Trading is and always has been a man’s world. But there are exceptions to every rule. Women in trading have made their imprint on an industry that has not always been female-friendly. Welcome to “Wall Street Women: A Celebration of Excellence.” This issue features 15 award-winning women who have placed their mark of success upon the Street-and as a result, are being honored for their accomplishments.
According to a New York-based Wall Street executive placement firm, women are still underrepresented on today’s trading floors. A recent survey the firm conducted tells the tale: Of 2,392 people who work in front-office roles in financial services in the U.S., 91 percent are male and 9 percent are female. The firm told Traders Magazine this is in line with other statistics in its report, that around 10 percent of front-office professionals in finance are women.
The survey included firms of all types: banks, boutiques, broker-dealers, hedge funds, asset management firms and family offices.
While a small number of women have survived the tumult of Wall Street, the great ones have truly thrived. The winners’ stories of leadership, perseverance, assertiveness and charity are inspiring to both women and men, young and old.
This year, the third annual Wall Street Women event will be held Nov. 6 at the Essex House in New York City. The keynote address will be delivered by Stephanie Ruhle, an anchor for Bloomberg Television. She serves as co-host of “Market Makers,” airing on the network weekdays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Eastern. Offscreen and away from her desk, Ruhle plays an active role in women’s leadership and business leader development, as well. She founded the Corporate Investment Bank Women’s Network and co-chaired the Women on Wall Street steering committee.
Ruhle helps set the example for women on Wall Street on how to be successful and told Traders Magazine that despite gains for many women, there is still work to be done. Although women are increasing their skill sets, becoming more tenacious and mastering the networking circuit, they still lag behind their male counterparts for the big jobs.
“Unfortunately, there’s been more progress for women when it comes to networking and flag-waving, which in theory is good, but they are not leading to gains in getting the top jobs,” Ruhle told Traders Magazine. “It’s really in the hands of women to get those big jobs that banks and hedge funds say they are willing to give. We need to push ourselves.”
The days of waiting for a company, supervisor or male colleague to tap a woman on the shoulder or passively recommend a female are over, Ruhle added. Women, she said, need to make their own breaks and, in some cases, create their own luck.
“We need to take our future and destiny into our own hands-we don’t have anything to lose,” Ruhle said. “At first for women it was about tenacity, perseverance and other issues. But now that we’ve shown we have these qualities, we need to move the employment needle ourselves and scratch that needle right across the record.”
And this year’s recipients have moved the needle indeed. Elaine Kaven, this year’s Lifetime Achievement award winner, has made an impact in the industry by constantly being prepared for anything. She has enjoyed a 30-year career on Wall Street despite many things being out of her control.
“I think one thing has been helpful in my career is not limiting oneself to a particular piece of the business,” Kaven said. Having a breadth of knowledge offsets chance, she added. “You can be doing a terrific job with a terrific firm, and things just happen-the firm goes out of business or merges. I’ve survived many things and been able to stay with StockCross in various capacities by being prepared.”
For Christine Sandler, executive vice president, global sales, at NYSE Euronext and one of this year’s two Excellence in Leadership award winners, it’s been her unwavering ability to embrace the constant growth and evolution of the markets, whether it’s at an equities exchange, technology company or in a family.
“To be a leader you have to grow,” she said, “whether at an exchange, technology company or broker.”
And behind many of these excellent women are mentors who have played, and in some cases still play, a vital supporting role in the development of female-as well as male-talent. Being a mentor is the responsibility of every leader within a firm and by doing so, one becomes a more effective leader, said Bina Kalola, head of strategic investments, global equities, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, one of this year’s Mentors of the Year.
“I think it’s so important,” Kalola said of being a mentor. “As a leader, whatever that title may mean, you’re responsible to be a mentor, or as a senior leader to be a person’s sponsor. We all have received the benefit of mentoring at one time of another. And if we all do it, then we’re all better off.”
Kalola’s commitment to mentorship stems from being mentored herself, and she says that being able to pay it forward is one of the best parts of her job.
The winners in our eight categories were nominated by the industry and selected by an independent advisory committee comprised of women in the financial community with decades of experience. Please welcome this year’s winners of the third annual “Wall Street Women: A Celebration of Excellence.”
Lifetime Achievement
Elaine Kaven
Firm: StockCross
Years in Industry: 30
Chance favors the prepared mind.
During the span of Elaine Kaven’s 30 years on Wall Street, things have happened that were beyond her control: firms have gone under and changed hands, staff have departed, and markets crashed. But she has managed to not only survive, but even excel, thanks to her constant state of readiness.
“I think one thing has been helpful in my career is not limiting oneself to a particular piece of the business,” Kaven said. Having a breadth of knowledge offsets chance, she added. “You can be doing a terrific job with a terrific firm, and things just happen-the firm goes out of business or merges.”
The Buffalo, New York native began her career in finance right out of college at the University of Buffalo in 1978. In the midst of a recession, armed with a liberal arts degree and a master’s in education, she was open to all possibilities.
“I wasn’t thinking about Wall Street at all,” she recalled. “Jobs were very limited, and I was looking into the publishing industry, given my experience in writing and literature.”
So how does one stay in the trading business, let alone at a single firm, for 30 years? Kaven said her strategy was to be flexible and adaptable.
“The more you know, the more valuable you are,” she said. “Don’t be tied to any niche area where you understand only aspect of our industry and [lack the] ability to do anything else if something happens, or to discover new and exciting challenges. Be flexible.”
Kaven also stressed that having a broad and deep knowledge base can transform a dull day job into a exciting lifelong career. Her ability to learn and her love of learning have kept her in her seat at StockCross, where she now works in the compliance group in the firm’s Beverly Hills, Calif. headquarters. But one thing hasn’t changed, and that is her love of industry and desire for knowledge.
“It’s always better if you can come to work every day and enjoy it, which I think is rooted in the idea that the more you know, the more interesting the job becomes,” Kaven said.
Excellence in Leadership
Anna Ewing
Firm: NASDAQ OMX Group Inc.
Years in Industry: 25
Anna Ewing is fervent about what she does. And that drives her to excel-in whatever capacity she serves.
“I’m driven by several key things, but the first is that passionate about what I do,” Ewing told Traders Magazine. “It manifests itself in me. And that drives me to take on more in life.”
And hers is a life that has stretched from India to Canada to the U.S and a career that’s spanned over 25 years. It’s included many steps outside her comfort zone-something else Ewing said is essential to thriving and excelling.
“You also need to be willing to take risks in your career and in your convictions to move things forward,” she said.
Other keys to her achievements are being credible and building trust. It is on the back of these tenets that one can measure success. “My brand is one of trust and credibility. I am someone who has built relationships based on trust-whether with my customers, peers, my team or my chief executive officer.”
That trust has earned her a long customer-facing career on Wall Street at a handful of firms. Ewing started at Merrill Lynch in Toronto and then in its New York office. She then joined CIBC World Markets in New York and Toronto, where was a founding member of CIBC.com. At these firms, she was on the cutting edge of technology and the electronic revolution.
“I’ve always been aligned with the customer, but also in driving change and innovation within an organization,” she said. “When I started back in the PC days, it was all about rolling out evolving and implementing it within the client’s framework.”
At the turn of the millennium, Ewing joined Nasdaq when it was only a single exchange serving the U.S. equities markets. With the help and guidance of Ewing and her team, the exchange operator now runs 26 marketplaces, across multiple geographies and myriad asset classes.
And it is still passion that drives her every morning.
“This all comes back to loving what I do, being a part of the change, the transformation of our business,” Ewing said.
Excellence in Leadership
Christine Sandler
Firm: NYSE Euronext
Years in Industry: 28
Effective leaders are those who embrace growth constantly, whether it’s at an equities exchange, a technology company or in a family.
That’s Christine Sandler’s recipe for success. The executive vice president, global sales, at NYSE Euronext told Traders Magazine that her growth began in December 1986, when she landed her first job at Smith Barney. She then moved to Oppenheimer and later became a trader at W.H. Reaves, after earning an economics degree from Stony Brook University. For her, the goal was to get to the Street. And fast.
“This was a natural avenue for me in back then in the late ’80s. It was all about Wall Street,” Sandler said. And she wanted to be a leader right off the bat-to head her own production team in either sales or trading. Sandler recalled the interview that earned her the job at W.H. Reaves, which actually came about as the result of another interview at a rival firm, Oppenheimer. While getting a job at Oppenheimer, she made enough of an impact on the recruiter that he passed her name along to W.H. Reaves, who was looking for trader. Willing to grow and step out of her comfort zone, Sandler took the meeting and the chance to trade.
“The fact that the Oppenheimer recruiter recommended me really changed me-that one act of kindness changed the shape of what my career became,” Sandler said.
Looking for more, Sandler left W.H. Reaves in in 1993 and joined Spear Leeds & Kellogg as a prop trader in June 1993. She stayed until 1996. After a brief hiatus away from finance, she returned in 1998 and transitioned from trading to sales at Bloomberg Tradebook.
In 2007, Sandler joined NYSE Euronext, where she currently is executive vice president for global sales. She runs a global team of 37 salespeople and interacts with most market makers and high-frequency traders. A part of the management committee and mentor to many, she has reached a pinnacle. But it all comes down to one thing for her.
“To be a leader, you have to grow,” she said. “Whether at an exchange, technology company or broker.”
Mentor of the Year
Bina Kalola
Firm: Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Years in Industry: 22
Being a mentor is the responsibility of every leader within a firm.
And by teaching and guiding others, leaders themselves become more effective, said Bina Kalola, head of strategic investments, global equities, at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
“I think it’s so important,” Kalola said of being a mentor. “As a leader, whatever that title may mean, you’re responsible to be a mentor.”
Kalola’s commitment to mentorship stems from being mentored herself. Paying it forward is one of the best parts of her job, she said.
When Kalola entered Wall Street back in 1990 for a Shearson Lehman internship, it was a fellow Barnard College alum, Jodie-Beth Galos, who helped the recent graduate of an all-female college get acclimated to male-dominated Wall Street. Kalola recalled that Galos was a “rock star,” having the style, poise, smarts and panache to navigate the financial world.
Even though it was only a summer internship for Kalola, that period had lasting implications. She’d draw on the lessons she learned that summer when she joined Salomon Brothers in 1991. Another mentor helped her get settled at the firm. At that time, she said, Salomon was quite intimidating and different from her college experience.
“I had a fantastic mentor, Tom Favia, who was extremely approachable,” she said. “When we talked, he listened. He afforded me an opportunity to grow the prop trading P&L, and as a result of that opportunity, I was noticed by the firm’s general counsel, who gave me yet another opportunity.
When she was 23, Kalola met another mentor at Salomon: Audrey Strauss, now chief legal officer at Alcoa. The two have enjoyed a 20-year relationship that Kalola said refined her. She adds that Strauss is one of her biggest supporters, outside of her mom and dad.
“She mentored me to be excellent at work-to create a style that embraced me, and find the confidence to achieve my goals,” Kalola said.
Mentor of the Year
Eva Walsh
Firm: J.P. Morgan Asset Management
Years in Industry: 21
Family and faith were central to Eva Walsh’s desire to be a mentor.
It all started when she was a child and churchgoer, as her mother and parish emphasized a spirit of charity and helping others. Walsh recalled how she had been raised by her family to help others whenever and wherever possible.
“I’ve been brought up to help others,” Walsh said. “As a kid, we’d walk people home from church. My mom had us shop for those who couldn’t and carried groceries for others. It’s so rewarding.”
Walsh recalled four mentors who have punctuated her lifelong career on Wall Street and at J.P. Morgan Asset Management. Each of them helped the onetime accountant transition from balance sheets and statements of reconciliation to the world of trading and finance. These people, she said, were essential to her, and it’s important for others to have similar guides.
“Younger talent these days can often step into a firm and potentially be lost,” Walsh said. “The best thing they can do is shadow someone, someone from whom they can learn firsthand about the business or firm.”
The first mentor who affected Walsh was Dee Serra, a former J.P. Morgan Asset Management employee who took accounting classes with her. The second was portfolio manager George Gardella. The third was Lisa Waller, another portfolio manager who took a personal interest in her. The last was Ron Mawson, a senior small-cap trader.
“He was so impressive,” Walsh remembered. “He was prepared all the time and always willing to help others. I emulated this consistency and the way he treated everyone with respect,” she said. “
Mawson retired in 2002, but his legacy-as well as Serra’s,Gardella’s and Waller’s-live on in Walsh. When she isn’t trading, she’s helping co-workers via J.P. Morgan’s formal mentor program, or others externally, and shows no signs of stopping.
“I am mentoring three people informally now and two through the company program,” Walsh said.
Entrepreneur of the Year
Ivy Zelman
Firm: Zelman & Associates
Years in Industry: 23
For Ivy Zelman, owner and partner at Zelman & Associates, the pivotal moment to branch out on her own came in 2008, when the U.S. housing market went bust.
“I had just had my 40th birthday and realized I wanted something more,” Zelman recalled. At the time, she was working at Credit Suisse, running her own research group, and was able to write her own ticket.
After blowing out the candles on her cake, she left the bulge firm-where she had spent the last 10 years of her career-and opened her own boutique research firm. The road to ownership and self-employment was most certainly a challenge and required a team effort, Zelman told Traders Magazine. She relies on her team, and for most of her career it’s always been about fostering a sense of teamwork and esprit de corps.
Zelman & Associates, an independent research firm catering to the institutional equity investor, has only 11 research staff, so teamwork is essential to compete with bigger firms that have more staff and resources.
For Ivy Zelman, risk equaled fear of failure. And for her, failure was not an option.
“I wanted the good life and had to prove myself to get it,” she said of her early days working at Salomon Brothers. I’ve always been driven to succeed by the fear of failure.”
It was this fear of failure that pushed Zelman through the hypercompetitive Salomon training program.
“I was working 100-hour weeks, building the bridges and swimming in the deep end of the pool,” Zelman said. For some, the kite just can’t fly high enough.
So in Zelman’s case, she just kept flying. She left Salomon in 1998 and joined Credit Suisse, where she worked for the next 10 years.
“They were great to me,” she said of Credit Suisse. “I was so well respected, but was at the point where I just wanted more. It was time to remove my franchise and make it a stand-alone.”
Entrepreneur of the Year
Nancy Havens-Hasty
Firm: Havens Partners
Years in Industry: 34
Earning the best return for investors is what drives Nancy Havens-Hasty.
It’s just that plain and simple.
“If I had to say what I’m most motivated by, I’d say it was earning money for my clients,” Havens-Hasty said. With more than 30 years in the investment world, Havens-Hasty must love what she does. She’s run money almost her entire career, starting as an investment banker at Bear Stearns back in 1979. She spent the first seven years there in the risk arbitrage department, where she founded and managed the international risk arbitrage effort. It was there she got her first taste of making money for clients, running the firm’s domestic arbitrage portfolio.
“What resonated with me was making the right investments that made money,” she said. “It was very fun to figure all the complexities in these circumstances and see which were to going to happen and those that weren’t.”
Working at one of Wall Street highest-powered investment banks, though, proved to be a learning experience for Havens-Hasty. As she rapidly ascended through the ranks and took on more responsibilities, she found herself moving further away from her true love-earning for her clients-as other responsibilities crowded her time. In 1995 she was ready for a change.
While she described her time at Bear Stearns as terrific, she simply wanted to get back to her roots of investing.Thus, in the fall of 1995, she began to set up her own hedge fund and firm, Havens Partners.
Havens-Hasty, along with two other people and $35 million, opened the firm’s doors in 1996. Now, 16 years later, the hedge fund has 10 people and an office in New York’s hedge fund district in midtown Manhattan. She runs hundreds of millions of dollars in client money and loves her smaller firm and doing what she does best: making money for clients.
“There’s an advantage to being smaller,” she said, “and that’s being able to get into and out of positions quickly.”
Charitable Works Award
Ellen Kratzer
Firm: Fiduciary Trust
Years in Industry: 28
At 8 years old, Ellen Kratzer first felt the tug of philanthropy, organizing a neighborhood fair and raising $30 for Children’s Aid.
Back in the early 1970s-and especially for an 8-year-old-that was a lot of money.
Kratzer gets her indomitable spirit of charity from her parents-her mother is involved in the Junior League and her father in various causes within their church. Kratzer wanted to follow their example, being fortunate to grow up in suburban Connecticut but not oblivious to the misfortunes of others in neighboring areas.
She told Traders Magazine she was always involved in lot of charitable activities throughout her academic career-from high school through her graduation from Princeton in 1985. Upon commencement, Kratzer joined Chemical Bank’s international private banking division. While there working with ultra-high-net-worth clients, she felt the need to get involved in the local community and aligned herself with the Junior League of New York.
“This gave balance to my life,” Kratzer said. “All day long I was talking to phenomenally wealthy clients from the Middle East and sitting 62 floors up. Taking that elevator ride down and going to the Legal Aid Society in its Harlem office balanced out that life.”
Through her involvement in the New York Junior League, she has helped build an apartment building in Harlem for homeless people and educated incarcerated women in prison. Kratzer also has helped Brooklyn families affected by the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Now Kratzer is preparing to serve as the president of the Association of Junior Leagues International. She is also a former chair of the board of the U.S. Association for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“I’d say many people get involved in charities because they want to give back,” she said. “But what is really amazing is that you often end up receiving so much more than you give.”
Charitable Works Award
Holly Mitchell
Firm: ITG
Years in Industry: 18
Sometimes it’s the littlest things that mean the most-such as visiting a lonely hospitalized child, spending a few moments with a Beanie Baby and a bag lunch. That’s all it takes, said Holly Mitchell, managing director, platforms group, at ITG.
Being charitable doesn’t require a lot of time, a lot of money or a lot of people. It doesn’t require a massive organization or media blitz. It can just be one person quietly taking an hour out of their week to make the difference in someone’s life. Mitchell likes to serve quietly and just focus on the people, never forgetting it’s all about serving rather than being served.
“No one has ever guilt-tripped me into being charitable or getting involved, but there’s always been a thread of not forgetting how lucky we were and our upbringing that has guided me,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell is the youngest of four siblings who all serve charitably in one form or another, taking their cue from their mother. “Mom decided she was going to stay home and save the world,” Mitchell said. “She was always involved in a number of causes, and I saw her give back a ton.”
Mitchell said that when she got on her career track, philanthropy was always on her mind. She started serving others back in Los Angeles, at a hospital and in a mentoring organization akin to Big Brothers Big Sisters.
“Back then I felt guilty as I didn’t do anything real consistent,” she said. “I worried about how people would eulogize me and how I would be regarded!”
And that marked the beginning of a turning point for her, and for employer ITG. After joining the firm in 1999, Mitchell explored ITG’s internal philanthropic efforts and joined its charity committee in 2003. She took over the chairmanship of the committee in 2012 and pushed for involvement at the managing director level.
“One thing I tell people is that the little things count,” Mitchell said. “People can embrace the smallest acts of kindness and still have profound impact.”
Crystal Ladder
Jamie Bogen
Firm: Bloomberg Tradebook
Years in Industry: 20+ years
Being a jack-of-all-trades and master of change-that’s how one successfully climbs the trading ladder.
It’s that philosophy that has served Jamie Bogen so well for 30 years on Wall Street. Knowing about myriad disciplines within the trading sphere, from order execution to algorithm mechanics to market structure, and from the perspective of both the buyside and sellside, has helped her survive and thrive.
“When I first started working on the Street, I started as an institutional sales assistant at Dominion Securities, the predecessor of RBC. I was a jack-of-all-trades,” Bogen said of her three years at the sellside firm. “I then moved to Columbus Circle Investors on the buyside, and there I again did a little bit of everything.”
Gaining familiarity on both sides of the desk and in multiple disciplines was crucial for Bogen, as it helped her land a job at Bear Stearns. She would stay in Bear Stearns’ asset management division from 1988 until the firm’s implosion in 2008., As a testament to her professionalism and skill, she stayed until the very end, overseeing client transition to J.P. Morgan.
“When a buyside firm goes under, the clients don’t get fired, so we needed to support them in either transitioning or unwinding their positions,” Bogen said. “While J.P. Morgan worked with us, we had to make sure our fiduciary obligation was completely fulfilled.”
The task lasted from April 2008 to December 2009. She left the firm on Dec. 31, 2009, and transitioned to Bloomberg Tradebook a few weeks later.
“I guess a theme in my life has been managing transition-in either business or personal life-and managing it well,” Bogen said.
Moving to Tradebook was smooth for her, as BSAM had been a Tradebook client back when it was still an ECN. Bogen’s ability to represent her clients’ needs from a buyside perspective was appealing to Bloomberg.
“Whether you’re on the buyside or sellside, you have to do well by your clients,” she said.
Crystal Ladder
Tracy Buell
Firm: ConvergEx Group
Years in Industry: 28
History often repeats itself.
That’s what Tracy Buell, managing director and head of implementation for global transition management at ConvergEx Group, has discovered since she began on Wall Street.
Buell began her Wall Street ascent back in 1985, landing a job right out of American University at First New York Equities, a small woman-owned firm, as a trading assistant covering high-net-worth individuals. While the job only lasted a short time, she was on track to bigger and better things, landing an entry-level research assistant position on Kidder Peabody’s program trading desk in 1987.
It was there she worked with a team of Harvard-trained academics, performing complex regression analyses to develop new formulas that could accurately predict transaction costs and implementation shortfall. Implementation shortfall was a new concept at that time but prepped her for future Wall Street work.
“Little did I know then that I’d be using implementation shortfall now at ConvergEx in our transition business,” Buell said.
After cutting her teeth on Kidder Peabody’s program desk, she moved to James Capel, a London-based broker-dealer, which suddenly lost its entire New York-based international program trading team to a competitor. Buell and Alex Aiello, a colleague at Kidder, immediately pounced on the opportunity to rebuild the program desk.
“It was just the two of us, and we did absolutely everything,” she said of her Capel days. “We would work from 7 a.m. until midnight for weeks on end. We took over the desk, figured it out from the ground up.”
When she moved to the transitions business at ConvergEx Group in 2004 and made a managing director in 2012. Looking back, she credits her success to being able to see where she can add value and figuring out how to do it.
“Look for what isn’t getting done and make it your own. Define your own position. Be able to thrive in the undefined,” she said.
Industry Trailblazers
Johanna Rossi
Firm: Alden Global
Years in Industry: 19
They call her the “Distressed Diva.”
Born to trade, always ready to hit a bid or lift an offering, Johanna Rossi, is a trader’s trader. And she has been since she was 4 years old.
She got her taste of Wall Street and trading at that age, when her dad taught her how to view and read stock quotes in the newspaper. He explained to her that a plus next to a name was good, and a minus was bad.
“My dad would come home from working in NYC late every night and I would anxiously wait up for him, just to read the quotes,” Rossi said. “I would pull the daily stock quotes from the newspaper-memorize how much his small portfolio of stocks did for the day and rattle off whether Zenith or LTV was up or down for the day, where it closed, then I was off to bed.”
Fast-forward four decades later and Rossi is still doing the same thing-rattling off bids, offers and giving market color. She specializes in trading distressed securities-junk-such as reorganized private equity or high yield bonds. And every day she approaches her job with the same zeal that got her to Alden Global and managing its domestic desk of approximately $1.8 billion in assets.
From a young age, she was asked about why she wanted to be in finance, why she wanted to trade. Her peers told her to be a teacher or nurse. Or they’d tell her there were no women on Wall Street, let alone women traders. Rossi would have none of it.
“I knew early on I wanted to be a trader,” Rossi said, “and majored in finance in college. I could tell you time and time again through high school and college, people would try to squash my dream of becoming a trader. My answer was always, ‘Anything is possible when you have a passion for it.'”
If she could trade washing machines, she’d do it. That’s how much Rossi loves trading.
“I wake up every morning grateful and passionate about my career,” she said.
Industry Trailblazers
Nathalie Texier-Guillot
Firm: Citi
Years in Industry: 19
Being a mother need not be a hurdle to overcome when pursuing a career in finance. Or anywhere else, for that matter.
That’s what drives Nathalie Texier-Guillot, head of equity and hybrid derivative solutions sales at Citi, to excel and push forward. A mother of four, three of whom girls, Texier-Guillot knows setting an example for young women to follow means pushing onward and upward through the unique challenges facing women-such as motherhood.
“I have four kids and they are my driving force,” Texier-Guillot said. “I want to show them that being a woman and having kids and a family is not a hurdle. Rather, it’s a driving force to succeed and excel. Yes, having a family makes it harder, but it’s no hurdle.”
Texier-Guillot has seen her share of challenges, obstacles and moguls in her 20 years in finance. She began her career right after earning her MBA, landing an internship with Socit Gnrale in New York City in 1994. There, she began her career sojourn covering hedge funds and selling government and European corporate bonds. After six years, she left the U.S. to join Exane BNP Paribas in France, again covering hedge funds and moving into the convertible bond arena.
Not content to sit still for long, she returned to the U.S. in 2003 and SocGen, and began learning about more complex equity derivatives products.
“Those years were high-growth years for equity derivatives space, as structured houses were actively looking to recycle risk,” Texier-Guillot said. “SocGen was at the forefront of innovation in equity derivatives.”
Quite an achievement, she told Traders Magazine, especially for a woman who originally wanted to be a doctor. But it was the allure and mystique of the trading floor that hooked her when she stepped onto SocGen’s trading floor-a feeling she still has.
“I liked the trading floor atmosphere and the product,” she reminisced. “Back when I started, I thought I’d be there for a year. But now 20 years later, I’m still here.”
Rising Stars
Clare Fraser
Firm: Omgeo
Years in Industry: 18
Don’t judge a book by its cover-or an opportunity by its location. Even if it requires traveling halfway around the world.
Clare Fraser, managing director of strategy at Omgeo, began her career in her native Australia back in 1996. Little did she know that it would take her from the land down under to Hong Kong, and then to Belgium and later London. And again back to Hong Kong. As she puts it, her passport is well worn and she is never in need of frequent flier miles.
For her, travel and international exposure are the cost of doing business and ascending the financial services ladder. But that cost, jet lag, time away from family and other challenges are well worth it.
“I really don’t think there is a cost when you look at the benefits of working for an international firm,” Fraser said. “You just can’t underestimate the value of working internationally. I strongly believe that for every role I’ve had, there’s a bonus that offsets any personal cost.”
In her 17 years in finance, Fraser added, she has always looked at opportunities deeply and not taken them at face value. “I never say ‘no’ to an opportunity, even if the benefit is not readily seen.” Adaptability is her middle name. She estimates that she has lived in 10 cities in the last 15 years. And for Fraser that flight plan rivals any transcontinental flight.
“If you want to be relevant in this business, you have to keep an open mind, especially when it comes to your career trajectory,” she said.
Armed with a global education and international pedigree earned at several firms, she joined Omgeo, a firm that delivers post-trade and settlement solutions to global clients. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. completed its acquisition of Omgeo in October. Fraser relishes her new role amid the constant technological change in the financial markets. After all, she is a student of change and adaptability.
“You have to be adaptable in this environment or any, if you want to be relevant,” Fraser said. “Never look at an opportunity at face value, and never say no to an opportunity without learning the facts, even if you can’t see its immediate value.”
Rising Stars
Jennica Ross
Firm: WallachBeth Capital
Years in Industry: 10
To fully understand the business of trading, one must be able to see the whole picture clearly, else risk missing something.
It’s very easy in trading to get highly specialized, niche-oriented and absorbed in market microstructure, and to lose sight of what the trading industry’s goal is, said Jennica Ross, director of strategic relationships at WallachBeth Capital. That’s why she chooses to view things from a client-centric, holistic approach.
“We tend to be very critical on what our immediate function is-get down into the weeds-but sometimes we forget to step back and look at the industry as a whole,” Ross said. “We’ve got to challenge ourselves to see what we do on a day-to-day…and what trends it gives way to.”
A self-described “big-picture person,” Ross is always moving ahead, learning new concepts and implementing fresh ideas that keep her and WallachBeth Capital ahead of the curve. She credits her ethos in part to her liberal arts background-she is a graduate of Princeton University-and to her parents.,
“Personally, I take on new challenges, and responsibilities not only in business but also in terms of people,” she said.” I’ve always been interested in the interactions of people and how they adapt to their situations.”
Ross found her way to Wall Street by chance, stumbling across an accelerated management training program offered by UBS Wealth Management in 2003. After completing the program and remaining with UBS until 2010, Ross moved to the buyside and Guggenheim Investments. She was charged with helping build the firm’s clientele and joined as its director of strategic relationships.
Again ready for a new challenge, she started 2012 at WallachBeth Capital. She told Traders Magazine the firm was looking for someone who had a deep understanding but a broad view of the industry.
“My secret to success here is looking at things from a client-centric point of view,” Ross said. “I think when people look at the trading industry, they’ve got to know it’s a lot bigger than being an individual trader.”
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