Muriel Siebert
Muriel "Mickie" Siebert has been called "The First Woman of Finance." Nobody ever thought of calling her "First Lady" - that would not describe scrappy Muriel Siebert any better than "Girl Scout" would have described Joan of Arc!
Ms. Siebert is the founder and President of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) brokerage firm that bears her name, Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc. She established the firm in 1967 when she became the first woman member of the NYSE and transformed it into a discount brokerage house on May 1, 1975, the first day that NYSE members were permitted to negotiate commissions. Muriel Siebert and Co., Inc., is the only woman-owned NYSE brokerage firm with a national presence. Ms. Siebert continues to oversee the firm's day-to-day operations at its seven branches. The firm's municipal affiliate, Siebert Brandford Shank & Co., LLC, is ranked in the top 15 public finance firms in the country.
Ms. Siebert started her career as a $65/week trainee in research at Bache & Co. and became an industry specialist (airlines/aerospace). She later became a partner at Finkle & Co., as well as at Brimberg & Co. She was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and attended what is now known as Case Western Reserve University. Although she did not graduate, she now holds 17 honorary doctoral degrees.
In 1977, Ms. Siebert took a leave of absence from her firm to serve five years as the first woman Superintendent of Banking for the State of New York under Governor Hugh Carey. As such, she was responsible for the safety and soundness of not only the banks, but also other financial institutions in New York State.
Ms. Siebert is known to pull no punches in lectures, panels and talk shows. She often exhorts the industry to utilize women more aggressively: "American business will find that women executives can be a strong competitive weapon against Japan and Germany and other countries that still limit their executive talent pool to the male 50 percent of their population." What better proof of Muriel Siebert's assertion than the story of her own career? The American business world would have been less productive - and far less interesting - if it had succeeded in keeping her out.
One of Muriel Siebert's favorite words is "risk." She maintains that, "The men at the top of industry and government should be more willing to risk sharing leadership with women and minority members who are not merely clones of their white male buddies. In these fast-changing times we need the different viewpoints and experiences, we need the enlarged talent bank. The real risk lies in continuing to do things the way they've always been done."
Muriel Siebert does not only preach, she practices too. "Risk" could be her middle name. Her best-known gamble made historic waves in 1967 when she applied to become the first woman member of the New York Stock Exchange. Although she had risen to a partnership in a leading Wall Street brokerage firm and made big money for her colleagues, her effort was often patronized, ridiculed or openly opposed by many men on Wall Street. For example, nine of the first ten men she asked to sponsor her application turned her down.
Before considering her for membership, the NYSE imposed a new requirement: she needed a letter from a bank saying they would lend her $300,000 of the near-record $445,000 seat price. But banks would not commit to lend her the money until the Exchange would agree to admit her! It took Muriel Siebert many months to overcome this double-bind and find the needed bank loans and sponsors. She was finally elected to membership on December 28, 1967. On December 28, 1997, she celebrated her 30th anniversary. To commemorate 30 years of service as the first woman member, she was invited to ring the closing bell on January 5, 1998. If you look closely, you will notice that her dog, Monster Girl, shared in this special event.
"Mickie," as most people call her, took another daring risk on Wall Street's famous "May Day" - May 1, 1975 - when a new federal law abolished fixed commissions for brokers. She announced that Muriel Siebert & Co., Inc. would become a discount commission house. A full-page newspaper ad featured a photo of Mickie cutting a hundred-dollar bill in half. Wall Street's reaction was quick and hostile. Her long-time clearing house dropped her instantly, and her firm faced SEC expulsion in 60 days if she could not find another house to clear the firm's transactions. But Mickie wangled a 30-day extension, signed up another clearing house just before the deadline, and led her company to dramatic success in the new world of discount brokerage.
Muriel Siebert's next career move turned out to involve risk-taking on a global scale. Though a Republican, she was appointed by Democratic Governor Hugh Carey in 1977 to become Superintendent of New York State's Banking Department. Her first years in this post happened to coincide with perilous challenges to all banks, large and small. Interest rates climbed steeply during most of those years, and bank failures became common across the country. To prevent bankruptcies in New York State, Mickie Siebert acted swiftly, boldly and controversially. After six months, when she sensed danger, she launched protective measures immediately, rather than waiting until a bank was days away from collapse. She forced banks to merge and persuaded stronger institutions to help weaker ones. She reorganized troubled banks and demanded drastic measures to help keep them afloat - such as compelling one bank president to cut his $200,000 salary in half. She convinced the federal government to advance millions of dollars to make the new mergers viable and extracted special rulings quickly from regulatory agencies not usually known for speed or flexibility. To reinforce her clout, she jokingly reminded foot-draggers that the initials for her title as "Superintendent of Banking" were "S.O.B." This daring combination of carrot, stick and creativity paid off: not one bank in New York State failed.
Another controversial, but ultimately successful Siebert operation, began on the first day of the Iran hostage crisis. She phoned the New York State banking examiner at home and told him to start monitoring Iranian bank assets immediately. Then, she set up a complex system of controls to protect banks from possible Iranian default while still paying for personal needs of students and other Iranian nationals in the United States. Reactions from the CEOs of American banks were mixed: one shouted, "How dare you?" and another exclaimed, "God bless you."
A few months after becoming Superintendent, Muriel Siebert made the unprecedented move of taking over the floundering Municipal Credit Union, which serves all employees of New York City. During the 1.5 years that she ran the organization, Mickie arranged for loaned executives from other banks to help turn it around and eventually returned MCU to fiscal viability.
In 1982, Mickie resigned from her government post to run for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate. This was her first campaign for political office. She polled second among three candidates in the primary.
Upon becoming Superintendent of Banking Muriel Siebert placed her firm in a blind trust to be run by her employees. She now admits that this was a costly mistake. When she returned to her firm after five years in government, it was in shambles. Three of her employees had walked out with tapes of her customer lists, and she had to rebuild the company in every department - a task she successfully accomplished.
For Muriel Siebert, the secret to making a difference is to "take stands, take risks, take responsibility - and care deeply about how America's big institutions affect the lives of individual people."
In 1999, while president of the New York Women's Agenda - a coalition of over 100 women's organizations - Muriel Siebert developed a Personal Finance Program to improve the financial literacy of our nation's young people. The program was initially designed to teach two essential financial management skills: managing a checkbook and understanding the use and abuse of credit cards. The program is currently being taught in New York City high schools as part of the economics curriculum for seniors and has recently been expanded to include such topics as the basics of money, banking, credit, budgeting, taxes, insurance, investing and more. The Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of the nation's largest urban public school systems, has distributed the program to each of its 64 member cities. In keeping with her personal agenda, Ms. Siebert hopes to see this program established nationally.
Throughout her career, Ms. Siebert has been actively involved in a wide range of non-profit, civic and women's organizations. She is currently on the boards of The Economic Club of New York, The New York State Business Council, the Greater New York Council of the Boy Scouts of America, and the Guild Hall Museum, to name only a few. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee of 200 (an international organization of pre-eminent businesswomen), the International Women's Forum, Deloitte & Touche's Council for the Advancement and Retention of Women, and the New York Women's Forum, for which she was a founder and president. Muriel Siebert is also a former appointee to the New York State Commission on Judicial Nomination and the National Women's Business Council.
Ms. Siebert has received countless awards and honors throughout her career, including the first woman selected as "one who has made a difference" for the Working Women's Hall of Fame. In 1994, she was inducted into the International Women's Forum Hall of Fame in the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY. She received the Sara Lee Frontrunner Award in Business which honors the service, accomplishments, and abilities of women who represent achievement and shape the future. She was honored at Mattel/Barbie's 40th Anniversary Gala as an "Ambassador of Dreams," representing women who have embraced the power of their dreams by becoming the very best in their chosen fields. She was also a recipient of The Athena Foundation's highest award given to those "who open the doors of leadership opportunity for women." Her most recent honors include the Town Hall Friend of the Arts Award, NAWBO First Signature Award for Lifetime Achievement as a pioneering women's business owner, the Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger Award for Contributions to Family Life from Inwood House, the Pride of New York Award and, in March 2007, the "Pioneering Woman Award" from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.
Ms. Siebert's autobiography, "Changing the Rules - Adventures of a Wall Street Maverick," was published in November 2002 by Simon and Schuster.
Muriel Siebert is often sought after to speak on current financial matters and is a frequent commentator on the major financial news networks.
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Also receiving an honorary degree at this year's commencement is:
Vincent A. Fischetti, Ph.D.
Professor
Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology
Vincent.Fischetti@rockefeller.edu
More than 90 percent of all infections begin at a mucous membrane site (oral, nasal, upper or lower respiratory, ocular, intestinal or urogenital). The Fischetti lab is working to understand the earliest events that occur when gram-positive bacteria interact with human tissues and cause disease. Its research is aimed at interfering with these events by: developing vaccines to induce a mucosal immune response; blocking the attachment of surface protein in the bacterial cell wall to prevent infection; and using phage lytic enzymes to both remove colonizing pathogenic bacteria to prevent infection and treat established infections.
Dr. Fischetti works with gram-positive bacteria, such as streptococci, that do not contain a second cell membrane outside of the cell wall. In the fight against infectious disease, Dr. Fischetti investigates two nonantibiotic treatment strategies. This two-pronged approach involves blocking bacteria from attaching to cells and exploring the use of phage lytic enzymes to remove pathogenic bacteria once they have colonized in the host.
To infect their host, bacteria use their surface molecules to attach and invade human tissues, particularly those that line the nose and throat. Knowledge of the process bacteria use to anchor these molecules in their cell wall could lead to strategies to prevent infection. The M protein is a surface protein that is the major virulence factor of group A streptococci because of its ability to impede attack by human white blood cells. Analysis of this molecule by Dr. Fischetti’s lab shows that the region used to attach the M protein to the cell surface is highly conserved in gram-positive bacteria, indicating that the mechanism for anchoring surface proteins in bacteria is also conserved. Since bacteria cannot cause infection without their surface proteins, a molecule that blocks surface protein attachment will be broadly applicable to different gram-positive bacteria.
Dr. Fischetti’s lab has also shown that the M protein can be used to deliver the molecules to the surface of gram-positive bacteria to be used as a vaccine. A vaccine that employs this approach could be used against a variety of harmful pathogens and is currently being tested in clinical trials. Dr. Fischetti has also identified a membrane-associated enzyme responsible for cleaving the highly conserved anchor region of surface proteins. Inhibition of this enzyme prevents both cell wall assembly and the proper attachment of most surface proteins, resulting in nearly naked bacteria. Studies are under way to further define the role of this enzyme in cell wall assembly and the protein attachment process to identify inhibitors that may be used as a new class of antibiotic.
As new antibiotics are proving futile against resistant strains of bacteria, the Fischetti lab is investigating the efficacy of lytic enzymes, which are found exclusively in viruses called bacteriophages (or phages), viruses that infect bacteria.
Dr. Fischetti’s lab has recombinantly produced lysins that will kill the major gram-positive pathogens — Streptococcus pyogenes, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococcus faecalis and Bacillus anthracis — and has used these proteins to destroy their respective bacteria in animal models of disease. The enzymes are extremely potent; only very small amounts are needed to destroy millions of organisms within seconds of contact. They are also highly specific and unlike antibiotics, only kill the disease-causing bacteria without harming the beneficial bacteria. Dr. Fischetti’s studies have shown that when small amounts of the enzymes are administered to mice that have intentionally been infected with these bacteria, the disease-causing bacteria are rapidly destroyed. In an animal model of pneumococcus pneumonia, Dr. Fischetti has shown that systemic administration of the phage enzyme Cpl-1 can rescue mice infected with the pathogen and completely reverse lung tissue damage if given within 24 hours post-infection. Fischetti and his colleagues showed that when the enzyme is delivered to the brain of mice with pneumococcal meningitis, it effectively removes the organisms from the site. The lab has also shown that by removing colonizing S. pneumoniae from the nose of mice, they could completely prevent secondary ear infections triggered by influenza.
Using lytic enzymes as a tool, Dr. Fischetti’s lab developed a method of drilling through the thick cell walls of gram-positive bacteria while keeping them intact. The technique enabled the Fischetti lab to access the bacterial cytoplasm with labeled antibodies to study intracellular molecules that were previously inaccessible.
CAREER
Dr. Fischetti grew up in New York City, receiving his B.S. in bacteriology from Wagner College in 1962 and his M.S. in microbiology from Long Island University in 1967. He received his Ph.D. in microbiology from New York University in 1970. Dr. Fischetti came to Rockefeller as a postdoc in 1970 and became assistant professor in 1973, associate professor in 1978 and professor in 1990. In 1987 Dr. Fischetti received a 10-year National Institutes of Health MERIT Award that was renewed in 1997.