The entire U.S. banking industry had more female employees than men in 2021, but less than 5% of publicly traded banks had female CEOs at the end of that year.

In 2021, 56.3% of roughly 1.9 million total employees in banking and related activities were women, compared to 43.7% men, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence analysis that reviewed the U.S. Labor Department's banking industry data and information reported by publicly traded banks.

In savings institutions, including credit unions, 69.8% of 289,000 employees were women. Meanwhile, in nondepository credit and related activities, of 1.2 million employees, 50.7% were men.

Female CEOs

Although women employees outnumbered men in the U.S. banking sector, only 10 public banks had female CEOs in 2021. Those banks were Citigroup Inc., First Republic Bank, Eagle Bancorp Inc., Community Trust Bancorp Inc., Luther Burbank Corp., Hanmi Financial Corp., Amalgamated Financial Corp., OP Bancorp, First United Corp. and Sound Financial Bancorp Inc., according to a Market Intelligence analysis that included U.S. public banks and thrifts trading on the Nasdaq and NYSE and excluded banks that had unavailable compensation data for the fiscal year ended 2021.

On the other hand, there were 337 public banks with male CEOs in the year.

Hafize Erkan, the co-CEO of First Republic Bank from July 2021 to January 2022, received a total compensation of $23.5 million in 2021, the highest among the female CEOs. Her co-CEO, James Herbert II, was paid $17.8 million.

Pay at top banks

Looking at compensation at the top 10 public banks by market capitalization as of Dec. 31, 2021, First Republic Bank's Erkan ranked third next to the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp.

Jane Fraser, Citigroup's CEO since March 2021, was fifth, next to Erkan. Fraser was also the least paid and the only woman among the CEOs of the Big Four banks: JPMorgan, BofA, Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup. She was paid $20.5 million in 2021.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon received $84.4 million in compensation, BofA CEO Brian Moynihan got $23.7 million, and Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf got $21.4 million.

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Peers at banks with female CEOs

Eagle Bancorp CEO Susan Riel was paid $5.5 million in 2021, higher than the compensation of the top executives of Eagle Bancorp's 14 peers based on market capitalization, which averaged $2.8 million.

Pathward Financial Inc. former CEO Bradley Hanson was the second-highest paid at $5.0 million.

Between the female CEOs of Community Trust Bancorp, Luther Burbank, Hanmi Financial and Amalgamated Financial, Amalgamated Financial CEO Priscilla Brown received the highest 2021 compensation at $4.1 million.

Former Community Trust Bancorp CEO Jean Hale was paid $1.0 million, Luther Burbank CEO Simone Lagomarsino $2.2 million and Hanmi Financial CEO Bonita Lee $1.9 million.

The pay of the male CEOs at the companies in the category averaged $2.1 million, with Coastal Financial Corp. CEO Eric Sprink getting the highest at $4.8 million.

OP Bancorp CEO Min Jung Kim was paid the highest in 2021, compared to the female CEOs of First United and Sound Financial. Her compensation totaled $1.7 million. First United CEO Carissa Rodeheaver received $559,086, and Sound Financial CEO Laura Stewart got $767,736.

Kim's compensation was higher than the average compensation of the 27 peers with male CEOs in the category, which was about $900,000. Among those peers, Bogota Financial Corp. CEO Joseph Coccaro received the highest pay at $2.2 million, $1.4 million of which was option and stock awards.