Catherine Kinney a Wall Street pioneer

They say that behind every great man is a great woman. Well, here's a new spin on that old adage. There's a woman behind the great old New York Stock Exchange.

Behind that venerable bastion of male power stands Catherine Kinney.

A year ago January, the 50-year-old Kinney was named president of the NYSE, making her the first woman president in its 221-year history.

It's a remarkable achievement for Kinney, given that prior to 1967 women were not even allowed on the floor of the exchange.

Since joining the NYSE in 1974, Kinney has worked in regulation, sales and marketing, and technology planning. Under her leadership, the exchange began offering Equity Traded Funds or ETFs, which are index mutual funds that trade like stocks every day on the exchange.

During the Internet boom, Nasdaq became the exchange of choice, but since the burst in the stock market bubble, Kinney has been engaged in wooing high tech Silicon Valley companies to the NYSE. The exchange has upgraded its technology and changed its once-rigid standards, and the efforts are paying off: E-Trade and BMC Software are only two of the big name companies that have left Nasdaq for the NYSE.

Also under Kinney's leadership, the NYSE recently announced it is proposing changes to increase accountability and integrity in corporate boardrooms. The proposed changes would require many companies to reconfigure their boards of directors and introduce more independent directors.

On Thursday, Catherine Kinney will be in Pittsburgh to honor Parker/Hunter for its commitment to investor education. The event will be held downtown at the Omni William Penn Hotel starting at 5:00 p.m. and is open to the public.

To meet the woman behind the New York Stock Exchange, contact Parker Hunter for tickets at 412-562-7912.