financial technology, particularly in digital assets. One of the central ideas in that space is democratizing access to financial opportunities and reducing barriers to participation. Piracci sees similarities with education.

“Information should always be democratized,” she says. “The more people understand how these markets work, the more people can participate responsibly.”

By creating structured learning opportunities, the industry can attract new talent and reduce a reliance on informal knowledge transfers. She credits this mindset to her time at NFA, which has become a foundation for her later career values.

“I was responsible not just for recruiting the staff but I also had to ensure they were trained. We built a training program partly based on my experience and partly on NFA’s existing new staff training program,” she said. “I am most proud that the staff became beneficiaries and later leaders of the training structure that we built together methodically over time.”

A Passion for Public Interest

Longevity is a theme that runs through Piracci’s current work too. Today, at Roos Innovations she works with federal regulators, commodity and energy market participants as well as trade associations to help firms build responsibly and endure transitions. Her work also extends to financial services firms seeking registration with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). These engagements often involve creating healthy dialogue and, in some cases, building the pillars necessary for firms to function as regulated entities.

“Many companies today want to become U.S. regulated market participants, ” she says. “This includes commodities firms, as well as digital asset firms and prediction market companies, some of which come from overseas and want insight into how to work with U.S. regulators.”

She also believes that financial markets ultimately serve a broader purpose.

“Transparent, well-regulated markets protect participants but also ensure broader economic growth, which is essential for long-term societal health,” she said.

That philosophy extends into her public service roles. For the past two years, Jamila has served on the CFTC’s Energy and Environmental Markets Advisory Committee, where she was appointed by former CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger. The advisory committees provide recommendations and insights to the Commission, helping regulators understand market developments and stakeholder perspectives.

Jamila’s commitment to the public interest also includes extensive work with industry organizations such as Life:Powered, a nonprofit dedicated to improving America’s energy literacy, and the Committee of Chief Risk Officers. Through research and written analysis, she contributes insights on how policy decisions affect consumers and energy markets as well as how they impact risk management choices that have become increasingly more complex.

Skills for the Next Generation

Looking ahead, Jamila believes the most important skill for emerging leaders will be adaptability.

“The ability to learn new things matters more than simply amassing new facts,” she says. “The real skill is learning how to learn differently.”

In a world defined by technological innovation, regulatory change, and evolving market structures, professionals must be able to pivot quickly.

She describes this not merely as managing change but managing volatility.

“This requires a recognition that change is constant and must be embraced rather than resisted,” she says.

A Mission to Share Knowledge

Throughout her career, Jamila has worked at institutions central to the derivatives ecosystem, including regulatory bodies and an industry association. Those experiences gave her insights into how markets function at both policy and transactional levels.

Rather than keeping that knowledge within a small circle, she sees sharing it as a responsibility.
Whether advising firms, supporting industry groups, or sharing knowledge with other professionals, Piracci’s work reflects a commitment to adaptability, education and a talent pipeline that will guide the markets of tomorrow.

In closing, she is reminded of the quote by American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler, “the illiterate of the future will be those who can’t learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

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Pooja Mishra Prahlad: Partner, Head of Americas Equity Structuring, Goldman Sachs

Pooja Prahlad“Leaders should hold complexity without the temptation to collapse it,” says Pooja Mishra Prahlad. “They should want to look at things from different perspectives and think deeply to earn the answer.”

As a partner at Goldman Sachs with more than two decades in the industry, Prahlad’s call to slow down, reflect, and resist the easy path is a throughline for how she moves through the world. She leads with curiosity, comfort in ambiguity, and a conviction that the best things, whether careers, relationships, or ideas, are built with time and intention. Now as Head of Americas Equity Structuring, she continues to be energized by innovation, by the people around her, and by a belief rooted in her own unlikely journey and her father’s before her: a single opportunity given to the right person at the right moment can change the trajectory of generations.

An Unexpected Arc

Prahlad grew up in a world far removed from Wall Street. As the daughter of a Naval officer, she spent her childhood moving across India, living in identical government-issued houses, and attending the same schools as her neighbors, in a community where, as she puts it, “nobody ever discussed money or invested in the stock market.”

That upbringing, Prahlad says, turned out to be more preparation than limitation.

“The life I led in India was a great foundation for being able to adapt to a new set-up and new people. The Indian Navy is very diverse. You have people from all over the country with regional differences and language differences, a diversity born of meritocracy working towards a greater good. There is so much celebration of that in the culture.” This has led her to fundamentally believe that a truly meritocratic organization breeds a diverse environment.

Like many academically strong students in India at the time, Prahlad studied computer science and worked briefly at a software firm. But she quickly realized something was missing. ” Even though I enjoyed the intellectual challenge of problem-solving, I wanted to have more of the advisory piece.”

Business school brought Prahlad to a Goldman Sachs internship in London, and it proved transformative. The energy of the equity trading floor, and the combination of analytical rigor with constant interaction, felt like a natural fit.

“It ticked all those boxes of a job that involves thinking, but also working with a lot of people,” explains Prahlad. She joined full-time in 2005 and has been at Goldman ever since.

Innovation at the Epicenter

Today, as a partner leading equity structuring, Prahlad builds bespoke solutions for clients navigating a rapidly shifting landscape.

“It sits at the epicenter of a lot of innovation,” she says. “In my job, I have a vantage point to a changing landscape — market structure changes, regulatory changes, macroeconomic changes. And you get to read the tea leaves of what it means for clients.”

The other thread running through her work is the one she didn’t anticipate loving as much as she does: the trusted advisor relationship. “It’s a real privilege to work with clients and have them not just rely on you for expertise, but to rely on you for counsel. That’s become more and more meaningful as I’ve grown in my career.”

Her North Star

When asked who has inspired her most, Prahlad speaks movingly about her father. His own life followed an improbable arc, from a small village with no local high school to higher education, a Navy career, and later aviation, all made possible by a relative who chose to support his education.

“What is amazing about his journey is I never saw him allow struggle to rest heavily on him. He was so bright, but also so funny. You would have never known what his journey had been.”

The lesson Prahlad took from her father’s example is one she returns to often: “What people remember is who you are with them and how you treat them.”

The second lesson shapes how she leads today: “It’s possible to change not just one person’s life, but generations after them, by giving someone an opportunity.”

That belief now shapes how she approaches her own role. Reflecting on her rise to partner, Prahlad challenges the idea of a replicable formula. She credits a willingness to embrace innovation, change and discomfort, and the mentors and sponsors who opened doors at pivotal moments.

Not All Doubt is Counterproductive

As a mentor, Prahlad notices one theme that surfaces repeatedly: self-doubt. Her take on it is more nuanced than one might expect.

“Not all self-doubt is bad. It’s healthy to doubt your opinion without doubting your ability. It can make you want to work harder. It can make you think more deeply about the consequences of your actions to others. Our culture sometimes demonizes a little bit of doubt, but it’s not necessarily bad.”

The problem, she says, is when it tips into paralysis. “Confidence comes with action. Take a step in the direction you want to go, then take another step, then take a third step. If you fail – fail fast, that’s the best way to overcome the doubt and lead to clarity.”

Earn the Answer

When Prahlad speaks about leadership and the future, her focus consistently returns to responsibility, both to ideas and to people. She believes the financial industry is in a generational moment of change, shaped by new technologies, evolving approaches to risk, and shifting models of capital allocation. Within that landscape, she offers three principles.

First: sit with complexity. “Resist the pull toward quick, serviceable answers. The distance to an answer is so short now, especially with AI. It’s easy to stop there, even when it’s not the best answer…Spend time to earn the answer.”

Second: stay curious. “As you grow in your career, you end up teaching more than learning. It’s really important to stay curious and create the time for that.”

Third: bring people with you. “If you want to go far, you can’t go alone. Having conviction in your view, articulating your vision clearly, building trust and earning people’s followership over a long period of time require investment of time and energy. They are not a quick solve.”

Opportunity Can Change Everything

Outside of Goldman, Prahlad’s life remains anchored by her family, now by her husband and thirteen year old son. “Whatever the demands of the day, my husband and my son are where I return – in every sense of the word. I learn from them constantly – they both move through the world with a hunger to understand it. They keep me honest about what growth looks like”.

The same spirit extends into her broader commitments. Prahlad sits on the board of the American India Foundation, focused on livelihood and education for women and children in India, and supports the Nudge Foundation, which works with communities living in ultra-poverty. Their missions mirror the chance once given to her own family.

“The world has more talent than it has opportunity,” she says. “Anything that I can do to bring opportunity to people who have the desire to transform their lives is very important to me.”

In a fast-moving, efficiency-driven world, Prahlad embraces depth: depth of thought, of relationships, and of responsibility. She is a leader guided by curiosity, sustained by people, and anchored in the conviction that opportunity, when offered thoughtfully to the deserving, can change everything.

“I genuinely believe in what I bring to the table,” she says. “But it is also important to recognize that through the arc of life, there were discrete moments where people came in and did their bit. It’s my turn to do that now, for people who come after me.”

By Jessica Robaire

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Powering the Future: Laura Magyar, Patomak Global Partners

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Laura Magyar

By Jessica Darmoni

“You should always ask,” says Laura Magyar, Partner at Patomak Global Partners, as she talked about her time at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). She asked and was subsequently approved to spend a year abroad working at the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) during her tenure. “You don’t lose anything by asking.”

In an era defined by rapid financial innovation and shifting regulatory landscapes, Magyar’s career stands as a testament to courage, adaptability, and vision. Her journey, from a young professional in Chicago to a global leader shaping the securities industry, offers more than an inspiring success story. It provides a blueprint for future generations navigating industries where change is the only constant.

Redirection, not Rejection

Magyar’s career began in Chicago at one of Merrill Lynch’s top-producing offices. As a Series 7 registered sales assistant, she gained early exposure to the inner workings of financial markets and developed a deep understanding of client relationships and revenue targets.

“During my time at Merril Lynch, the Financial Consultant that I worked with was considering moving to management, and we discussed having me take over his book of business. However, as time went on, it became clear that he was not going to transition to another role, and I needed to decide if I wanted to be on the financial advisor track or pivot.”

She chose to move in another direction. While working full-time, she attended law school at night. Her initial goal was to become a defense trial attorney, but financial realities reshaped that ambition. She recognized that her industry experience was not a detour, but an asset. Instead of abandoning finance, she deepened her expertise in it.

“Many of my professors worked at the SEC, and I was encouraged by them to apply for a role there,” she says. At the time that I was applying for a position, the SEC was receiving hundreds of resumes for positions, and unless you knew someone working there, the chances of someone reviewing your resume and calling you for an interview were slim.”

Many would have interpreted that as a closed door, but Magyar treated it as a delay.

She joined a Chicago law firm as an associate. While most of her work focused on securities litigation matters, she also handled CFTC-related matters. Looking back, she recalls that many of the engagements she worked on as a consultant after leaving the SEC were CFTC rules and regulation matters.

Protecting the Integrity of the System

Finally, on a frigid Valentine’s Day weekend, she flew to Washington, D.C. to interview for an attorney role in the SEC’s Office of Compliance, Inspections, and Examinations. She got the job, and that opportunity became a 15-year tenure that would define her leadership style and influence.

In Washington, she rose to Branch Manager, working on high-profile issues. Her work intersected with significant market events, including investigations related to the Flash Crash and the Knight Capital (KCG) trading incident. These were moments that tested the resilience of financial markets and demanded accountability. Through them and countless other market events and investigations, she saw firsthand how regulation is about protecting the integrity of the system. Working on these matters also evidenced the strong collaboration across SEC Divisions (e.g., enforcement, Trading and Markets, Exams).

While at the SEC, Magyar created a program to examine SEC-registered foreign-domiciled broker-dealers. She led her teams in examining firms outside the U.S. for compliance with SEC rules and regulations. It also sparked her desire to work internationally, and she boldly asked the Division Director if she could spend a year at the United Kingdom’s equivalent of the SEC, the FCA. There was no stipend. No housing support. No financial incentive. She had to fund the move herself and find a place to live when the exchange rate was nearly 2:1.

“In addition to the cultural differences, I was able to experience firsthand the differences in regulatory approaches.”

Magyar worked for six months in the Division of Supervision and six months in Enforcement, gaining a comparative lens that would later shape her strategic thinking.

A Proactive Pursuit of Opportunity

When she returned to Washington, leadership had changed. The Division Director who had approved her Secondment had left, and both new and existing leadership did not see the benefit of this opportunity or the knowledge she brought back.

“Not only did I feel I had to prove that my year abroad had been worthwhile, but I faced the reality of government career progression,” she explains. “Positions open only when someone leaves, and even then, advancement is uncertain.”

Rather than wait indefinitely, she made another bold move into the private sector, joining Promontory Financial Group (now owned by IBM). There, she learned the intensity of consulting, which included short deadlines, strong personalities, constant pressure to secure projects, and managing billable hours.

“Networking became essential,” she said. “It was up to me to build relationships so that I always had a pipeline of work. Significantly challenging, while my experience was in securities, I did a lot of work related to commodities/CFTC and banking. So, I learned a lot, and this further expanded my toolbox.”

When IBM acquired Promontory, she transitioned again, joining Patomak Global Partners, founded by SEC Chairman Paul Atkins. The firm’s securities focus aligned perfectly with her background. Ironically, her first major project centered on swap dealers regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which required her to get up to speed on the relevant rules, regulations, and best practices quickly.

While she now leads the firm’s Securities Compliance Practice, she learned to build complementary teams, bringing in specialists when necessary and eventually hiring in-house talent to preserve both expertise and revenue. Regulation, she realized, is never static. It demands continuous learning, humility, and the courage to admit when new voices are needed.

That philosophy is central to how her work will impact future generations.

“Adaptability is a leadership superpower. The next generation of financial leaders will not thrive by mastering one static domain,” she says. “They will need flexibility, openness to change, and the willingness to evolve alongside the markets.”

The Responsibility of Leadership

Though Magyar never formally had coaching, she recognizes the huge value in mentoring and finds opportunities to mentor junior staff and share feedback. She understands that experience has compounding value—and that the responsibility of leadership is not merely to perform, but to prepare others.

Magyar’s story is about one woman’s ascent in finance and law, but also about reshaping the relationship between innovation and regulation. It is also about proving that integrity and ambition are not opposing forces and showing future generations, especially young women in finance and law, that courage, curiosity, and conviction can open doors once thought closed.

Her legacy will not be measured solely by the cases she handled, the practices she built, or the revenue she generated. It will be measured by the relationships she builds, the young leaders she supports, and by the generations who learn that asking boldly and embracing change are not risks—they are necessities for shaping the future and a successful career.

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Powering the Future: Carey Ryan, Chief of Staff for Citi Technology & Business Enablement, Citi

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Carey RyanThe Glasshammer is running a “Where Are They Now?” series where we catch up with some of the professional women who we profiled ten or more years ago. We spoke with Carey Ryan, now Chief of Staff for Citi Technology & Business Enablement at Citi, about her career evolution and the role she plays in powering the future from both a technological and cultural perspective.

Nicki: Since we last spoke, where are you now?

Carey: We last spoke for the first time about 10 years ago, which seems like a long time but feels like the blink of an eye. I’ve held a number of roles since then, all within Citi’s Technology & Business Enablement group (though the name has changed a few times).

Now, I am the Chief of Staff for Citi Technology & Business Enablement. This entails working across both our technology organization and the wider bank to ensure we are effectively communicating and implementing new technologies, both with the goal of strengthening how we work and streamlining the time it takes to get work done.

Nicki: How did you get there?

Carey: In my 20 years at Citi, I have learned the best way to grow is to embrace every opportunity, especially if it allows you to learn more about how a company works. All of the roles I have had have allowed me the opportunity to support key areas of the business, including risk and control, data, and cybersecurity, each of which are vital to ensuring impactful technology can be developed or invested in and scaled to the full firm.

Nicki: Can you share a little about your current work?

Carey: Lately, much of my focus has been driving adoption and awareness for our Citi AI tools, helping us find the best places to practically and responsibly implement AI. This work includes leading our AI Champion and Accelerator programs, which are made up of approximately 4,000 volunteers around the firm who dedicate hours each week to serve as Citi AI advocates.

I also spend a lot of time working with our technology communication teams, each of whom covers a specific but global vertical within the larger technology business. No communication initiative is turnkey, and we always work to find new ways to impactfully reach colleagues with the information they need, be it in-person mediums like executive town halls or roundtable discussions, or through digital channels like email or lobby signage. Technology is the largest organization within Citi, so it’s key to focus on communication to enable change and drive execution while strengthening our culture.

Nicki: Have there been any unexpected or interesting twists in your career trajectory?

Carey: I have always worked in or adjacent to the technology space so, even before I recognized it, I was always headed for a career in enabling companies to leverage new technology to strengthen how they operated. That said, the world looks measurably different than it did when I entered the workforce, and Citi is no different. Some of these changes came quickly, such as the introduction and integration of AI, that has demanded the need to quickly shift priorities without much advance warning.

Nicki: Have any of them taught you a valuable lesson?

Carey: Citi is a large company, so I have had the opportunity to work on many projects with many people. Given this, the two key lessons I would share that always keep in mind is to always remember the end goal of every project and to stay flexible.

Nicki: What inspires you to be a leader and your leadership style?

Carey: My favorite part of my role is collaborating with dedicated and passionate colleagues. Whether it be the implementation of cutting-edge software, the voluntary work of a small team creating new patented technology tool, or an analyst successfully completing their first rotation with the bank – it is the passionate, innovative and solution-focused people that inspire me each day.

As I have risen in my career, I strive to be a good mentor and reliable leader for all members of my team, regardless of level. I’ve been lucky to have had several mentors whose advice I still hold on to, and it’s important to pay it forward. I also can’t help but think of my teenage daughter, I want to set a positive example for her as well as for my teams of what is possible in their careers and how leaders should treat their employees. An example that, hopefully, they will one day share with their own teams and mentees.

Nicki: Since we last spoke, can you share any challenging moments, setbacks, or self-doubt you’ve experienced as well as how you have navigated them?

Carey: I’m not sure I can pinpoint just one moment, but every new challenge I am presented with comes with a bit of imposter syndrome when I do not immediately have all the answers. Almost everyday features at least one conversation about something that where either I’m not the expert or the topic is completely new to me. It can be hard to ask questions when you think everyone except you has the answer, but the ability to step out of your comfort zone and know that you add value is a skill that will never go out of style. Self-doubt is something everyone faces, and the unknown is allowed to be scary. The key is being confident in your own ability to learn and adapt to problem-solve when navigating an unfamiliar situation.

Nicki: What skills do you think will matter most for future leaders?

Carey: When I was younger, I always assumed the fear and anxiety I felt about the unknown would go away. That one day I’d wake up and know everything there was to know about my job. But you quickly figure you’ll never know it all, because the world is always changing. Instead, I found the key is to always be ready by learning how to operate effectively with uncertainty and always be willing to learn.

Future leaders must be willing to be agile and adaptive, especially as the pace of change in the world continues to increase. AI is a great example of this. It is an unavoidable technology, and we should be willing to integrate it into how we work.

Nicki: Can you share an invaluable, specific piece of guidance a mentor or someone you admire has imparted on you?

Carey: I’ve had a number of tremendous mentors over the years. What I admired most in all of them was not any guidance they offered me, but the way they all led through their actions. Each of them led with kindness and empathy, listened carefully and accepted all forms of feedback, and were more than willing to change course if something was not working.

Nicki: Has coaching supported you in your journey, and if so, how?

Carey: Yes, I’ve been very fortunate to have had several coaches throughout my career. Coaches who were mentors, coaches whose job it was to support me, and coaches who were my peers. Career coaching offers an objective view of your decision-making. This often leads to introspective reflection on ways you can reframe your thinking, which is invaluable.

We can all sometimes be so goal-oriented, but it’s critical to take a step back and reflect on if we are taking the right steps to reach these goals. I often find myself going into my coaching session with one idea of what we will talk about and coming out with an entirely new perspective. Sometimes, the external guidance that a career coach offers is what one truly needs to help unlock those ‘aha’ moments.

Nicki: We are excited to see what you do next at Citi; we wish you continued success!

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Christina Bresani: Head of Mid-Cap Investment Banking, Wells Fargo Corporate & Investment Banking

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Christina Bresani“Being with my clients, helping them to get deals done, building new relationships is what breathes life into me and gets me excited.”

Ask Christina Bresani, Wells Fargo’s head of Mid-Cap Investment Banking, about a recent client visit and she’ll tell you about climbing into the cab of a semi-truck in high heels and passing a driving simulator test to show her client that she understood their business. That story captures everything about how she approaches her work: with genuine curiosity, a willingness to go wherever the client takes her, and an infectious enthusiasm that has sustained nearly three decades in investment banking.

After 25+ years as an M&A banker at two previous firms, Bresani joined Wells Fargo in 2024 as head of Mid-Cap M&A within the firm’s Global M&A business. In November 2025, she took on the expanded role of leading the firm’s Mid-Cap Investment Banking Practice focused on serving mid-cap clients and delivering investment banking products and services to the bank’s Commercial Banking clients. It’s a dual mandate she wears proudly, and one that plays an important role in Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Banking growth strategy.

“When you love what you do, it’s easy to put your head down and keep doing it,” says Bresani. “But what I saw in Wells Fargo was a new challenge to do what I love and help build a leading corporate and investment bank that can bank companies along the whole spectrum of their growth – from mid-cap to large-cap and beyond.”

Building Something That Lasts

The challenge of building out and developing the Mid-Cap Investment Banking team is one that Bresani finds genuinely energizing. “Creating a strategy, building a team that’s going to be successful in the near term and the long term, is really inspiring to me right now,” she says. “That’s hiring people. It’s getting the strategy right. It’s keeping people motivated because when you are building something, it’s not always a straight line.”

She notes that the foundation of any great team comes down to one word: trust.

“The goal is to build a team with a talented group of people who have the same values and want to lock arms to be successful together. It’s not only about individual success, it’s about elevating the entire team and constantly learning from our collective successes and failures,” she says. “This has always been important to me as a leader and it’s central to Wells Fargo’s culture.”

A Career That Kept Saying Yes

Bresani started out as an analyst, fully expecting to spend two or three years in banking before figuring out what she really wanted to do. Nearly three decades later, she’s still there — and still surprised by it. “Every year I would say, ‘wow, I want to do this, I want to learn this, I want to get better at this,’” she says. “And I just kept going.”

She credits a great deal of that staying power to the mentors who showed up early and stayed. “I was really lucky in my early days to have two amazing mentors: both men. That’s important for young women in the industry to know – you don’t have to only have female mentors.” Those relationships, she says, were as much personal as professional. ” They were ‘work dads’ in the sense that they really guided me and cared about my professional and personal growth. To form those kinds of relationships really makes a difference in this business which can sometimes be tough”

The Moment That Tests You

When asked about setbacks, Bresani reflects on one of the most universal and quietly defining moments in a banker’s career: the first time a client pushes back hard.

“There is always a point in your career where a client doesn’t like you or doesn’t like the advice you’re giving,” she says. “The first time that happens, it’s really hard not to take it personally.”

Just recently, she watched a director on her team navigate exactly that situation. Rather than letting it become a crisis of confidence, Bresani chose to reframe it. “I told him: this is your pivotal moment. Here’s how we help you pick yourself up. Here’s your opportunity to really do your job.” She recalls her own version of that moment as a first-year director, when a mentor stepped in, defended her and then told her precisely what she needed to do better. “You have to learn that not everyone is going to agree with what you say, and you have to have a thick skin. But ultimately, this is a client service business. Not every client is the same, and you have to adjust.”

Fueling the Long Game

How does someone sustain nearly 30 years at that pace without burning out? Bresani takes it one day at a time and deliberately so. “It’s easy in this job to get overwhelmed with everything that has to be done,” she says. “I’m very focused on what needs to get done today, what can wait until tomorrow, and making sure I am prioritizing what is important versus being driven by what is urgent.”

But the off switch matters just as much.

“I have three children, an amazing husband, a menagerie of animals, and I am committed to exercise even if it means a 4.30am workout. I find a way to exercise because I need it. Whatever it is, it’s important to find those things outside of work that make you happy and fill your energy cup.”

Another factor to staying happy and healthy she attributes to friendship, a group forged at an all-women’s college that has stayed tightly bound across careers and time zones. “We have a text chain,” she says, laughing. “We build each other up. We laugh and say, ‘You will never believe what happened today,” She pauses, then finds exactly the right phrase for it: “It’s a group hug via text.”

Still Having Fun

When Bresani’s kids ask her about her day, they don’t want the deal mechanics. They want to hear about the people. “I come home and my kids say, ‘Mom, tell me about the people you met today,’” she says. “I meet the most interesting people.” That, more than any title or transaction, seems to be the through-line of her career. She still operates by a simple rule she set for herself long ago: “I’ll stop doing it when it’s not fun anymore. It’s still really fun.”

By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com and Evolved People Coaching.

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Powering the Future: Erika Irish Brown, Head of Talent Management and Engagement, Citi

Erika Irish Brown“Future leaders will need learning agility above everything else,” says Erika Irish Brown. “The pace of change is only accelerating. Today it’s AI, but we don’t yet know what we’ll be navigating tomorrow. What we do know is that the leaders who thrive will be the ones who stay curious, stay open and embrace change rather than resist it.”

As part of The Glass Hammer’s Where Are They Now series, we are catching up with leaders we have spoken with before to see how their careers and perspectives have evolved over time. Erika Irish Brown, now Head of Talent Management and Engagement at Citi, has long been focused on creating opportunity and building inclusive workplaces. In this next chapter of her career, she shares how that mission is expanding as organizations rethink leadership, mobility and learning in an era defined by rapid technological change.

Q: What are you currently working on?

As Head of Talent Management and Engagement at Citi, my focus is on our global, talent centric approach to supporting our workforce—one that invests in people, creates opportunities for growth and fosters a culture where everyone can thrive.

Our team leads all of Citi’s efforts around development planning, talent designations, talent processes and succession planning. We also oversee enterprise coaching, our engagement activities including 12 global Inclusion Networks and Talent Management and Engagement Councils across each business and function.

Q: What is inspiring you to lead in the future?

What inspires me about leading into the future is the real momentum we’re building at Citi. We have a clear strategy, a leadership team driving meaningful change and a firm accelerating on every front, including technology.

AI is opening new doors for our people, helping colleagues find opportunities that match their skills and aspirations. As it becomes more integrated into how we work, it will continue to fuel growth, innovation and faster execution.

You can see this momentum in our focus on mobility. In 2025, we filled more than 55,000 roles with 44% coming from internal moves and promoted over 28,500 colleagues into new roles. And with initiatives like Development 365, more than 165,000 colleagues created personal development plans last year.

The combination of our strategy, our people and the possibilities technology unlocks makes the future incredibly energizing.

Q: What makes Citi special?

What makes Citi special is the combination of our globality and our focus on human-centered leadership. As the world’s most global bank, we have people on the ground in more than 90 countries, which gives us a unique level of cultural fluency. It allows us to connect with colleagues where they are, listen to their experiences and ensure our strategy reflects the realities of each market. Our clients tell us this reach is a true differentiator.

Our scale also means we tackle complex challenges across borders and offer a wide range of roles and career paths within one firm. That combination of global breadth and opportunity is hard to find anywhere else.

What also sets Citi apart is our leadership. Jane Fraser, our Chair and CEO, leads with a clear vision, and her leadership shapes a culture of understanding from the top. She is a trailblazer in financial services and the first woman to lead a major financial institution. Our global footprint – who we are, where we are, and the businesses we run—makes Citi a truly special place to grow and make an impact.

Q: What lessons in leadership have you learned working at the world’s most global bank?

I’ve had the privilege of working at several of the world’s leading financial institutions, and those experiences have deepened my understanding of culture and lived experience and reinforced that ambition and leadership show up differently around the globe. Leadership is packaged in all different ways, and that has underscored the need for our leadership frameworks to evolve.

We have to break the myth that there is only one archetype of a leader, especially when it comes to succession planning. Not everyone will say, “I want to be CEO.” Many people are quiet leaders, and that doesn’t make them any less ready for what’s next.

Leadership doesn’t begin with a title — anyone can lead, and leadership can be shown at every level. At Citi, we measure leadership against three principles: we take ownership, we deliver with pride and we succeed together. Whether you lead a large team or contribute as an individual, how you bring these principles to life is what truly matters.

Q: How have you navigated challenging moments, setbacks or self doubt?

Navigating difficult moments starts with remembering that meaningful and sustainable change doesn’t happen overnight. Impact builds over time. I try to focus on what I can control and release what I can’t. At the end of each day, its important that I am able to look in the mirror and know I used my voice—especially when it was uncomfortable or challenged the status quo. I believe silence is a form of endorsement; if I’m not willing to speak up, then who will?

Setbacks are part of the process, but I stay grounded in my competence and confidence. If you’re competent, you have every reason to be confident. Mistakes are okay as long as you take feedback, course-correct quickly and keep moving. Learning agility and making progress matters far more than perfection.

When things don’t work out, I remind myself that there may be something else in God’s plan. Faith helps keep everything in perspective. And if I can honestly say I fought the good fight and did my best on behalf of others, I can move forward with confidence.

Q: What skills do you think will matter most for future leaders?

Future leaders will need learning agility above everything else. The pace of change is only accelerating. Today it’s AI, but we don’t yet know what we’ll be navigating tomorrow. What we do know is that the leaders who thrive will be the ones who stay curious, stay open and embrace change rather than resist it.

Being a lifelong learner is no longer optional—it’s a leadership requirement. The leaders who succeed will absorb new information quickly, adapt their approach and translate what they learn into action.

At the heart of learning agility is staying curious —the willingness to ask questions, seek out new perspectives and lean into what you don’t yet know. Curiosity keeps you growing, keeps you adaptable and keeps you ready for what comes next.

Q: Who inspired or influenced you most on your journey, and what did you learn from them?

My parents are my biggest inspirations. They set high expectations, especially around academics and STEM. My mother was a junior high math teacher, and my father rose through the New York City Housing Authority to become Head of Computer Services. In our house, if your grades weren’t where they needed to be, the question wasn’t “Did you try your best?” It was “What happened?”

They taught me to be a change agent. If something wasn’t the way you wanted it to be, you had the power and the responsibility to fix it. That mindset shaped me. You have agency. You can challenge the status quo. You can create opportunities that don’t yet exist.

They also taught me the value of effort and the associated outcomes. What you put into something is what you get out—karma. Education, hard work and smart risks can change your life’s trajectory. Those lessons—accountability, agency and effort—have guided my career and influence how I lead today.

Q: What invaluable, specific guidance have you received along the way?

A few pieces have stayed with me:

  • Listen first. Let the culture shape your understanding. Listen to understand, not to reply.
  • Invest in people. Exposure, opportunity and access change outcomes. Meet people where they are, lift as you climb and bring others on the journey with you.
  • Lead authentically. People, including yourself, thrive when they build trust and feel psychologically safe.
  • Challenge the status quo. Commitment and persistence pay off. Be brave and use your voice. Innovate.
Q: What do you impart upon those you mentor — or would impart upon your younger self?

Be ambitious, take stretch assignments and stay curious. Don’t assume your work will speak for itself — advocate for your own growth. And always consider the legacy you’re building. Making a difference doesn’t have to be grand; it can start with creating an opportunity for even one person to succeed.

Q: Has coaching supported you in your journey, and if so, how?

I have absolutely benefited from coaching. At Citi, executive coaching is a capability we invest in as part of our Talent strategy because we know it elevates performance; it’s not about fixing a problem. Just as elite athletes rely on coaches to refine their craft, high performing leaders gain so much from trusted advisors who help deepen self awareness, strengthen impact and navigate complexity with greater effectiveness. When we prioritize continuous development, we position our leaders and our organization to succeed in an environment that is constantly evolving.

Q: Looking ahead five to ten years, what kind of future are you hoping to help create?

Looking five to ten years ahead, I want to build on the true meritocracy here at Citi. My focus is on a deep, durable leadership pipeline where the next generation is prepared for and stepping into senior roles, ready to run the firm and succeed our most senior leaders.

Equally important is an environment where inclusion shows up in outcomes. Our leadership should reflect the communities and clients we serve, and every colleague should have the same opportunity to grow, to lead and to succeed based on performance, potential and ambition. If we keep investing in people and creating real mobility, Citi will be even stronger, more inclusive and positioned for long term success.

Q: What practices help you sustain energy and resilience?

Staying connected to purpose, spending time with my family and staying close to colleagues keeps me grounded and energized. And for balance, I carve out one hour of Orangetheory Fitness almost every day– the best reset is 60 minutes of self-care.

Q: What are you passionate about in your personal life?

Outside of work, I’m passionate about giving back, especially when it comes to youth development and community programs. My years with the Riverside Hawks — as a parent, board member and advocate — have been some of the most meaningful experiences of my life. I also serve as Vice Chair of the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, which has been a cornerstone of Central Brooklyn for decades.

Service has always been a big part of who I am. I’ve been an active member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated for more than 35 years, and I’m also a proud member of The Links, Incorporated. And staying connected to my alma mater is important to me too, so I continue to give back through my work on the Columbia Business School board.

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