Melanie Pickett
Chief Transformation Officer, Northern Trust
About
Melanie Pickett is Chief Transformation Officer at Northern Trust, a newly created role she assumed effective January 1, 2026, leading the design and execution of firmwide initiatives to accelerate innovation and adapt to a changing market. She reports to CEO, Michael O'Grady, and serves on the Northern Trust Leadership Team.
Pickett joined Northern Trust in January 2017 to build a new business line centered on the portfolio management and technology needs of complex asset allocators globally. In late 2018, she led an equity investment in Parilux Investment Technology and built Northern Trust’s first cloud-native software business. She went on to serve as Head of Asset Owners, Americas, from 2022, overseeing the Alternative Asset Servicing Group and product delivery for pensions, foundations, endowments, insurance companies, and corporations. In January 2025, her remit expanded to Head of Asset Servicing, Americas, adding responsibility for the firm’s asset
manager clients.
Before Northern Trust, Pickett was Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director of Emory Investment Management at Emory University. Prior to that, she spent more than a decade in operations and technology strategy roles within Morgan Stanley’s Global Wealth Management division. She was named to the 2021 Top 40 Women in Fintech and received the 2021 Global Banking & Finance US Business Woman of the Year award. She is based in Chicago.