Bola Oyesanya: Managing Director, Head of the Law Firm and Professional Services Group, J.P. Morgan Private Bank

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Bola Oyesanya“I take a daily dose of vitamin G for gratitude,” says Bola Oyesanya. “It’s intentional. I make sure to remind myself how fortunate I am to be here and be able to do what I love.”

It’s a fitting metaphor for how Oyesanya moves through both her career and her life: with deliberate optimism, an eye for other people’s strengths, and a belief that gratitude is an everyday practice.

We first profiled Oyesanya in 2018. Since then, she has changed firms and stepped into a new leadership role. She shares the lessons she has learned in stepping into a leadership role at a market-leading firm, the lasting legacy of her mother, and why caring will remain an essential leadership skill, no matter how much AI changes the landscape.

Scaling Up

When we last spoke with Oyesanya, she was a mid-level executive at a different firm. Today, she is a Managing Director at J.P. Morgan, where she has spent the past three years leading the Law Firm and Professional Services Group.

What drew her to JPMorgan was the scale of the opportunity. “It was the allure of doing this with a bank of this brand and stature,” she says. “The opportunity to serve clients on this scale was too good to pass up.”

Today, she leads a team of bankers and specialists serving the wealth management needs of professionals in the legal and professional services industries. Her group supports clients across the balance sheet, from investments and estate planning to liquidity and financing.

“Our clients are sophisticated but incredibly busy people,” Oyesanya says. “Most of their time is spent focused on their own clients. My team’s job is to be the ones thinking about their finances, so they don’t have to.”

For Oyesanya, the role is “a happy marriage” of everything she has studied and done: law, banking, and now leadership.

Fighting Adversity With Optimism

Speaking of challenges, Oyesanya’s perspective on adversity has been shaped by experiences that tested her both personally and professionally. Years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer and survived it. Last fall, what was supposed to be a routine mammogram led to a biopsy and a second diagnosis.

“Everything comes to a grinding halt,” she says of receiving the news.

What carried her through was a combination of faith, family, and friends. Her manager and HR told her simply to take the time she needed and not worry about work. “Being in an organization where you hear that, it puts your perspective in the right place,” she says. “And my team really rallied around me.”

In the aftermath of her second diagnosis, a friend’s words crystallized something for her: “You fight adversity with optimism.”

Oyesanya came back from treatment with a small plaque on her desk that reads Grace and Gratitude. “There’s always room for grace,” she says. “There are things that may go wrong, but how we approach them, what we say, can still leave a positive impact.” More than ever, she says, “I’m filled with a sense of grace and gratitude.”

The experience has also made her more intentional about how she leads. She believes in the mantra: work hard, play hard. When she takes a vacation, she truly steps away, and she encourages her team to do the same.

“It’s informed how I choose to be intentional day to day and how I bring that same intentionality to my colleagues, peers, and the team as a whole.”

Her Mother’s Secret

That intentionality has deep roots. Oyesanya traces much of it to her mother, who passed away in 2019 but, she says, left her with a legacy she brings to work every day.

“My mother died with a secret,” she says. “Each of her children thinks they were her favorite.”

One of eight children herself, Oyesanya says her mother made each of them feel uniquely valued without making the others feel less so. “What she did instead was to celebrate everybody’s strengths.”

Oyesanya carries that lesson into her own leadership.

“I’m very intentional about celebrating and cheering my team on and playing to everybody’s strengths.”

One of her favorite desk items is an applause button, given to her by one of her bankers before she went into surgery. It captures the culture she tries to create: “Everybody knows they will have their day of applause. And when you know your day is coming, it’s easy to cheer for someone else.”

What AI Can’t Do

Asked what skills will matter most for future leaders, Oyesanya doesn’t hesitate. “The one thing AI will never get is caring. That’s a human trait.”

In a business becoming increasingly high-tech, she believes the human side of leadership will only become more important.

“AI will never be able to emote like we can. That’s where we need to spend a lot of our attention, showing that care. That’s how we earn business, that’s how we keep business.”

She sees the same principle at work in leadership and retention. “Showing a team, as a leader, that you care, more than anything else, is the number one retention tool.”

That philosophy extends beyond her own team. She recalls interviewing a candidate who arrived late and visibly rattled after helping his mother open her store that morning. Rather than let him carry that anxiety into his next interview, she sent him to straighten his collar and tie and start fresh. “I’m the only one who knows you were late,” she told him.

He later thanked her on LinkedIn for the moment. “That caring, showing up, and making an impact in people’s lives, I hope those are the things I’m remembered for.”

For Oyesanya, legacy is something considered in everyday decisions. “I always ask myself: long after I’m retired, what would people say? What would people remember? Keeping that legacy in mind helps inform decisions and not make shortcut decisions.”

Staying Present and Dancing in the Kitchen

Two unlikely mentors have also shaped how Oyesanya stays grounded. One was a mailroom clerk, whose calm she once asked about. “I don’t focus on the things I cannot control,” he told her.

“It seems very simple, but it was profound,” she says. “Markets rise and fall, portfolios fluctuate, there are countless things we cannot control in the course of a day, but we sometimes allow them to really determine our moods.”

The other was a shoeshine man Oyesanya encountered in an elevator after an exhausting day. When he asked how work was going, all she could manage was a deep breath. “Work doesn’t finish,” he told her. There would always be more to do tomorrow.

The line changed how she leaves the office. Rather than carrying home everything left unfinished, she takes stock of what she accomplished that day before turning her attention to her family.

These days, she finds her own ways to step away and recharge, including dancing in the kitchen.

“If you wait to find the right time for fun, honestly, you will miss a lot,” Oyesanya says. “Don’t wait until a vacation before you take five minutes to decompress and celebrate. Find a moment to pat yourself on the back and remind yourself how great you are, because each of us is phenomenal in our own way, and we should celebrate who we are.”

By Jessica Robaire

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Allison Lurton: General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer of Futures Industry Association

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Allison LurtonBy Jessica Darmoni

“As a lawyer developing policies, we bring meaningful change to the market, but it has to be logical and the new rules need to move our markets forward,” says Allison Lurton. “Everyone in this market is a steward of it, and we want to make sure that any change we introduce drives responsible innovation.”

Lurton looks at how rule changes and new market structures may impact the capital markets ecosystem in her role at the Futures Industry Association (FIA). However, she wasn’t always involved in policy and advocacy; Lurton started her career in product liability litigation. She held roles in the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Her litigation experience proved valuable and paved a journey crossing law, policy, regulation and financial markets.

Learning the Markets from the Ground Up

Lurton learned early in her career that moving forward sometimes meant stepping into unfamiliar territory. Her first role put her on a large litigation team representing cigarette manufacturers, but an opportunity through a friend who had moved to the DoJ gave her the chance to take on greater responsibility.

She joined the DoJ in 1999, gaining trial and case-management experience before making another significant move in 2003, this time to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). She arrived with strong litigation skills, but little familiarity with the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) or the intricacies of commodities markets.

“The CFTC had been using magistrates but were looking to hire people with experience in federal court and litigation,” she says. “At the time, there weren’t a lot of school or academic courses focused on commodities trading so many of us were unfamiliar with the CEA. We were learning the markets from the ground up.”

For Lurton, that meant learning directly from the people operating within them. She interviewed traders and market participants, learning about commodities markets, their structure and complex cases along the way. One investigation involving natural-gas market data and alleged fraud provided an especially intensive education when Lurton found herself learning about arbitrage strategies while interviewing traders.

Litigation vs Advocacy

“I had started as a litigator but found myself drawn toward policy and advocacy,” she notes. “They require different skills. Litigation can be highly adversarial, while policy work requires listening to different perspectives, understanding the broader system and finding a way forward.”

After leaving the CFTC, Lurton returned to private practice in 2011. She worked on issues surrounding the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act, and swap execution facility rules.

In 2012, one of Lurton’s mentors and colleagues, the former Acting Chair of the CFTC Walt Lukken, joined the FIA as CEO and Lurton joined in 2013 under his leadership. She currently oversees all legal aspects of the trade organization. This includes examining how government rules affect FIA members and the broader cleared derivatives industry as well as managing all the legal needs of a global company

An Interdependent Ecosystem

Lurton’s work requires her to think beyond individual rules and consider how changes affect an interconnected market structure. Clearing, exchanges, intermediaries and technology providers all form part of the same ecosystem. It is this view that has shaped her perspective on responsible innovation.

“I like structures of clearing rules now because they are interdependent. A change in one area can have consequences elsewhere” she explains. “It is really important that the industry is making sure that one small change will not impact the overall system.”

For Lurton, supporting innovation does not mean resisting regulation or standing in the way of new ideas. The challenge is finding ways for new asset classes, technologies and market structures to fit responsibly into an existing framework while preserving the parts of the system that are essential to its stability.

Lurton leans on her past work when drafting comment letters for the FIA.

“I consider not only what the industry wants to say but how those arguments would hold up if the issue was litigated,” she says.

Combatting Career Doubt

Lurton’s leadership philosophy extends beyond market structure expertise. She acknowledges that self-doubt is something leaders can experience at any stage of their careers. Her answer is to recognize that leadership is not an individual exercise.

“The best outcomes come from a group of people expressing their views,” she says. “You do not have to know everything in the room to have something valuable to contribute.”

Lurton emphasizes the importance of appreciating the expertise of colleagues and contributing what you know to a larger discussion. This message is particularly important for women navigating industries where they may sometimes feel they need to prove themselves before speaking up.

“Take up space,” she advises. “Take the seat you want in a meeting without hesitation.”

Her advice for future leaders is straightforward:

“Even experienced professionals walk into rooms where they are encountering something new. That should not be a reason to remain silent. Instead, it can be an opportunity to ask questions, share a perspective and learn from others.”

Lurton has not moved forward in her career by having every answer from the beginning. She continued to learn, adapted to new opportunities and grew the confidence to take her place in the room.

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Juli Bowe: Head of CMBS and CLO Trading, Wells Fargo

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Julie Bowe“The times throughout my career that seemed the most challenging have turned out to be some of the most incredible opportunities,” says Juli Bowe.

For Bowe, the challenge is often where the opportunity begins. In 2023, she was promoted to run Wells Fargo’s CMBS trading desk just as commercial real estate entered a distress cycle. “That felt very daunting,” she admits. Yet it was also the kind of moment that brought into focus what she has learned throughout her career: do the work, trust the expertise you’ve built, have the confidence to put your perspective forward, and stay humble enough to know there is always more to learn.

Learning to Take the Leap

Bowe majored in finance and minored in math at William & Mary, graduating in 2009, 2010 right as the financial crisis had frozen Wall Street hiring. “Internships were slim,” she remembers. Through her network, she was able to secure a sales and trading internship at Goldman Sachs, whereby summer’s end, she’d landed on the CMBS (Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities) desk, the seat that would define the next decade and a half of her career.

Four years at Goldman taught Bowe the mechanics of flow trading. A move to the buy side, at hedge fund Appaloosa, allowed her to continue building her skills while also giving her the unique opportunity to work with David Tepper.

“He is one of the best investors in the world; being able to watch him every day was an invaluable experience.”

In 2019, Bowe returned to the sell side, joining Wells Fargo and relocating to Charlotte, where she and her husband knew exactly one person.

“There was an opportunity to build something here at Wells, and that was really exciting,” she says. “Despite all the unknowns and how crazy it seemed at the time, it’s definitely been one of the best decisions of my life.”

The Work You Can Control

Bowe describes her work ethic as one of her defining characteristics, something she honed early on as a competitive soccer player. While she played all through childhood and then at William & Mary, she had to fight for a starting spot.

“I was not the best player on the team, wasn’t the fastest, but I could work harder than anyone else.”

That ethic became her professional foundation, and the first thing she tells the interns and young analysts who come through her desk.

“The number one thing you can control is how hard you work, especially early in your career. Over time, the challenge is turning that preparation into judgment and conviction.”

Build Credibility, Then Use Your Voice

That advice matters even more, she believes, for younger women in trading. While she has seen progress, women remain underrepresented on trading floors, and Bowe says it took her longer to build credibility than it did for some of her male counterparts. Her message is direct: “If you are good at what you do and do the work, you build credibility. The next step is trusting that credibility enough to develop a point of view and use your voice. It can be hard, especially in those earlier years, to hold on to that. But if you stick with it, it pays off.”

But preparation alone isn’t enough if no one hears your thinking.

“Earlier in my career, I wasn’t always confident enough to speak up with people I thought knew more than I did. I learned that having something valuable to contribute doesn’t necessarily require being the most experienced person in the room.”

In her role leading CMBS, that’s sometimes meant taking a contrarian stance. In 2023, when many investors were avoiding office exposure, Bowe built a thesis that companies would want people back in the office. “I was able to trade and connect with clients on that view,” she explains.

Relationships Are the Differentiator

For all the market knowledge and analysis trading requires, Bowe returns often to the human side of the business. “I really care about people and value relationships,” she says. Across her career, mentors, managers, and sponsors have shaped her path, and she’s careful to distinguish between them.

“A mentor is someone who you can get advice from and talk with, but a sponsor is someone who’s going to have your back when you’re not in the room.”

That kind of advocacy shaped Bowe’s own decision to join Wells Fargo. “A huge reason of why I came to Wells was that I saw senior leaders here that were women. That was really important to me.”

Relationships matter in the market, too. As AI and other technologies make information faster to access, Bowe believes human connection still sets people apart.

“The real value that you can add as a trader or a salesperson is your ability to connect with somebody,” she says. “If you’re able to do that better than everyone else, you’ll be able to differentiate yourself.”

It’s why her team is in the office five days a week, and why so much of her own client work happens on the road, over a meal or a round of golf, rather than at a desk.

Knowing What You Don’t Know

That same instinct to lean on relationships rather than shortcuts has shaped how Bowe approaches leadership itself. When she first took over the CMBS desk, she assumed the leadership side would be the easy part.

“I’ve been captain of soccer teams, I’ve been president of clubs, I know how to lead people,” she remembers thinking, “But I was humbled very quickly in terms of the people management.”

That same humility has carried into her newest challenge. Earlier this year, Bowe’s role expanded to include CLO trading, a business outside her wheelhouse that required learning a new product, meeting a new client base, and thinking about risk differently. It reminded her that experience doesn’t always transfer cleanly.

“Being a contrarian in CMBS has set me up well, but it does not necessarily mean that I can just bring that skill set over to this different asset class and expect the same results,” she says.

“Taking on CLO trading expanded my leadership responsibilities, but also required me to become a student again. Experience gives you a foundation, but every new market has its own dynamics and requires you to keep learning.

Becoming a Multiplier

The mark Bowe wants to make now extends beyond business performance to the people she develops and the team she builds. Having worked under both exceptional and difficult managers, she knows firsthand “how impactful a person’s manager can be” on someone’s day-to-day quality of life, and that awareness has shaped the kind of leader she wants to be.

“I want to deliver great business results, but I also want to set people up to succeed and build teams of people who can go on to have great careers.”

Outside the office, Bowe is raising three kids under seven and still finds time to train for half marathons. “Having a plan keeps me accountable,” she says. It’s the same mindset that she has carried throughout her career: take on what feels daunting, and trust you’ll figure it out.

By Jessica Robaire

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Karelis Barrios: Global Head of Wholesale Lending Operations, Citi

Karelis Barrios“I often reference Maya Angelou’s quote, ‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel’,” says Karelis Barrios. “It’s the resounding philosophy of who I want to be as a leader.”

As Global Head of Wholesale Lending Operations at Citi, Barrios leads with a rare mix of humility and resolve, shaped by a path that began far from Wall Street. She shares how her immigrant journey, an early leadership misstep, and a lifelong pursuit of “optionality” have shaped her approach to leading teams, mentoring others, and defining success by her own measure.

Widening the Aperture of What’s Possible

Born in Cuba, Barrios moved to the United States while in middle school, arriving with little to no English proficiency. While ESL classes helped her pick up the language, she struggled with pronunciation, leading her father to send her to a four-week immersion program in Tennessee focused purely on diction.

“I was upset at him at the time about going, but I wonder if some of the opportunities I received would still be the same if I hadn’t gone,” she reflects now. It’s a small, formative example of a theme that runs through her career: the compounding value of decisions made early that widen the aperture of what’s possible later.

That aperture kept widening. Barrios went on to study at the University of Miami and, despite never having set foot in New York, accepted a job there with Morgan Stanley the moment it was offered. She admits she was drawn in as much by the romance of the idea of living in New York as by the opportunity itself. Twenty years, several institutions, and a role building an organization from scratch at Capital One later, she joined Citi a little over four years ago to become the Global Head of Wholesale Lending Operations.

“I love lending,” Barrios says. “When you look at even the most complicated products in a bank, at their foundation, almost everything comes back to it.” What sealed it for her was Citi itself, not only its scale, but also the people she met along the way.

“Citi is the most global bank, and that’s not by accident,” she asserts. “You’ll meet people sitting in offices all over the world, and you can walk into an office and hear a dozen different languages being spoken. It’s really impressive.”

Learning to Lead by Failing First

The moment that most shaped Barrios as a leader is not a triumph, but rather a formative challenge during her first leadership role.

“I had this idea that leadership meant I had to take responsibility for everything, and make sure I was personally the one doing everything,” Barrios recalls. That approach ultimately proved unsustainable and led to an adjustment in her scope. It was, by her own account, a sobering experience. She came to realize that as a leader, success was no longer measured by how much she alone could produce, but by how well a team around her could perform without her hands on every piece of it.

“It was an adjustment to get to a place where I realized it’s not about highlighting what I’m doing but shining a light on the work that my team is doing.” Recognizing her team’s work, rather than completing it herself, she learned, was what moved people to contribute. Later, that same manager who had been part of the earlier scope adjustment gave her another opportunity, reinforcing that the experience was not an endpoint but part of her development as a leader.

“A step back in leadership does not have to be the end of the story. Sometimes it creates the space to grow, and strong leaders recognize when someone is ready to be given another opportunity”

Mentors at Every Level

For Barrios, the best mentors are the ones who show you a different perspective on what’s possible. One mentor, a now retired executive she still considers a friend, gave her an opportunity she wasn’t fully sure she was ready for. “He saw potential in me that I wasn’t yet seeing in myself,” she says. “We all need someone to give us that next big opportunity.”

Barrios also believes that guidance doesn’t always have to come from people with more experience, it can be equally powerful coming from someone more junior. She recalls one colleague, roughly a decade younger, who helped her reframe a moment of anxiety before a new role.

“She just looked at me and said, ‘What are you so worried about? The imposter never thinks they’re the imposter.’ And it hit me: I was overanalyzing something I was genuinely excited about. I have learned to trust my gut, and recognize that sound advice can come from many directions, not just from those with the most seniority.

Responsible Leadership, and the Will to Win

In considering what leadership will require in the years ahead, particularly as AI reshapes the industry, Barrios emphasizes responsible leadership: balancing growth and innovation with integrity and being honest with teams about how technology will change roles while committing to building new pathways for people affected by that change.

That sense of responsibility doesn’t dampen her ambition, if anything, it sharpens it. “I want to win,” Barrios says. “I want my team to win. I want Citi to win.” For her, winning isn’t disconnected from responsibility; it’s the mechanism through which a bank makes good on its role in the broader economy, “the fabric of how money and commerce move.” Not every innovation cycle produces winners, she notes, drawing a comparison to past waves of transformation.

“Think about the railroad, or radio — hugely innovative ideas, but not every company that invested in them survived. It’s going to be the same with AI. Not every AI company is going to be a winner. The work we do, the careful analysis and attention to numbers, matters because it helps maintain liquidity and stability in the markets, in ways that impact people more than they may realize”

Success and Optionality

If there’s a single word Barrios would hand to her younger self, it’s optionality. “The truest measure of success is how much optionality you have,” she emphasizes. “You work hard for the options that success provides you.” It’s a principle she’s tried to instill in her own children: that choice itself, not any particular choice, is what builds self-worth and reduces stress.

For Barrios, that optionality shows up in the everyday. It’s what lets her carve out the time to make her kids, her greatest passion outside of work, a priority. Every Sunday, she cooks, pre-making lunches and snacks for the week from scratch, and explains, “it’s my way of showing them love.”

However, Barrios is careful to note that none of this optionality was hers alone to build. She recognizes that her parents and grandparents gave up far more than she initially understood in order to give her options she didn’t yet know she’d been given. When she made managing director, a milestone celebrated across the financial services industry, she called her parents, and her father said simply in Spanish: Nos ascendieron. “They promoted us.”

“That story still warms me,” Barrios says with a smile. “It’s not about being an immigrant. I work with plenty of people who are the first in their family to go to college, or the first to make what they make. Those are big, powerful moments people carry in different ways.”

That kind of inheritance, she says, never felt like weight. It felt like a cloud of love surrounding her, proof that she could have ended up somewhere very different, and instead, gets to do this.

By Jessica Robaire

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The Skills That Will Matter Most for Future Leaders

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Skills that matter most for future leadersAs part of our mid-year roundup, we’re revisiting the answers women leaders gave when we asked them what skills will matter most for the future of leadership.

Their answers were wide-ranging. Some pointed to adaptability and learning agility, while others emphasized judgment, instinct, communication, empathy, execution and curiosity. Together, they offer a compelling range of perspectives on what tomorrow’s leaders will need most.

Adaptability and Learning Agility

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

For Erika Irish Brown, Head of Talent and Engagement at Citi, that adaptability begins with learning.

“Future leaders will need learning agility above everything else. The pace of change is only accelerating,” she says. “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.”

Carey Ryan, Chief of Staff for Citi Technology Business Enablement, has reached a similar conclusion through her own experience.

“You quickly figure you’ll never know it all, because the world is always changing,” she says. “Instead, I found the key is to always be ready by learning how to operate effectively with uncertainty and always be willing to learn.”

Jamila Piracci, Founder of Roos Inovations, puts the emphasis on how we learn, rather than simply what we know.

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

Judgment and Instinct

As AI reshapes professional services, Katherine Kirkpatrick Bos, General Counsel at Starkware, believes some skills will remain firmly human.

“AI is a powerful tool,” she says. “But it can’t replace instinct.”

For Kirkpatrick Bos, that instinct is closely tied to judgment and problem-solving.

“Judgment is hard to teach. Problem-solving, instinct, knowing when something doesn’t feel right—that still matters.”

Nancy Stern, Managing Director at Simplex Trading also puts judgment high on the list, alongside the ability to listen and make decisions amid an abundance of information.

“Strong listening skills, sound judgement and the ability to sift through vast information to make principled decisions will be demanded of our leaders,” she says.

And while vision remains important, Stern is clear about what has to follow it.

“Vision without execution doesn’t count.”

Communication and Human Connection

For Joanna Fields, CEO of Aplomb Strategies, the changing nature of work will make another skill increasingly important: being able to articulate your own value.

Looking forward, she believes the leaders who will thrive are those who can harness AI securely, protect data privacy, and clearly articulate their value in an increasingly automated world.

“As roles evolve, the ability to communicate your unique contribution will be paramount,” she says.

That ability to communicate extends beyond self-advocacy for Bos, whose role as General Counsel often requires her to bridge technology, regulation and law.

“You have to listen carefully,” she says. “Then explain things in a way the other side can actually understand.”

For Stern, meanwhile, leadership is ultimately about people.

“As markets evolve, so must leadership,” she says, pointing to the importance of empathy and “the ability to put others first.”

Curiosity and Complexity

Curiosity is another recurring theme.

For Brown, it is at the heart of learning agility: “The willingness to ask questions, seek out new perspectives and lean into what you don’t yet know.”

Pooja Prahlad, Head of Americas Equity Restructuring at Goldman Sachs, similarly sees curiosity as something leaders need to deliberately preserve as they progress.

“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.”

But Prahlad also offers a counterpoint to the increasing emphasis on speed and efficiency, particularly in the age of AI.

“Resist the pull toward quick, serviceable answers,” she says. “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.”

What Comes Next

There is no single answer to what future leaders will need most.

For Magyar, it is adaptability. For Brown, learning agility. Ryan emphasizes the ability to operate with uncertainty, while Piracci focuses on learning how to learn. Kirkpatrick Bos and Stern point to judgment, instinct and principled decision-making. Fields highlights communication and the ability to articulate value. Prahlad emphasizes curiosity and the willingness to sit with complexity.

And that may be the larger takeaway from the range of perspectives: the leaders who are best prepared for the future will not necessarily be those who know exactly what is coming.

They will be the ones equipped to meet it.

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Powering the Future: Caroline Friedman, COO, Bastion

Caroline FriedmanBy Jessica Darmoni

“With the GENIUS Act establishing a federal framework for stablecoin issuance, the window to define what responsible stablecoin infrastructure looks like is right now,” says Caroline Friedman. “That is a moment I wanted to be a part of, and it has been energizing to build a strong team at Bastion to seize it.”

Friedman is the COO and Board Member at Bastion, a financial institution purpose-built for stablecoin services, and she has spent her career preparing for exactly this kind of moment. A founding member of the company, she oversees legal, compliance, finance, operations, and go-to-market, and brings to the role something rare in the industry: extensive experience in both the public and private sectors.

She started as an associate attorney in the government regulations practice at Jones Day in Washington D.C., then became a federal prosecutor in the National Security and International Crimes Unit in the Eastern District of Virginia, and later in the Major Crimes Unit in Colorado. From there she moved into crypto as Chief of Staff and Regulatory Strategy Counsel at Kraken, then as Chief of Staff at a16z crypto, before co-founding Bastion.

From Courtroom to Crypto

The prosecutorial years set a standard Friedman has never lowered. “Federal cases demand precision. Every detail matters and the analysis has to hold up.” That same rigor now runs through every compliance framework and governance structure she builds at Bastion.

Her two Chief of Staff roles gave her something equally formative: a way of seeing across entire organizations at a moment when the crypto industry was still taking shape. At a16z, the vantage point was clarifying. “Sitting close to world-class investment partners and seeing dozens of companies up close was an education in pattern recognition. You see what separates the teams that scale from the teams that stall, and that lens stays with you.”

She is equally direct about what those platform roles built in her as an operator. “I learned how to operate across an entire organization, how to support leaders, how to be a force multiplier and how to build the connective tissue that keeps fast-moving teams aligned. These kinds of roles can shape a career in ways that are hard to replicate elsewhere.”

Built for This Moment

Bastion’s full-stack product suite covers custodial wallet infrastructure, global asset conversion rails, and white-label stablecoin issuance, serving banks, fintechs, and global enterprises that need to move money faster, settle cross-border transactions efficiently, and operate under controls that hold up to scrutiny. Friedman is unambiguous about where the market stands.

“It is clear that the market has shifted. Stablecoins are no longer a niche conversation. There is a federal framework to anchor on, banks are issuing, and enterprises are integrating. There is a lot happening, and Bastion was built for this moment.”

Her compliance-first philosophy is not defensive posturing. It is rooted in a conviction about what makes the technology genuinely valuable.

“Stablecoins are showing up in everyday commerce, corporate treasury and local payment networks. The technology can reach people, businesses, and corridors that the existing system hasn’t served well, but that promise only matters if it gets built in a way that is safe and secure. Regulations exist for a reason. They are there to protect consumers.”

Delegation, Endurance, and the Lego Principle

Building a regulated financial institution from the ground up, Friedman says, requires a specific kind of staying power. “It is a long, often quiet practice in perseverance, dedication, diligence, and constant curiosity. The hardest moments are not always the obvious ones. They are the stretches where the path forward is not yet clear and the only thing to do is keep showing up.”

Her most reliable reset is her children. “There is a clarity that comes from stepping away from screens and into a context where the only thing required of me is to be present. Parenting is the ultimate forcing function. It sharpens what actually matters.”

On the leadership principle she repeats most often, she credits Molly Graham: “Give away your Legos. Every time the company expands, parts of your job have to belong to someone else. The leaders who cannot let go become bottlenecks. The ones who can, who actually celebrate handing something off, make room for the next thing the company needs from them.”

Alongside it, she returns to a second frame: “It is a marathon, not a sprint. The work we are doing at Bastion takes years, not months, and the teams that build something durable are the ones that protect their pace.”

Advice for the Next Generation

For women earlier in their careers, Friedman’s guidance is concrete. Start by understanding the business as a whole, not just your function. “What are the real priorities? Where are the gaps? Who needs to be aligned? The people who build influence early in their careers are the ones who can hold that context and act on it, and that reputation compounds over time.”

Seek roles that stretch, even the ones that resist easy explanation. “The jobs where you have to context-switch constantly, solve ambiguous problems, and get things over the line across multiple workstreams build range. Range is what makes you a strong leader later.”

And take opportunities early, even unconventional ones.

“I interned for free for countless summers through college, law school, and post-grad. Those experiences shaped my career path, helped me build a network early and gave me the confidence to keep exploring. You can create your own narrative, and the skills you build along the way are almost always more applicable than they look at the time. Mine is what gave me the confidence to take a Bastion-sized risk in building a company.”

The Skills That Will Matter Most

On the qualities that will define future leaders, Friedman’s answers are grounded: listening and professionalism. “Most of the time, people are either talking or thinking about what they want to say next, rather than actually hearing the person across from them. Real listening is the greatest gift you can offer in any moment, to a customer, a colleague, a partner. It is also where the best decisions start.”

By professionalism, she means something more than presentation. “Showing up consistently, treating every person you encounter with respect regardless of their seniority, following through on commitments, and bringing the same rigor to the routine work as you do to the high profile work. In an industry where credibility is currency, that consistency matters.”

As for what she hopes Bastion stands for in the end, she points to what gets built on top of it.

“What I am most excited about is what our customers will build on top of Bastion. The innovative, delightful products that will change the way people and businesses use money.” And for the industry itself: “I would like to look back and feel like the frameworks we built at Bastion, the conversations we had with regulators, and the way we ran the company helped move the industry forward.”

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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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