Commercial banking

Get ready to meet 15 women — ages 40 and under — whose accomplishments and influence set them apart.

"If you gathered the U.S.-based senior counsels of the major Chinese banks operating in the United States," said Joseph Loffredo, assistant general manager and chief financial officer at the New York branch of China Merchants Bank, "you'd find one outlier, a lady about half the age of most of the others."

The strong growth in commercial lending made up for more modest gains in credit card and auto lending, its two largest business lines.

Now that the Cincinnati company recently completed its first bank acquisition in over a decade, CEO Greg Carmichael is pushing ahead on tech hires and expansion outside its Midwestern core.

Corporations now have more access to consumer financial information than ever before. The question is whether banks will be the ones to help firms harness this data.