Leadership in Government, Politics, and Business

I started in the financial services industry in 1988 as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Eight years later at the age of 32, I was the first female trader and youngest woman to be invited in to the partnership of this firm. I was an example of how women could make it on Wall Street and the financial services in general. Or was I?

Last week, we heard that Citigroup, like so many other financial companies in peril, is going to raise base salaries by as much as 50 percent in order to discourage the culture of excessive risk-taking in pursuit of big bonuses. Newsflash! Citigroup: there’s a foolproof way to shift away from high-stakes gambling in the financial sector that makes perfect economic sense, namely: hire more women.

Re “No Doubts: Women Are Better Managers” (Corner Office, July 26), in which Carol Smith of the Elle Group described women’s qualities as bosses:

While the pinstripe crowd fixates on troubled assets, a stalled stimulus and mortgage remedies, it turns out that a more sure-fire financial fix is within our grasp -- and has been for years. New research says a healthy dose of estrogen may be the key not only to our fiscal recovery, but also to economic strength worldwide.

What if there were more women leaders on Wall Street? This is the question raised by a new report from The National Council for Research on Women, a network of 120 leading U.S. research, policy and advocacy centers. The report, entitled “Women in Fund Management: Achieving Critical Mass and Why It Matters,” takes a close look at the lack of women in leadership roles in fund management.

There has been a lot of debate and discussion about whether federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor, who President Obama has nominated for the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice David Souter, should allow her ethnic background to influence her rulings. In other words, does race matter? Sotomayor, if approved by the Senate, would become the first Hispanic on the U.S. top court. Along those same lines, does sex matter?

It seems that in the hedge fund industry, female fund managers come out on top — at least according to a new study from Bloomberg L.P. and the National Council for Research on Women.

As financial firms continue to face severe setbacks as result of the weakened economy, Kelly Wallace reports that corporations headed by women are performing slightly stronger than those run by men.