I am lucky enough to have known Michelle L Marquez for many years now and we met back in university where we both studied law. Following college Michelle followed her dreams to go and work in the stock market and I went into journalism, writing about the stock market as it would happen.Even back in those days Michelle always knew that she wanted to go and work as part of the securities commission or overseeing arbitration hearings, and despite the fact that it was almost unheard of for a woman to go into a career like this, she never seemed bothered by it. Michelle L Marquez actually began her career in the fraud prevention team and gradually gained the position that she has now at the top of the table at the securities commission. On the face of it this may simply appear as a natural career progression but Michelle had to do things the hard way.
Male Domination
When Michelle first started to work on Wall Street she was one of very few women who were working there that didn’t occupy a cleaning or a secretarial role. In those early years Michelle had to face daily sexist comments and innuendo as well as suggestions that she wasn’t good enough for the position. For Michelle this was a case of sticks and stones, and she toughened up and did what she had to in order to get through it.
Hard Work
At the beginning Michelle knew that if she made a mistake or if she didn’t perform to the best of her abilities that people would say it was because she was a woman and the fact is that she was treated by a different set of standards. Because of this Michelle knew that she had to work even harder than everyone else in order to prove that she belonged exactly where she was and that she could do just as good a job as any man could.
Cover Up
Back then Wall Street wasn’t just full of men, it was full of men doing favors for each other and that meant that almost every time that Michelle found something of interest or a trade which didn’t quite add up, much of her suspicious were quashed or swept under the carpet, such was the way back then. Michelle was unperturbed by this and in truth she had expected it to a certain extent and she kept on going and kept on highlighting the truth.
Leadership
Some years later, owing to her tenacity and her ability to do the job, Michelle found a leadership position which she has been able to use for the greater good in order to bring more women into the industry and to get rid of the favors for the boys mentality which plagued Wall Street for so long.
Michelle L Marquez, very much a trailblazer in her industry.
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