Catherine Bessant, Bank of America

Position: global technology and operations executive,
Bank of America

Lives in: Charlotte

Family: husband, John Clay;
two children

As one of the highest-ranking women at Bank of America, Cathy Bessant has had to overcome many challenges in her career.

But even as she is responsible for more than 100,000 employees and contractors worldwide – more than any other BofA division – as global technology and operations executive, she said she remains committed to helping other women reach their full potential, especially in the still male-dominated information technology field.

“It doesn’t take long in the technology space to realize that there aren’t enough women,” she said. “We at the bank have made a huge push to support activities both inside and outside the company aimed at increasing the proportion of women in the math and technology spaces.”

Bessant is also active in an internal BofA group, Women in Technology & Operations, which helps women with career development and is designed to recruit women to the company and retain those already employed by BofA.

In March, Bessant recorded a video in which she urged North Carolina residents to vote against Amendment One, which would ban same-sex marriages in the state.

Amendment One “is a direct challenge to our ability to compete nationally for jobs and economic growth,” she says in the video. “They (large corporations) deal with diverse work force populations for whom issues like this aren’t just important in terms of where it is they live, but are important indicators of the diversity and meritocracy of the companies where they want to work.”

Bessant, 51, a Michigan native, graduated from the University of Michigan.

Except for about 20 months in the late 1980s, when she worked for First Union, she has spent her entire career with BofA and its predecessors, starting in 1982 when she was a corporate banker with Interfirst Corp. in Dallas.

Today, Bessant is part of the bank’s executive management team and also chairs its Environmental Council, overseeing the bank’s 10-year, $20 billion green initiative to address climate change. In December, she was named “Best CIO” by Waters Technology, a technology trade publication.

But Bessant said she still faces daily challenges.

“Making tough calls that impact individuals is the hardest part of the job,” she said. “Keeping close with my friends is the biggest personal challenge. The welcome demands of career and family are more than a full day, every day.”

And she said she has yet to reach the peak of her career.

“The greatest accomplishment is yet to come.”