Tom Montag, president of global markets and banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, emphasised diversity at an internal ‘town hall’ meeting this month when he set a target of recruiting equal numbers of men and women at US undergraduate college campuses.

Montag is used to working with senior women, with three of the most senior female executives at the bank reporting directly to him: Lisa Carnoy, co-head of global capital markets; Candace Browning, global head of research: and Sanaz Zaimi, co-head of global fixed income, currencies and commodities sales.