As FN was compiling the list, news broke of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, swiftly followed by the crisis at Credit Suisse. These events follow a&nbsp;tough&nbsp;year for the sector in&nbsp;which dealmaking was hit by rising inflation and interest&nbsp;rates, as well as the war in Ukraine. Despite all this, the senior executives featured lead businesses that have continued to make hires, work on major deals and maintain top league table positions during the past 12&nbsp;months. The final selection is heavily skewed towards men, a&nbsp;reflection of the dearth of senior women in investment banking — FN recently reported that <a href="https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/if-we-act-like-men-it-backfires-senior-female-bankers-on-the-dearth-of-women-in-dealmaking-20230308" target="_blank">only 10% of managing directors and partners in Emea are female</a>, according to Maven Search’s research of&nbsp;the&nbsp;largest investment banks. The 20 places this year include three joint entries for co‑heads of&nbsp;divisions. The list is a mix of&nbsp;global leaders of investment&nbsp;banking units, based in Europe, and Emea heads.&nbsp;

Blessing - García

Dorothee Blessing and Conor Hillery took up their current roles in February 2020 as part of a&nbsp;broader shake-up of JPMorgan’s investment bank&nbsp;that saw several of its dealmakers promoted into key management positions. JPMorgan’s&nbsp;investment bank has led the fee league tables in Emea since it displaced Deutsche Bank from the top in 2014. Last&nbsp;year, amid a relative deal drought, it made $1.6bn in the region, gaining a 7.6% market share. Blessing spent around 20 years at&nbsp;Goldman Sachs before retiring from the firm in 2013 — only to return to the sector shortly after with a role at JPMorgan leading its business in German-speaking Europe, Ireland, Israel and the&nbsp;Nordics. She relocated from Frankfurt to London when she took up her current position. Blessing has made frequent appearances in Financial News’s list of 100 Most Influential Women in Finance. Hillery joined JPMorgan through its takeover of blue-blooded UK broker Cazenove, which started through a joint venture in 2005. He&nbsp;co-headed JPMorgan’s UK investment banking business for three years until 2016, when he&nbsp;switched to leading its financial institutions coverage globally. Originally from Dublin, Hillery&nbsp;is&nbsp;a&nbsp;trustee at Ireland Funds of Great Britain, a&nbsp;philanthropic network that raises funds for projects in Ireland. Both sit on JPMorgan’s global banking management team, helping shape its&nbsp;investment banking strategy, including hiring senior dealmakers&nbsp;and identifying key areas of investment. They report to Vis Raghavan and&nbsp;Jim Casey, who co-head the division globally. Last year, JPMorgan hired Richard Sheppard as cohead of UK investment banking. He was previously co-head of M&amp;A for Emea at Deutsche Bank.

Co-heads of Emea investment banking

Matthew Cannon is a financial institutions specialist who has made it to the upper ranks of&nbsp;Bank of America’s investment banking division. He joined the&nbsp;Wall Street bank in 2018 from Morgan Stanley — where he&nbsp;led its financial institutions group —&nbsp;as co-head of UK and Ireland investment banking. The former Lehman Brothers banker was handed a promotion around a&nbsp;year later, heading up&nbsp;its&nbsp;Emea&nbsp;dealmaking team following the departure of Luigi Rizzo. Cannon now&nbsp;oversees Bank of America’s investment banking and financial&nbsp;sponsors teams in the region, which last year broke into the&nbsp;top three in Emea for the&nbsp;first time in a decade. He has also worked on some big UK financial services deals in&nbsp;recent years&nbsp;including the £5bn demerger of&nbsp;fund manager M&amp;G from Prudential in 2018 and&nbsp;the £7.2bn&nbsp;sale of&nbsp;insurer RSA to Intact in 2021.

Head of Emea investment banking

Jim Esposito has worked at Goldman Sachs since 1995, starting out in emerging markets sales before being named a managing director in 2002 and a partner in 2006. But it has been in the past five years that he has taken on some of the biggest roles at the bank. After spending two years as chief strategy officer for its securities division, he became co-head of the markets unit in 2018, taking charge of one of Goldman’s crown jewels. In another reshuffle in 2021, Esposito was named co‑head of the Wall Street giant’s investment banking division, a return to dealmaking for the London-based New Jersey native. He has also previously led its financing division, first in Europe and then globally. A major overhaul of Goldman’s business in October saw Esposito rise again. He became co-head of global banking and markets — its newly combined trading and dealmaking unit — alongside Ashok Varadhan and Dan Dees. During its investor day in February, Goldman Sachs laid out plans to gain market share within its investment bank. It finished second in the global investment banking fee league tables last year, with $6bn, according to data provider Dealogic, closing the gap on its long‑term rival for the top spot, JPMorgan. Esposito was a wrestler during his university years and is on the board of directors of Beat the Streets, a youth wrestling organisation. He previously told Financial News that wrestling helped instil a fierce sense of competition in him. “Once you’ve wrestled, everything else in life is easy,” he said.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Co-head of global banking and markets

Manolo Falco took charge of a new-look investment banking division at Citigroup alongside US-based Tyler Dickson in 2018. The pair have upped the ambition of the unit, which is now chasing as many ‘medal’ positions in the league tables as possible. Falco previously ran Citi’s corporate and investment banking division in Emea, before which he was head of banking for Iberia. Since taking on his global role, the bank has been hiring senior dealmakers and looking to gain share from rivals in key locations. Citi has also created a series of ‘supergroups’ in its investment bank over the past three years, which have broken down traditional sector barriers and focused on key macro drivers of deal activity. Falco joined Citi in 1998 from SG Warburg, where he worked for 10 years in both London and Madrid. He retains close links with his home country of Spain, including as a member of the Patronato International of the Teatro Real in Madrid. He is also a member of the Trilateral Commission, which brings together politicians, business leaders, media representatives and academics to discuss global issues. Citi’s BCMA unit has nearly 6,000 employees and has continued to attract top talent including former Credit Suisse global banking boss Jens Welter, who was hired to co-head its investment bank in Emea in December. Citi finished fifth in the investment banking fee league tables last year with $3.1bn, or 4% of the market, according to data provider Dealogic.&nbsp;

Global co-head of banking, capital markets and advisory

Gonzalo García and Anthony Gutman took over leadership of Goldman Sachs’s investment banking business in Emea in 2020. García has spent more than two decades at Goldman and was previously co-head of Latin America, co-head of global natural resources and head of investment banking for Latin America. A specialist in the infrastructure and power sectors, he has advised some of the biggest names in the industry including RWE, E.On and Centrica. Recent deals include advising ContourGlobal on its sale to KKR last year. García earned his MBA from London Business School in 1993. Prior to working in banking, he was a systems engineer for IBM Corporation, joining merchant bank Kleinwort Benson in 1993. He joined Goldman Sachs in 1999 and was made a partner in 2008. Gutman joined Goldman Sachs as a managing director in 2007 and was named partner in 2012. He was previously co-head of investment banking services and co-head of UK investment banking. He has worked on some high-profile private equity deals, including advising Clayton Dubilier &amp; Rice on its £7bn takeover of Morrisons, which received regulatory approval last year. Educated at Worcester College, University of Oxford, he qualified as a corporate solicitor at Freshfields in London before starting his banking career at Citigroup. García and Gutman are both part of the European management committee at the bank, as well as holding various other internal management positions. Goldman Sachs has long held second position in the Emea investment banking league tables behind JPMorgan. It finished last year with 6.8% market share, just behind JPMorgan’s 7.6%.

Co-heads of investment banking, Emea

Gutiérrez-Orrantia - Leitão

Ignacio (Nacho) Gutiérrez-Orrantia took the reins leading Citi’s Emea investment bank in 2021 and set a target of taking the top spot in the region by 2025. Citigroup has hired around eight senior dealmakers in Emea over the past year, most recently taking on Cyril Besseddik to lead healthcare. In December, Jens Welter joined from Credit Suisse to co-lead Citi’s Emea banking, capital markets and advisory unit alongside Gutiérrez-Orrantia. Welter spent 27 years at Credit Suisse, latterly as co-head of global banking and its Emea banking and capital markets unit. Meanwhile, Athletic Bilbao fan Gutiérrez-Orrantia joined Citi in 2004 after stints at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. Before his current role, he was chair of continental Europe investment banking. Citigroup finished fifth in the Emea investment banking fee league tables with $880m in 2022 — 4.3% of the market — according to data provider Dealogic.&nbsp;

Co-heads of Emea banking, capital markets and advisory

Greg Guyett took sole charge of HSBC’s global banking and markets division in October, when his co-head Georges Elhedery moved to become the company’s chief financial officer. The 30-year JPMorgan veteran joined the UK lender in 2018 as co-head of global banking, a year or so ahead of a big strategic shift that saw HSBC refocus its investment bank on key markets such as Asia and the Middle East. For now, Guyett has put a reported move from London to Hong Kong on hold and he remains one of the most senior HSBC bankers based in the UK. He knows Asia well, however, having headed up JPMorgan’s China and Asia-Pacific dealmaking teams during his career. A key bright spot for the UK lender in 2022 was leading the Emea IPO league tables, as HSBC secured top roles on big Middle Eastern listings despite a massive drop in listings. The bank is expected to expand in the Middle East this year, but Guyett has also overseen other new initiatives, including a team focused on private placements in Emea and a new UK mid-market M&amp;A unit.&nbsp;

CEO, global banking and markets

George Holst joined BNP Paribas in 2018 after spending nearly 18 years at JPMorgan, where he latterly headed up its retail investment banking franchise. The move coincided with a fresh push at the French bank, which is gunning to be the pre-eminent European investment bank as many of its biggest local rivals have retreated in recent years. Holst created BNP Paribas’s corporate clients group in Emea, a team packed with 1,250 bankers across the region and which will help it gain more ground in areas such as M&amp;A, where the bank has typically punched below its weight. A fresh promotion in February saw Holst also become global head of sectors and advisory, a new unit aimed at pushing BNP Paribas’ investment banking ambitions globally. He told Financial News in February that the bank is “definitely doing everything we can” to be a European alternative to big Wall Street banks. “I do think corporates like and want an alternative option with a different approach.” BNP Paribas is aiming to be consistently in the top five in Emea investment banking. It secured the third spot in 2020 during the frenzy of Covid-related capital raisings, although it has since slipped down the rankings, ending 2022 in eighth place

Global head of sectors and advisory

Over the past two decades, Henrik Johnsson has risen up the ranks of Deutsche Bank to become one of its top bankers in Europe. He joined in 2002 after graduating with a degree in industrial economics from Warwick University. He spent his formative years in Deutsche’s leveraged finance team, eventually heading up the business in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, before moving to head of investment grade debt capital markets eight years later. A flurry of promotions came Johnsson’s way during Deutsche Bank’s radical overhaul, which started under chief executive Christian Sewing in 2019 and created a more streamlined investment bank. Johnsson was handed the role of head of European capital markets that year, while also being promoted to co-head of European investment banking. He was later given additional responsibility to lead its investment banking sector coverage in 2021. As Deutsche’s turnaround has reached a conclusion, it is also ramping up its ambitions in dealmaking again. The German lender now aims to rank ahead of all its European rivals in the fee league tables and has been investing in M&amp;A talent.

Global co-head of capital markets

Robert Leitão leads Rothschild’s advisory business globally, heading a team of around 3,800 bankers, and has overseen a period of expansion at the bank. It has continued to push into the US, an initiative that started around five years ago and latterly resulted in a new Miami office. It has also launched new units, such as geopolitical advisory, and expanded its equity markets solutions. Leitão graduated in 1984 with a degree in engineering from Imperial College, London, and qualified as a chartered accountant with Peat Marwick Mitchell &amp; Co. He has spent 25 years at Rothschild, joining from Morgan Grenfell where he was head of UK M&amp;A. He continues to do deals, despite wearing several different hats. He has advised on more than 200 transactions during his time at the bank. Most recently, he was instrumental in the deal to enable Concordia — the Rothschild family’s holding company — to take the investment bank private, which was unveiled in February. Rothschild’s advisory unit brought in €1.8bn last year, down just 4% as bulge bracket rivals unveiled declines of up to 50% year-on-year. The bank finished third in the Emea M&amp;A fee league tables last year, a position it has held for the past five years. Leitão also serves as a director and chair of the audit committee of Manchester United Plc, the holding company for the Premier League club, and on the advisory board for Lowy Family Group, the investment company that founded Westfield Group. This long-term relationship has seen him act as lead adviser on all the group’s transactions.

Managing partner and head of global advisory

Lester - Oficialdegui

When Dominic Lester joined Jefferies in London in 2010, its European investment banking business consisted of just 50 employees. Under his watch, the business in Emea has grown to around 400 bankers and secured a place on key deals in the region. “We have now firmly established ourselves amongst the top investment banking firms, both globally and locally in Europe, and we believe that we can continue to gain market share,” Lester told Financial News in May. Last year, the bank was the sole financial adviser to cloud-based payments company Viva Wallet on the sale of a 49% stake to JPMorgan; it also worked for Carbon Clean on its $150m private fundraise. The firm has also continued to make hires, most recently building its teams in Italy, Scandinavia and France. Graduating in history and economics from Ivy League school Brown University in 1991, Lester spent the next two decades at UBS and its predecessors, working in healthcare banking before transitioning to telecoms. He is joint global head of technology investment banking at Jefferies alongside his Emea leadership role. Lester is fluent in German, French, Spanish and Italian, having lived and worked in three European countries as well as the US. In his spare time he is an avid skier and collects classic cars and contemporary art.

Emea head of investment banking

Barclays has shaken up the leadership of its investment bank over the past two years, and in October Tim Main was handed a big promotion. The former global head of Barclays’ financial institutions group took the helm of its European investment bank from Reid Marsh, who moved to become a global chair of the unit. The idea, executives said at the time, was to expand its dealmaking business in the region. Main has spent the past seven years at Barclays, joining from boutique Evercore where he was a senior managing director focused on the financial sector. He also spent two decades at JPMorgan and ran its FIG group during his final 10 years there. Barclays maintained its seventh place finish in the Emea fee league tables last year, with Main working on deals including Credit Suisse’s 4bn Swiss francs ($4.33bn) rights issue as part of its overhaul announced in October.&nbsp;

Head of banking, Emea

Lisa McGeough joined HSBC in July 2021 as the bank was in the midst of a strategic overhaul and was tasked with turning around its investment bank in Europe. It follows a tough period for the business and also comes amid a strategic refocus that will divert more capital to its key markets of Asia and the Middle East. McGeough, who led HSBC’s European global banking unit until she was promoted in Greg Guyett’s leadership shake-up last week, has spent the past two years making key hires, including senior dealmakers in the UK. She has looked to instil a renewed sense of entrepreneurial spirit at the bank, including introducing a Dragons’ Den-style competition for ideas to bolster revenue in the region. “It is also a chance to pull down silos across the bank and work out which opportunities can work across multiple businesses,” McGeough told Financial News. She previously spent 15 years at Wells Fargo, latterly heading its international business and she also led its corporate and investment bank. A rare example of a woman leading a key business at a large investment bank, McGeough has also been instrumental in promoting diversity at HSBC. She told FN she feels a responsibility to nurture female talent and call out the lack of diversity in the sector as she sees it. “It is up to all of us to be active and speak up if we think something is not appropriate. We have to be more vocal,” she told FN in 2022. HSBC was placed 11th in the Emea investment banking fee league tables last year.

Co-head of global banking coverage

Jim O’Neil joined Bank of America around three decades ago, starting out in New York and relocating to London a few years later. The naturalised UK citizen left Bank of America in 2010 to take a key role in reviving Britain’s banks in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. An already respected financial institutions banker, O’Neil became chief executive of UK Financial Investments, helping the government manage and unwind the stakes it took in Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group to bail them out during the crisis. He returned to Bank of America three years later to lead its financial institutions coverage group globally, before being handed his current role in 2017. He initially co-headed its corporate and investment bank in Emea alongside Bob Elfring, who retired in 2018 before returning to JPMorgan three years later. A classical music enthusiast, O’Neil has overseen Bank of America’s corporate and investment bank as it pushes to gain market share in the dealmaking fee league tables under its global “path to top three strategy”. Last year, Bank of America made it into the top three in Emea for the first time in 10 years, gaining two places. O’Neil has told Financial News that the aim is to “consolidate” that position in the future: “We have a consistent platform of bankers at all levels and a consistent breadth of client relationships for us to originate business from in a way we didn’t have a few years ago.” O’Neil is also executive sponsor of Bank of America’s women’s network and was given an OBE in 2014 for his services to banking.&nbsp;

Head of Emea corporate and investment banking

Javier Oficialdegui has now been at UBS for more than a decade and his rise to the top of its dealmaking unit has been relatively rapid. He joined in 2012 from Bank of America, where he was president of capital markets in Spain, to lead UBS’s coverage of financial institutions in Emea. Around five years later, Oficialdegui took charge of UBS’s investment banking business in Europe. By September 2019, he emerged with a bigger job after a sweeping overhaul of the Swiss bank’s dealmaking unit, which included combining its capital markets divisions. A keen runner, Oficialdegui now co-heads UBS’s investment banking unit globally alongside Ros L’Esperance, who is based in New York. Oficialdegui and L’Esperance now face the daunting task of integrating Credit Suisse’s dealmaking unit, following UBS’s $3.2bn acquisition of its Swiss rival on 19 March.&nbsp;

Co-head of global banking

Palmieri - Smith

This month, Societe Generale unveiled its new executive team under Slawomir Krupa, who takes over as CEO in May. Pierre Palmieri is in line to become one of two deputy chief executives alongside retail head Philippe Aymerich. For the past four years, Palmieri has led Societe General’s global banking and advisory business, which covers all of its investment banking activities. He oversees a team of 2,200 and sits on the bank’s group management committee. Palmieri started out at Societe General in 1987, working in the bank’s export finance unit, and has headed numerous units within its investment bank over the past 36 years. He remains actively involved in pitching new deals for the French bank and has overseen key areas of expansion, including its US advisory and project finance team in the UK. He has also taught finance at Paris Dauphine University and currently gives lectures at EDHEC business school.

Head of global banking and advisory

Viswas Raghavan has been a key part of JPMorgan’s investment bank in Europe since he joined in 2000 from Lehman Brothers to head up its equity-linked and derivatives capital markets business. Back then, he was known in the City as the “convertibles king”. Raghavan’s promotions have come thick and fast since then. He has led a number of large businesses including as head of debt and equity capital markets for Europe and Asia, as well as leading its ECM team globally. In 2017, however, Raghavan was handed responsibility for JPMorgan’s overall Emea business, taking the helm from Daniel Pinto, now its president and chief operating officer. In 2020, as part of a broader shake-up at JPMorgan that handed bigger roles to the next generation of dealmakers, he became global co-head of investment banking alongside US-based Jim Casey. JPMorgan has held the top spot in the Emea investment banking league tables since 2014, when it toppled Deutsche Bank. Globally, the bank brought in $6.2bn last year and remained in first place above rival Goldman Sachs, according to data provider Dealogic. Raghavan works with JPMorgan’s senior country heads across the bank and is key to driving its M&amp;A, equity capital markets and other dealmaking functions globally. A keen cricket player, he graduated in physics from the University of Mumbai. He then studied electronic engineering and computer science at Aston University — which also awarded him an honorary doctorate in science in 2016. Raghavan is a hard worker who makes high demands of his reports, colleagues have told Financial News. He has warned dealmakers at JPMorgan against complacency and underestimating the competition.

Co-global head of investment banking and Emea CEO

Sir Simon Robey has spent decades advising on some of the biggest deals in the UK. The bulk of his career was at Morgan Stanley before going it alone with fellow bankers Simon Warshaw and Philip Apostolides. The trio set up Robey Warshaw a decade ago and during that time Sir Simon has continued to work on high-profile transactions. Most recently, he was called in alongside his colleague, former Chancellor George Osborne, to advise HSBC on its rescue of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK arm, after its US parent collapsed this month. A music lover, Sir Simon is an honorary vice-president of the Royal Opera House and chairs the board of trustees of Britten Pears Arts. In 2016, he received a knighthood for services to music. It was, in fact, his passion for opera that led him to investment banking. As a student, he had ambitions of becoming a professional opera singer but while putting up concert posters, he came across a recruitment event by Lazard. He took a job at the firm because it allowed him to sing in the evenings, but soon discovered a love of banking. He told Financial News last year that despite now being in his 60s, he has no plans to retire.&nbsp;

Co-founder

Massimiliano Ruggieri was promoted as part of a leadership reshuffle at Morgan Stanley’s investment bank last year. In September, Ruggieri took charge of the unit in Emea from Simon Smith, who was promoted to lead the investment bank globally, alongside US-based Eli Gross. Ruggieri studied economics and commerce at the Sapienza University of Rome, graduating summa cum laude in 1998. He joined Merrill Lynch as an analyst, before taking up the position of managing director in debt capital markets at JPMorgan in 2000. He stayed at the bank for 10 years before joining Morgan Stanley in 2010. There he headed its Italian investment banking business. He was promoted to lead its coverage of financial sponsors clients in Emea in 2018. He has now set about shaking up Morgan Stanley’s senior ranks in Emea, recently installing Ben Grindley and Anthony Zammit as co-heads of UK investment banking. Morgan Stanley has maintained fourth place in the Emea investment banking league tables for the past two years, bringing in $921.3m in 2022.&nbsp;

Head of investment banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa

Simon Smith was handed a major promotion as part of a reshuffle of Morgan Stanley’s top investment bankers in June last year. A 25-year veteran of the bank, Smith had already led Morgan Stanley’s European investment banking business for seven years before he was tapped to co-head it globally alongside New York dealmaker Eli Gross. The pair took over from Mark Eichorn and Susie Huang, who moved to become executive chairs. Smith studied engineering at the University of Warwick while simultaneously working at Rolls-Royce as a graduate engineering trainee. He graduated in 1994 and spent four years at City investment bank Morgan Grenfell before joining Morgan Stanley in 1998. He has held numerous senior roles during his time at the Wall Street bank, including leading its UK dealmaking business and heading up its Emea industrials franchise. Smith has served on the corporate board of Great Ormond Street Hospital for 14 years and in 2017 became a fundraising patron for the charity

Twenty Most Influential in Investment Banking 2023