Yesterday morning, Thomas Farley stepped down as president of the NYSE after 4 years at the helm.
Farley has decided to move away from the raging bulls of the Big Board to serve as CEO of Far Point Acquisition Corp., a “blank-check” acquisition firm that filed to raise $400m to buy financial technology companies.
Now, the NYSE finally has its first female president
That’s right. 50 years after Muriel Siebert became the first woman on the NYSE floor, WSJ reports that they have promoted their COO Stacey Cunningham to president — the first female leader in their 2 century history.
Cunningham became the COO in 2015 and managed the company’s cash equities markets, relationships, products, and NYSE governance services.
The promotion makes her the famous trading floor’s 67th president and means, along with Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, women now run 2 of the world’s highest-profile stock exchanges.
To put that in perspective, the NYSE didn’t have a women’s restroom until 1987.
