9 Milestones Reached By Women On And Off Wall Street

Benzinga profiled some of the milestone achievements of women on Wall Street to commemorate the International Women's Day, which is observed on March 8.

1. Crackdown On Insider Trading

Protagonist: Mary Shapiro was the SEC Chair between January 2009 and December 2012. According to a Time article, during Shaprio's tenure, the SEC had brought more insider trading cases than it did during any other three-year period in its history.

2. Visionary Leadership Transformed Xerox

Protagonist: Ursula Burns, the first African-American to head a S&P 500 company, helped transform Xerox Corp XRX into a document processing and business process outsourcing company from merely a paper copier company. The company was splintered recently, the Remainco retaining the name of Xerox and the business process outsourcing company named Conduent Inc CNDT.

3. Restoring Confidence In Financial Institutions Post-2008 Crisis

Protagonist: Sheila Blair, who served as Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation between June 2006 and July 2011. Blair played a prominent role in the government's response to the 2008 financial crisis. Her initiatives helped bolster public confidence and achievement of system stability that resulted in no runs on bank deposits.

4. Women's Equality Crusader On Wall Street

Protagonist: Muriel Siebert was the first women to buy a seat on the NYSE and she advocated women's equality on Wall Street. She also became the first woman to own a brokerage firm, named Muriel Siebert & Co. that was a member of the NYSE.

5. Taking The Media World By Storm

Protagonist: Oprah Winfrey managed to earn the moniker "Queen of All Media," which puts us in no doubt about the influence she wields as a media proprietor, producer and talk show host.

6. Getting In The Driver's Seat

Protagonist: Mary Barra of General Motors Company GM has the distinction of being the first women to run a global automaker. She has done creditably, with her recent decision to shunt the company out of Europe, where it was raking in losses for over a decade standing testimony to her bold and brave facet.

7. Blowing The Whistle On Enron

Protagonists: Sherron Watkins, along with Cynthia Cooper and Coleen Rowley, exposed the accounting issues at the now-defunct Enron.

8. Managing Fed Rate Expectations

Protagonist: Fed Chair Janet Yellen, the first woman to occupy the position, took over from Ben Bernanke, who oversaw the progress past the financial crisis. Yellen, who has a dovish proclivity, has managed to further the cause of the Fed's twin objectives of employment and inflation.

9. Fizzing Up The Soda

Protagonist: Indira Nooyi, chair of beverage giant PepsiCo, Inc. PEP has led the company with her focus on innovation. Under her leadership, Pepsi's international business has grown by leaps and bounds.

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