Corley helms Europe’s largest asset management fund (a unit of financial services giant Allianz and peer of U.S. based PIMCO). With assets of $488 billion, her division’s operating profit was up 12% last year. Despite low interest rates in Europe, the fund drew in record net client inflows of $11.9 billion in 2014 after years of flat growth. This year Corley was recognized by the Governor of the Bank of England for her active role in promoting best practices in wholesale fixed income, currency and the commodity markets; in June she was appointed interim chair of England’s FICC Markets Standards Board (FMSB). A director of Pearson, Corley is also an acclaimed novelist; she published her fifth crime thriller —The Dead of Winter—last year. —Rupali Arora