Black female stockbroker broke ground on Wall Street

This is Gail Pankey-Albert, one of the first Black women brokers on Wall Street. Her story is featured in the recent edition of Black Enterprise. It all began for her in 1971. Over the years she has worked her up to hold a seat on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Understand this: when she first started working at NYSE, she was fresh out of high school, without a college degree. She started as a carrier, which means she ran between traders carrying their computer punch cards to be fed into the system. Next she was promoted to squad leader, and she kept moving up. There were obstacles along the way. When she first got her seat, she found her desk drawers filled with dried up Parmesan cheese, which stopped her from trading for hours that day. She’s had her phone lines cut, but she never complained. Finally, in 2001, she went for that college degree she always wanted and enrolled in Thomas Edison University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration.