At Morgan Stanley in the 1990s and early 2000s, Jane Gladstone helped to define and design financial technology M&A. At Evercore Partners since 2005, as a senior managing director heading the financial services corporate advisory practice, she has continued to build on that track record, stressing the need for invention and creativity as the sector now known as fintech has taken shape and matured. “Clients want us to see where the hockey puck is going in fintech,” says Gladstone, who turns 48 in November. “To do that, you can’t be the 15th firm to do the same idea.” When Gladstone joined Evercore, many of her clients had never heard of the New York–based firm, which was founded in 1995 by former U.S. Treasury official and Blackstone Group vice chairman Roger Altman. But Gladstone and her team have put together a string of high-profile deals, among them last year’s $314 million initial public offering of high frequency trading firm Virtu Financial, and she advised ICAP on the merger of its voice brokering business with Tullett Prebon. Evercore also advised financial software company ION Investment Group on the sale of a $400 million stake to private equity firm Carlyle Group, announced in May of this year, and the parent of OptionsHouse on its $725 million purchase by E*TRADE Financial Corp. out of the General Atlantic portfolio (see Jonathan Korngold, No. 1), announced in July. An art history major at the University of Virginia whose first job out of college was at London private equity firm Hambro Magan, Gladstone was drawn to finance from an early age. As children growing up in New York and Los Angeles, she and her sister devised a game with a currency they called passes, which they traded for favors, such as allowing one sister into the other’s room. The rules of the game went into precocious detail. “We even set out guidelines for quantitative easing,” Gladstone says. Of a more momentous currency development, Bitcoin and its blockchain, Gladstone notes that more money has been invested in it “than went into Internet investments during the 1990s. You know that when 60 Minutes devotes time to blockchain, it’s become a thing.”
 1. Jonathan Korngold General Atlantic  2. Matthew Harris Bain Capital Ventures  3. Jane Gladstone Evercore Partners  4. James Robinson III & James Robinson IV RRE Ventures  5. Steven McLaughlin Financial Technology Partners  6. Amy Nauiokas & Sean Park Anthemis Group |
 7. Richard Garman & Brad Bernstein FTV Capital  8. Gerard von Dohlen Broadhaven Capital Partners  9. Darren Cohen Goldman Sachs Group  10. Hans Morris Nyca Partners  11. Meyer (Micky) Malka Ribbit Capital  12. Maria Gotsch Partnership Fund for New York City |
 13. Barry Silbert Digital Currency Group  14. Jay Reinemann Propel Venture Partners  15. Mariano Belinky Santander InnoVentures  16. Justin Brownhill & Neil DeSena SenaHill Partners  17. François Robinet AXA Strategic Ventures  18. Vanessa Colella Citi Ventures |
 19. Michael Schlein Accion International  20. Kenneth Marlin Marlin & Associates  21. Rumi Morales CME Ventures  22. Alastair (Alex) Rampell Andreessen Horowitz  23. Steve Gibson Euclid Opportunities  24. Fabian Vandenreydt SWIFT |
 25. Vladislav Solodkiy Life.SREDA  26. Gardiner Garrard III TTV Capital  27. Nektarios Liolios Startupbootcamp Fintech  28. Lawrence Wintermeyer Innovate Finance  29. Bina Kalola Bank of America Merrill Lynch  30. Hyder Jaffrey Fintech Innovation |
 31. Calvin Choi AMTD Group  32. Janos Barberis FinTech Hong Kong  33. Jalak Jobanputra Future Perfect Ventures  34. Sopnendu Mohanty Monetary Authority of Singapore  35. Oskar Mielczarek de la Miel Rakuten FinTech Fund |