Here are the two Rising Star Award recipients for Traders Magazine’s inaugural "Wall Street Women: A Celebration of Excellence." An independent advisory committee of women chose the winners from nominations by the industry.
The 16 awards were presented on Nov. 10 at the New York Academy of Sciences.
The Rising Star Award recognizing today’s and tomorrow’s leaders. The Rising Star Award is intended for high-impact professionals who will continue to lead the industry in the next generation.
To See A Slideshow of All Winners: http://bit.ly/tFKh0G
Melissa Hinmon
Firm: Turner Investments
Years in Industry: 26
Previous Firms: J.F. O’Brien & Company, McNamara Trading Company, Merrill Lynch, NatWest
Status: Senior Equity Trader, Principal
Turner Investments’ Melissa Hinmon says she is standing on the shoulders of women who came before her, as well as her contemporaries’.
She survived tough times for women in trading back in the 1980s. And even though she has persevered and prospered, the wounds are not easily forgotten.
"Early on I was excluded from client meetings and functions," she said. "I discovered that to overcome being a woman would take more than learning golf or the desire to succeed."
Hinmon modestly says it was women "stronger" and "more willful" than she who helped her succeed. Among those she credits in the latter category is a group of trading superstars.
These include Maryann Gorman, a Nasdaq trader at Merrill, as well as two sisters who carved out a career on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, Doris Elwell and Karen Janney. The PHLX was an exchange where women previously had been ignored.
At Turner Investments, Hinmon praises coworker Louise Hertzog as "an incredible example for me not only in my career but in life as a person." She proudly notes that today five out of seven traders on the desk there are women.
She also credits Traders Magazine Trailblazer Award winner Christina Kelerchian of Goldman Sachs, who was introduced to her by Seth Merrin of Liquidnet, as also helping her. Kelerchian, Hinmon notes, is one of a handful of women who run desks.
"I view her as a mentor and a leader," Hinmon said. Hinmon says conditions are better for women than back in the 1980s, when she and other women traders were underappreciated and out of the loop.
But a key issue for women, even in today’s better times, remains one’s passion for the business. For Hinmon, the passion to trade effectively remains a basic truth of the business that must be constantly acknowledged.
"This business is a living, breathing creature that is constantly changing," she said. Young traders, she adds, should constantly ask themselves how they are going to stay relevant. "How do I morph past and current skills to meet new challenges?"
Joanna Fields
Firm: Deutsche Bank
Years in Industry: 13
Previous Firms: Lexicon, CBOE, ISE, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank
Status: Director, Head of Market Structure for the Americas
A car accident can change things-usually for the worse. But in the case of Joanna Fields, it was for the better.
Fields had always wanted to dance, studying the art in school and then becoming a professional ballerina until fate stepped in. After a car accident, she learned she wouldn’t dance again, and her life took a different path, to Wall Street and economics. She was thrust from the dance world, where women outnumber men by a factor of a thousand, to the business world, where men outnumber women by a similar multiple.
"I was used to using my small size to my advantage," Fields said of her dance days. "Then I found myself in this new world of rough-and-tumble guys."
But she adapted quickly. In 1998, she began work at Lexecon, a Chicago-based economic litigation consulting firm. It was there that she trained her mind in the intricacies of market structure and regulation. She moved to the floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, where she covered options regulation in the trading pits.
"I had to learn how to stand my ground and to quickly think on my feet," she said of the time.
But her drive and interest in market structure and regulation led her to the International Securities Exchange, where she worked in compliance. Then Credit Suisse First Boston offered her a job in 2003, cementing her roots on Wall Street. After she’d been there two years, Deutsche Bank lured her away and in 2009 offered her the newly created role of head of market structure.
"They really created the role based on my decades of experience and work," Fields said. "The position was both externally and internally facing-so I created my own niche."
It’s a niche that has proven relevant, given the increased amount of new regulation and modification of existing rules coming from government and market regulators. This, she said, brings new challenges and unique opportunities everyday at the firm.
"They keep me on my toes-in a different way," Fields joked.
