Many financial services firms are committed to increasing diversity across their organizations, in particular by fostering more opportunities for women. The Financial Women’ s Association( FWA), which marks its 60th anniversary in 2016, aims to accelerate the leadership and success of women across the financial community and in all sectors of the industry, by fostering alliances and preparing the current and next generation of professionals. The FWA is a forum for Wall Street women to network and advance their individual careers, and it offers its members leadership opportunities and the chance to mentor and share their experiences and best practices with young women and students.
To fully appreciate what eight enterprising women achieved when they launched the FWA, it is important to remember the historical and cultural context six decades ago. In 1956, the Dow Jones Industrial Average marked a new high, reaching the 500s; Dwight D. Eisenhower was President of the United States; and the first transatlantic telephone cable, from Newfoundland to Scotland, went into operation.
In the midst of this progress, the founders of the FWA, having been denied admission to the Young Men’ s Investment Association, decided to form the Young Women’ s Investment Association( now the FWA) as a forum to share their experiences and advance their knowledge and careers.
The founding members were primarily security analysts, which was the first professional role open to women on Wall Street. Soon the organization grew to include female bankers, brokers, traders, management consultants, financial analysts, portfolio managers, economists, lawyers and more. The one surviving founder, Joan Williams Farr, remains fully supportive of the organization.
As Wall Street has evolved and endured through multiple recessions, major changes in the industry and seismic advances in the role and importance of technology, the
Early photograph of Joan Williams Farr, a founder of the FWA, who remains actively involved in the organization.
FWA has evolved as well. Through the decades, the FWA expanded its membership by, among other things, opening membership to men to allow everyone the benefits of sharing best practices and lessons learned.
The organization that served as a beacon for the few women on Wall Street in the 1950s continued through the 1960s as a forum for building on shared experiences, while expanding its scope to bring outside speakers to help members hone their craft and advance the profession. The mission broadened even further in the 1970s, as the FWA committed to supporting the next generation through scholarships and mentoring.
“ One striking strength of the FWA was its ability to provide its members with not only some of the resources necessary to learn to maneuver on Wall Street, but also to provide a female space for the women to meet one another and build important ties and friendships with one another.”
— Dr. Melissa S. Fisher, Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at NYU, and author of Wall Street Women
Today, the FWA’ s initiatives are even more multi-faceted, with more than 50 programs hosted annually. It has awarded more than 150 scholarships and has taught financial skills to nearly 3,000 high school students. It has also provided professional development and mentorship opportunities to thousands of students and young professionals.
Through its outside speaker programs, members and guests have benefited by hearing from and engaging with industry leaders, including Jamie Dimon and Marianne Lake of JPMorgan Chase; Steven Kandarian and Marlene Debel of MetLife; and the late Muriel(“ Mickie”) Siebert, the first woman NYSE member, who was also an FWA member, supporter and FWA 1994 Private Sector Woman of the Year.
The FWA has also been in the forefront of sending delegations around the world. It was one of the first US groups to visit China in 1977; the delegation of 25 women led the way for an international conference program that continues to this day. Other notable FWA international conferences have included a delegation to South Africa following the fall of apartheid in 1996, Costa Rica in 2010 with new green and microfinancing options and Germany in 2014, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Over the years, FWA International Delegation participants have met with sitting presidents, royalty and business leaders in nearly 30 countries and on six continents, some with returning delegations and follow-up meetings and dialogues on best practices.
Of course, none of this happened overnight. In her book Wall Street Women( Duke University Press, 2012), Dr. Melissa S. Fisher chronicles the stories of FWA members and other trailblazers, and notes that:
It has become a common understanding that women in the corporate world, particularly during the seventies, were lone pioneers, token women. There were, in fact, very few professional women in each firm at that time: there
www. MoAF. org | Spring 2016 | FINANCIAL HISTORY 35