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50 OVER 50 HIGHLIGHT
Lara Abrash
58 | Chair, Deloitte
Lara Abrash leads the board of directors of Deloitte US, the nation’s largest professional services organization, governing a firm of more than 180,000 professionals and over $30 billion in annual revenue. Elected to the role in 2023, she has helped guide Deloitte through rapid advances in AI, emerging technologies and workplace transformation. Previously, Abrash led Deloitte’s U.S. Audit & Assurance business and earlier served as the firm’s National Managing Partner for Audit Innovation. She also chairs the Deloitte Foundation.
Beverly Anderson
62 | President & CEO, BECU
Financial services veteran Beverly Anderson became the head of BECU in 2022, a credit union whose nearly $30 billion in assets and 1.4 million members make it one of the top five credit unions in the country. Before joining BECU, Anderson led Equifax’s global consumer solutions division and also held leadership roles at Wells Fargo and American Express. Anderson has said learning about the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act—which separated consumer banking from investment banking—in college sparked her interest in banking. She also serves on several boards, including for Expedia and Harvard Business School African-American Alumni Association.
Hilda Applbaum
65 | Principal Investment Officer & Portfolio Manager, Capital Group
Hilda Applbaum is the principal investment officer of Capital Group’s $145 billion American Funds Income Fund of America, one of the top-performing funds in its category. Over 15 years, the fund has returned an average 8.6% annually and beat 98% of peers, per Morningstar, including a benchmark-beating 17.8% return at net asset value (NAV) in 2025. With four decades of investment experience, one of her strategies is to buy dividend-paying shares of challenged companies and wait—sometimes for years—for the recovery. The daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, Applbaum credits early lessons in saving and resilience for her long-horizon approach.
Leigh Brady
60 | CEO, State Employees’ Credit Union (SECU)
Over the past four decades, Leigh Brady has risen from an entry-level accountant to the first woman to lead North Carolina’s State Employees’ Credit Union. Today, she oversees the nation’s second-largest credit union, which serves 3 million members across North Carolina and manages approximately $60 billion in assets. Brady became CEO in 2023 after serving as the organization’s chief operating officer and previously as chief human resources and communications officer.
Jane Buchan
62 | Founder & CEO, Martlet Asset Management
Jane Buchan has built two successful firms in the alternative investment and hedge fund space. In 2000, she founded the Pacific Alternative Asset Management Company (PAAMCO), which grew into PAAMCO Prisma, a firm managing $32 billion in assets. In 2018, PAAMCO spun out its alternative beta strategy as Martlet Asset Management, a private hedge fund that Buchan leads as CEO and co-CIO. In 2025, Buchan also became the chair of the Standards Board for Alternative Investments, an alliance of 150 alternative asset managers and 100-plus institutional investors.
Wendy Cai-Lee
52 | Founder & CEO, Piermont Bank
Wendy Cai-Lee was 45 when she founded Piermont Bank in 2019, becoming the first Asian American woman to launch a U.S. commercial bank. She built Piermont to serve entrepreneurs, fast-growing businesses and fintech apps, including workplace-finance platform Wagestream. Now 52, Cai-Lee leads a bank with $500 million in assets. Before starting Piermont, she spent nearly three decades in financial services, with roles at JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deloitte and East West Bank.
Margaret Chen
58 | Global Head of Endowment & Foundation Practice, Cambridge Associates
An investor at the $616 billion (assets under management and advisement) Cambridge Associates for the last 25 years, Margaret Chen oversees the firm’s work with foundations and nonprofits seeking to grow their endowments. She previously led the business’s outsourced CIO portfolios division. Outside of her investment work, Chen is the chair of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras and chair of the Advisory Council for the Beach Museum of Art at Kansas State University.
Ellen Cooper
61 | President & CEO, Lincoln Financial
Long before her 2022 power move to become president and CEO of insurance giant Lincoln Financial, Ellen Cooper wanted to become a Broadway star. It was through a mentor at Temple University that she transitioned from a dance major to a business focus, and soon she joined the likes of Tillinghast, EY and, eventually, Goldman Sachs. Since joining Lincoln in 2012, Cooper has spent more than 14 years in leadership positions, and has led the company to serve more 17 million customers and manage more than $32 billion in account balances.
Tracie Cordeiro
51 | President & CEO, Friendship Bridge
As president and CEO of Friendship Bridge, Tracie Cordeiro leads a nonprofit that provides microfinance, education and preventive health services to women in rural Guatemala through its Microcredit Plus model. Serving women exclusively, the organization pairs average loans of about $320 with training and support while maintaining a loan repayment rate of nearly 98%, helping families build long-term financial resilience. A certified public accountant who previously held leadership roles at KPMG, Honeywell and Opera Australia, Cordeiro is expanding access to economic opportunity for women in underserved communities.
Denise Dresser
55 | CRO, Open AI
Denise Dresser joined OpenAI as chief revenue officer in December and oversees revenue strategy for ChatGPT’s fast-growing parent company. Today, OpenAI generates $2 billion in revenue each month, 40% of which comes from enterprise customers, outpacing industry stalwarts like Meta and Alphabet. Prior to joining OpenAI, Dresser spent 14 years at Salesforce, most recently as CEO of Slack, which Salesforce acquired in 2021. Earlier in her career, Dresser was a consultant with accounting firm Arthur Andersen.
Caterina Fake
56 | General Partner & Investor, Yes VC
Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake now sits on the other side of the entrepreneurial equation with Yes VC, the seed-stage venture firm she started in 2018 to invest in category-defining startups at the forefront of social and technological change. Her portfolio companies include Superhuman, Boom Supersonic, Lovevery, Gameto and more. The name of her firm stems from a quote she gave in an interview years ago: “When the world says No No No No No, and you hear a Yes, go towards that Yes as hard as you can.”
Stephanie Ferris
52 | President & CEO, FIS
Stephanie Ferris worked her way across multiple roles in the C-suite before becoming CEO of fintech giant FIS in 2022. In 2025, she orchestrated a sweeping portfolio reshaping, selling FIS’ remaining stake in Worldpay while acquiring Global Payments’ Issuer Solutions business in a pair of linked transactions. The Jacksonville-based company also generated more than $10 billion in 2025 revenue. “If you know strategically what you’re doing is the right thing—no matter what’s going to happen in the market—you move forward,” Ferris told Forbes in an interview last year.
Dawn Fitzpatrick
56 | CEO & Chief Investment Officer, Soros Fund Management
Dawn Fitzpatrick traded races for Wall Street after running track at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. She went on to oversee more than $500 billion in client assets as head of investments for UBS Asset Management before joining billionaire George Soros’ $28 billion hedge fund in 2017. Today, she serves as CEO and chief investment officer while also chairing the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas’ Financial Sector Advisory Council. She also sits on the boards of Barclays and Under Armour.
Robin Foley
61 | Head of Fixed Income, Fidelity Investments
Robin Foley was 58 when Fidelity named her head of fixed income in 2023, putting her in charge of its global bond and money-market groups. Together, those teams now manage more than $2.5 trillion for retail, intermediary and institutional clients worldwide—roughly $380 billion, or 18%, more than two years ago. She joined Fidelity in 1986 and rose from portfolio manager to chief investment officer of bonds, where she oversaw portfolio management, risk and investment processes, before taking charge of the division.
Annette Franqui
64 | Founding Partner, Forrestal Capital
Annette Franqui started her career in investment banking but in 2001 took a job as chief financial officer of Panamerican Beverages, joining the Staton family’s Coca-Cola bottling business. Two years later, Coca-Cola FEMSA acquired Panamco for $3.6 billion. Franqui co-founded Miami-based Forrestal Capital to manage and invest the family’s wealth. Today, Forrestal is a multibillion-dollar family office that backs private equity and venture capital investments, primarily in consumer businesses.
50 OVER 50 HIGHLIGHT
Marcie Frost
62 | CEO, CalPERS
When Marcie Frost took the helm of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) in 2016, she became the head of the nation’s largest public pension fund. Today, CalPERS’ Public Employees’ Retirement Fund (PERF) manages nearly $640 billion in assets, and the funded status of its Public Employees’ Retirement Fund has risen to 85%, up from 68% a decade ago, bringing the system closer to fully meeting its future pension obligations. Frost came to CalPERS after running Washington state’s retirement system, a role she’d risen to after getting her start as a typist and rising through the ranks of Washington state’s retirement and human resources departments.
G-O
Yvonne Hao
52 | Chief Operating Officer and General Partner, Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering invents and invests in science-based companies that impact human health and also sustainability, and in 2025, veteran investor Yvonne Hao joined the $14 billion (assets) firm as COO and General Partner. As COO, Hao is responsible for functions that support Flagship’s ecosystem of 120-plus companies; as general partner, Hao works on the resource allocation committee that provides strategy to Flagship’s later-stage companies. Before coming to Flagship, Hao served as the secretary for Massachusetts state economic development. Earlier in her career, she worked for Bain and McKinsey.
Connie Harris
70 | Founder & CEO, Sheppard-Harris Associates.
Accounting powerhouse Connie Harris opened her own firm, Sheppard-Harris Associates, in 1993. She was appointed to the Alabama State Board of Public Accountancy at age 59 and was sworn in as chair at age 62, becoming the first African-American female chair in the board’s history. Named by Forbes as one of the nation’s best CPAs in 2025, she has overseen many audits of state and local governments and nonprofits and sits on the board of Birmingham nonprofit H20 Foundation.
Jane Heller
80 | Managing Director and Private Client Advisor, Bank of America
Jane Heller was nearing 50 in 1995 when she left Citibank’s Private Bank to join NationsBank, which became Bank of America Private Bank in 1998. She was a founding member of its New York office, and over the next three decades, built a $8 billion loan book while working with high-profile clients such as Martha Stewart, Carl Icahn and Ron Perelman. Still working at 80, Heller advises wealthy families on preserving their fortunes and passing them to the next generation.
Sharon Hill
54 | Head of Global & Income Active Equity, Vanguard
Most investors know Vanguard for index funds. Sharon Hill oversees part of its active equity business, which includes more than $746 billion in active equity and balanced funds. After earning a doctorate in mathematics, she started as a programmer at Bloomberg before spending nearly two decades at Macquarie Investment Management. Hill joined Vanguard in 2019 to lead the firm’s global and income active equity team, overseeing portfolio managers who use quantitative research and systematic portfolio construction to pursue long-term returns.
Kristina Hooper
56 | Chief Market Strategist, Man Group
In 2025, Kristina Hooper became the Chief Market Strategist for the Man Group, the $228.7 billion (AUM) alternative asset management firm. Hooper’s job is to provide insights about the global financial markets and economic trends to the firm’s clients and the general public, regularly publishing a newsletter breaking down her views on AI, rate cuts and anything else affecting markets. Before joining the Man Group, Hooper spent eight years as Chief Global Market Strategist at Invesco; earlier in her career, she worked at PIMCO and Allianz.
Maria Elena (Mel) Lagomasino
76 | CEO & Managing Partner, WE Family Offices
Maria Elena (Mel) Lagomasino cofounded WE Family Offices in 2013, launching the multifamily office after decades of leadership at JPMorgan Private Bank and Citibank. Today, the firm advises roughly 100 ultra-high-net-worth families and oversees nearly $18 billion in assets, making it one of the nation’s largest RIAs serving wealthy families. Cuban-born Lagomasino has spent more than 40 years in wealth management, and also serves on the board of The Walt Disney Company. She also co-founded the Institute for the Fiduciary Standard and, until earlier this year, served on the board of The Coca-Cola Company.
Stephanie Link
57 | Chief Investment Strategist, Hightower Advisors
If you know Stephanie Link, chances are you’ve seen her on CNBC, where she has been a contributor since 2010. Off camera, she has been the chief investment strategist at Hightower Advisors since joining the firm in 2020, helping oversee an $8.2 billion investment platform spanning equities, fixed income and private markets. Link has spent more than three decades managing money and helping financial advisors, family offices and institutional investors make sense of the markets.
Lindsay LoBue
51 | Chief Operating Officer, Carlyle
Nine months after joining Carlyle, Lindsay LoBue became its COO in July 2024, shortly before turning 50. Today she helps run the $485 billion private equity firm and serves as a key architect of its strategy and operating model. Since 2023, Carlyle’s global wealth business has increased quarterly inflows tenfold to $3 billion and lifted assets under management 245%. Before Carlyle, she spent more than 20 years at Goldman Sachs, where she became a partner.
Cathy Marcus
60 | Co-Head & Global Chief Operating Officer of Real Estate, PGIM
In 2023, Cathy Marcus assumed leadership over the global real estate division of PGIM, an investment advisor with $1.4 trillion in assets under management. She is also co-chair of the board of directors of RealAssetX, a PGIM innovation lab that works to accelerate innovation within real estate assets. A 28-year veteran of the firm, Marcus rose to her current position after running the U.S. equity business. Earlier in her career, she was a vice president for MBL Life Assurance Corporation.
Alison Mass
67 | Chair, Investment Banking, Goldman Sachs
As chair of Goldman Sachs’ investment banking business, Alison Mass is responsible for some of the bank’s most important relationships with America’s largest companies (think IBM and P&G) and private equity firms (KKR, Carlyle and the like). Mass also runs the Office of Alumni Engagement for the bank, maintaining relationships and communication with Goldman’s more than 100,000 alumni living and working across the globe. Outside of banking, Mass is on the board of directors for New York City Ballet and a member of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Foundation Trustees.
Gina Mastantuono
56 | President & CFO, ServiceNow
A certified public accountant with three decades of financial experience, Gina Mastantuono first became the CFO for publicly-traded software giant ServiceNow (market cap: $130 billion) in January 2020. Last year, she added president to her title; she is one of the only women in the S&P 500 to lead both finance and corporate strategy and development. Last year, she led ServiceNow’s $2.85 billion acquisition of Moveworks and its $7.75 billion acquisition of Armis, both of which supercharged the company’s AI capabilities.
Glenda McNeal
65 | Chief Partner Officer, American Express
Longtime American Express executive Glenda McNeal was tapped to be the company’s first ever Chief Partner Officer in 2024 and now drives partnership strategies and strategic initiatives across everything from technology and travel to sports. Four years earlier, the 37-year company veteran became the first Black woman to sit on its executive committee. McNeal also serves on the board of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Jelena McWilliams
53 | President, Corporate and External Affairs, Plaid
Jelena McWilliams joined Plaid—the $8 billion (valuation) fintech company—as head of corporate and external affairs in January 2026, bringing decades of experience across banking, regulation and corporate law. She most recently headed up the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) practice at tony law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and before that, she was chair of the FDIC, where she oversaw operations that touched 5,000 banks across the country.
Susana A. Mendoza
54 | Illinois Comptroller
Since taking office in 2016 during one of Illinois’ worst fiscal crises, Susana A. Mendoza has helped restore the state’s fiscal stability by improving cash management, paying bills on time and strengthening government transparency. During her tenure, Illinois has returned to balanced budgets, rebuilt its Rainy Day Fund to a record level of more than $2.5 billion and ended five consecutive fiscal years with all General Revenue Fund bills paid on time. Mendoza has also served during a period in which Illinois earned 10 credit rating upgrades, reflecting the state’s improved financial position. In June 2026, Mendoza announced her intention to run for Chicago mayor in 2027; if she wins, she’d be the city’s first Latina mayor.
Jamie Miller
57 | Chief Financial & Operating Officer, PayPal
Jamie Miller joined PayPal as CFO in November 2023, was promoted to chief financial and operating officer in 2025 and briefly served as interim CEO in February 2026. She remains chief financial and operating officer at the company, which processed $1.8 trillion in payments in 2025. The roles are the latest in a series of powerful jobs Miller has taken on since turning 50: At 52 in 2021, she became CFO of food and agriculture giant Cargill, then joined EY in January 2023 to lead the planned separation and IPO of its consulting business before the firm abandoned the split.
Alyssa Moeder
58 | Managing Director & Private Wealth Advisor, Merrill Private Wealth Management
Alyssa Moeder leads a nine-person Merrill Private Wealth Management team overseeing $9.8 billion in assets for 97 client households. Many of her clients are women and first-generation wealth creators—business owners or corporate executives whose financial lives can span multiple jurisdictions. A CPA and CFP, Moeder began her career in public accounting before moving into private banking and capital markets, then spent more than two decades at Merrill. Her advantage, she tells Forbes, is acting as the “quarterback” among clients’ attorneys, estate planners and other advisers.
Rochelle Nawrocki-Gorey
56 | Co-founder & CEO, SpringFour
After growing up in a household that lived paycheck-to-paycheck and spending the first half of her career in public service, Rochelle Nawrocki-Gorey decided to build an impact-minded fintech company to help spread financial wellness. In 2005, she launched SpringFour, a certified B-Corp that works with banks, employers and nonprofits to give financial health resources to their employees and customers to help them save money and build stronger financial lives. In 2024, SpringFour was acquired by C&R Software, a division of the $40 billion (market cap) Constellation Software.
Colleen O’Callaghan
53 | Managing Director, J.P. Morgan Wealth Management
A founding member of the O’Callaghan Thomas Group at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, Colleen O’Callaghan is a wealth advisor for the ultra-high-net-worth families and has ranked on the Forbes Best-In-State Wealth Advisors list annually since 2020. The average household net worth for her clients is $25 million to $100 million, and her team has more than $4 billion in custodied team assets. “There are no points for second place,” O’Callaghan told Forbes in 2022. “We’re very focused on being proactive and picking up the phone calling clients—not just being reactive, but proactive.”
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Cindy Padnos
69 | Founder & Managing Partner, Illuminate Ventures
Cindy Padnos was 52 when she founded Oakland, CA-based Illuminate Ventures in 2009. She used her decades of experience as a technology entrepreneur and executive to build a seed-stage venture capital firm focused on enterprise software. Today, Illuminate backs platforms and applications that use data and AI to drive returns for businesses. Illuminate has invested more than $75 million in more than 70 startups, including Coupang, whose 2021 IPO valued the company at $60 billion. Padnos is also the author of a series of widely-cited papers on gender diversity in technology and venture capital.
Tracy Palandjian
55 | Co-founder and CEO, Social Finance
Since co-founding Social Finance—a 501(c)3 nonprofit that owns a registered investment advisor—in 2011, Tracy Palandjian has raised more than $500 million from investors who want their ROI with a do-gooder bent. Examples include refinancing predatory home loans to give (mostly poor) borrowers better terms and Claude Corps, a new partnership with Anthropic and CodePath to put AI-trained employees inside nonprofits. “Can you bring the rigor and discipline of markets, the accountability of capital, but apply it in the social context, in the mission context to think about different ways to improve people’s lives?” Palandjian says. “It shouldn’t be a trade off.”
Sonja Perkins
60 | Founder, Project Glimmer & Broadway Angels
Legendary Silicon Valley investor Sonja Perkins made history as the youngest partner at Menlo Ventures at age 29, but that was just the start of her career. Becoming a mom and surviving breast cancer turned her into “a feminist overnight.” By 2010 she founded all-female investment network Broadway Angels and national nonprofit Project Glimmer. Six years later, she launched The Perkins Fund to address the venture industry’s significant gender and diversity gaps. Today more than 50% of her fund’s portfolio founders are women and 12% are Black women.
Jennifer Piepszak
56 | Chief Operating Officer, JPMorgan Chase
Jennifer Piepszak has spent more than three decades rising up the ranks at JPMorgan. Today, she serves as the bank’s COO and is a member of its operating committee. She was most recently Co-CEO of JPMorgan’s Commercial & Investment Bank, a business unit that counts 82 million individuals and 6 million small businesses as customers. In a spring 2026 letter to shareholders, Piepszak emphasized her focus on the future: “We are as much a technology-driven company as we are a bank,” highlighting the firm’s nearly $20 billion annual technology budget.
50 OVER 50 HIGHLIGHT
Ruth Porat
68 | President and Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet and Google
Since becoming president and CIO of Alphabet and Google in 2023, Ruth Porat has overseen the company’s venture investment arms, Other Bets investment portfolio and infrastructure investments while leading its efforts to expand economic opportunity and engage policymakers on economic growth and job creation. Previously Alphabet’s CFO for nearly a decade, she brought Wall Street discipline to Google after a 27-year career at Morgan Stanley. Today, she helps guide a company valued at more than $2 trillion while also overseeing Alphabet’s philanthropic initiatives and serving on the board of Blackstone.
Joyce Rey
85 | Head of Estates Division, Coldwell Banker Global Luxury
Joyce Rey has spent more than five decades helping shape the luxury real estate market, representing some of the most significant residential properties in the U.S. With more than $6 billion in career sales, Rey has brokered landmark estates including Chartwell, Pickfair and Owlwood, earning a reputation as one of luxury real estate’s most accomplished agents. In 1979, she helped establish Rodeo Realty, one of the first U.S. brokerages dedicated exclusively to multimillion-dollar homes.
Nela Richardson
51 | Chief Economist & ESG Officer, ADP
As chief economist at ADP, Nela Richardson leads research based on one of the nation’s largest private payroll datasets, helping shape understanding of the U.S. labor market, wage growth and employment trends. Drawing on anonymized payroll data from more than 25 million workers, her analysis helps inform business leaders, policymakers and financial markets as they assess the economy, inflation and interest rates. Previously chief economist at Redfin, Richardson is also a leading voice on the future of work and the changing labor market.
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50 OVER 50 HIGHLIGHT
Emmalyn Shaw
51 | Co-founder & Managing Partner, Flourish Ventures
Emmalyn Shaw co-founded Flourish Ventures in 2019, spinning the venture firm out of the Omidyar Network with $200 million in assets under management. Today, Flourish manages some $850 million and has invested in more than 100 companies, including Kin and Session AI; exits include Chime, Juntos, and EarnUp. Shaw’s investment philosophy centers on backing businesses that strengthen financial systems while generating strong returns. Before launching Flourish, she was a partner at Omidyar Network, where she co-managed its Financial Inclusion investment team after more than two decades investing in technology companies.
Katrina Sherrerd
69 | CEO, Research Affiliates
In 2025, Katrina Sherrerd became the CEO of Research Affiliates, the $188 billion (assets) firm founded in 2002 and known for its pioneering “smart beta” investment strategy. Sherrerd first joined the firm in 2006, and before that spent 19 years at the CFA Institute, where roles included overseeing the Financial Analysts Journal and the CFA Institute Research Foundation. Sherrerd is also an advisory board member for WISE (Women Investing in Security and Education), a nonprofit dedicated to educating women and girls on investing and personal finance.
Michelle Smith
61 | Managing Partner & Financial Advisor, Savant Wealth Management; Founder, Wife2CFO
After becoming a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst, Michelle Smith saw too many women left unprepared to manage their financial lives after divorce. In 2019, she launched Wife2CFO, a platform that helps women build financial confidence, organize their finances and create long-term strategies for financial independence. Smith leads the program through her work as a managing partner and financial advisor at the $57.2 billion (assets) Savant Wealth Management, which she joined in 2024 after it acquired Source Financial Advisors, the boutique $536 million (assets) registered investment advisor Smith had founded in 2012.
Stephanie Stiefel
67 | Managing Director & Senior Wealth Advisor, Neuberger Berman
Since turning 50, Stephanie Stiefel has become one of the nation’s top-ranked wealth advisors. Her seven-person Straus Group team at investment giant Neuberger Berman oversees $4.4 billion, up from just $1.4 billion a decade ago. Stiefel’s team serves 232 households with an average account size of roughly $15 million. A CPA who started in tax and personal financial planning, Stiefel joined Neuberger in 1990 and later led its wealth-management business.
Savita Subramanian
54 | Managing Director & Head of U.S. Equity & Quantitative Strategy, Bank of America
In June 2026, Savita Subramanian published an investment note that was picked up by financial outlets around the country: “Too many red flags. Take profits,” she wrote, going on to caution readers about signs of an impending bear market. In large part, the media was listening because of the power of Subramanian’s position: as head of BofA’s equity and quant strategy, Subramanian is responsible for the bank’s forecasts for the major U.S. stock indexes. Subramanian first joined the bank in 2001, as a strategist with Merrill Lynch (which later merged with BofA).
Diane Swonk
64 | Chief Economist & Managing Director, KPMG US
Diane Swonk has spent decades helping business leaders, policymakers and investors understand the forces shaping the U.S. economy. As chief economist at KPMG US since 2022, she has become a widely quoted voice on inflation, labor markets, Federal Reserve policy and economic growth, helping explain the economic upheaval of the pandemic, inflation surge and shifting interest rate environment. Previously chief economist at Grant Thornton and Mesirow Financial, Swonk regularly briefs the Federal Reserve system and has served as a nonpartisan advisor to the Congressional Budget Office and the National Economic Council.
Tina Byles Williams
65 | Founder, CEO & CIO, Xponance
Tina Byles Williams founded boutique investment firm FIS Group in 1996, financing the venture with an equity line of credit on her home. Three decades later, the firm—now Xponance—has grown into one of the nation’s largest women-led asset managers, overseeing more than $24 billion in assets. Williams has long championed emerging investment managers, particularly women- and minority-owned firms, helping connect them with institutional investors. Earlier in her career, she served as chief investment officer for the City of Philadelphia’s pension system and as investment officer for the Philadelphia Gas Works Pension Fund.
Susan Yannaccone
51 | COO, Compass International Holdings
Only two months after Compass completed its $1.6 billion acquisition of residential real estate giant Anywhere, Susan Yannaccone was promoted to COO, cementing her as one of the highest ranking female executives in the real estate industry. Before her new role, she led the brokerage and franchise operations at Anywhere for half a decade, generating $5.7 billion in 2024 revenue from brands like Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and Sotheby’s International Realty. Yannaccone also founded What Moves Her, an initiative that creates mentorship opportunities for women across the real estate industry.
Ellen Zentner
55 | Chief Economic Strategist and Global Head of Thematic and Macro Investing, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management
Ellen Zentner was 53 in 2024 when she left her longtime role as Morgan Stanley’s chief U.S. economist to launch and lead a new thematic and macro investing group within Morgan Stanley Wealth Management. She now studies how major shifts like artificial intelligence, defense spending and aging populations affect companies, industries and client portfolios. Zentner, who joined Morgan Stanley in 2013, also serves on the firm’s Global Investment Committee and advises the U.S. Treasury on the economy and federal borrowing.
