As a forward on Kenyon's first women's basketball team, Peyton R. Patterson never enjoyed a top-20 ranking. But when she pulled off the biggest merger-conversion in banking history, U.S. Banker magazine named her the year's second most powerful woman in banking nationwide.

The merger, which took place in 2004, involved bringing together three Connecticut-based banks into one $6-billion-dollar financial institution, NewAlliance Bancshares. The complex deal required Patterson to be inventive in how she thought about mergers--and it required diplomatic skills. Not only did she have to navigate through some public controversy about the merger; but, following the initial public offering--the stock sold out in the first round, raising nearly $2 billion--she faced the challenge, as New Alliance's CEO, of integrating and "rebranding" the three institutions.

Patterson credits her time at Kenyon, where she majored in political science, with helping her to develop the necessary diplomatic and analytical skills. "What I value most about my Kenyon education is learning how to be someone who could be perceptive, to analyze, to make my way around a business, and to understand human nature a little bit better," she says. Kenyon's team sports and social atmosphere taught Patterson how to work with a diverse group. Patterson also spent a semester in Paris, studying at the Institute of European Studies.

The top-ranked CEO still finds time in her life for sports--she's an avid tennis player and power-walker. She also serves on arts boards and hospital boards, and is raising a young daughter. "Everyone needs a life plan," says Patterson, "and it's not anything that anyone's going to manage for you. You have to create and manage the 'life plan' for yourself. You have to set goals and let people around you know that these are things you aspire to."