Senior Women Web Interviews Muriel Seibert
She is certainly one of the most powerful women in finance in this country as the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first to head one of its member firms, Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc., but she is also nicknamed Mickie, and is the most unpretentious and generous of women in any field.
When you walk into her impressive offices on Third Avenue in New York, you might find Monster Girl, Mickie’s little fluff of a Chihuahua yipping out a greeting to you. She has the run of the office poking her nose into everyone’s business in the course of her day with Muriel. “I can’t imagine life without her,” Mickie says. Indeed Monster Girl went with her when the Stock Exchange honored Ms. Siebert on her 30th anniversary by inviting her to ring the closing bell.
Buying that seat was no easy matter in 1967, as you might imagine. Do you remember women’s place in the world of Wall Street trading in those days? It almost didn’t exist, but Muriel Siebert was determined to forge ahead against formidable opposition. She was a partner in a leading Wall Street brokerage firm, but she had been turned down by nine of the first ten men she asked to sponsor her application for a seat on the Exchange. The Stock Exchange made up a new condition before they would accept her: she had to have a letter from a bank saying they would lend her $300,000 of the $450,000 price of the seat. But banks would not lend her the money until the Stock Exchange would agree to admit her. She managed to overcome all these obstacles. “For everyone who was terrible,” she said on an interview on the Charlie Rose show (you can watch the whole interview on video by going to www.siebertnet.com), “a stranger would offer to help.” Read More...