What the bankers think of the protests....

[HipChick]

The annual awards celebrate women bankers, who are still a relative minority in the industry. KeyCorp chief executive Beth Mooney, the first woman to run a top 20 bank based in the United States, joked that "I think I have a little glass in my hair" as she accepted an award on Thursday evening.

Mooney, who took over Key earlier this year, spoke frankly about the challenges facing women who aspire to the top positions in the still-conservative banking industry.

She and Karen Peetz, who was named the most powerful woman in banking, also both acknowledged that not everyone has access to the same opportunities.

“For all the things that each of us has done right, every person in this room has been the beneficiary of good timing, lucky breaks, and advantages that too many others lack,” Peetz, a vice chairman of Bank of New York Mellon Corp., said as she accepted her award.

Keynote speaker Arianna Huffington, a sometimes vocal critic of how big banks treat customers, was relatively gentle on the industry Thursday night. The Huffington Post founder told the audience that she was grateful to a bank for agreeing to give her an overdraft loan early in her career.

http://www.americanbanker.com/issues/176_195/most-powerful-women-in-banking-heidi-miller-1042937-1.html?wib

[eppur_se_muova]

1. "the beneficiary of good timing, lucky breaks, and advantages that too many others lack"

Glad someone acknowledges it.

Most of the 1% are people who have had nothing but "advantages that too many others lack" -- gained honestly or dishonestly -- and want you to think they are "self-made men" (yes, men almost exclusively). Maybe we need more women bankers, like Iceland after the crash.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. Keynote Speaker Arianna Huffington

Pay attention Huff Post fans.