The first woman to lead both the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank.

After joining the French government as minister for foreign trade in 2005 after a long and successful period working for international law firm Baker McKenzie, Lagarde became the first woman to serve as finance minister for a G-7 country in 2007—navigating the global financial crisis and playing a key role in the organization of the emergency EU bailout fund for banks.

As chair of the G-20 when France took over its presidency in 2011, she set in motion an agenda to reform of the international monetary system.

On July 5, 2011, Lagarde became the eleventh managing director of the IMF, and the first woman to hold that position. She was elected to a second term, which started on July 5, 2016.

Eventually, Lagarde resigned that position when she was tapped to lead the ECB, becoming the fourth president of the bank and the first woman in the role. 

The first woman to sit on the New York Stock Exchange.

Sometimes referred to as the “first woman of finance,” Muriel Siebert was the first woman to have a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, joining 1,365 male members of the floor in 1967.

Without a college education, Siebert worked in entry-level research positions in finance before eventually making partner and founding brokerage firm Muriel Siebert & Co. in 1967. Her efforts to register her firm with the NYSE faced financing obstacles and multiple rejections from men who refused to sponsor her application, but she persisted, and her firm became the first female-owned member the same year.

After the U.S. government dropped fixed brokerage commissions in the 1970s, Siebert got into discount brokerage—a new concept at the time. In 1977, she became the first woman superintendent of banking in New York state. Leading the state banking department from 1977 to 1982, Siebert helped to prevent bank failures in a tumultuous market.

The first Black woman to sit on the New York Stock Exchange.

Gail Pankey-Albert started working for the New York Stock Exchange right out of high school in 1971 because her family couldn’t afford to pay for college tuition. 

“I was determined that if I could not go to college, I was going to find a way to alter the dynamics of my life,” she told Thomas Edison University. “To me, that meant crossing the East River in search of the right opportunity.”

Pankey-Albert took on various roles at the exchange, working as a punch card carrier, a computer operator and an institutional clerk. In 1981, she became the first Black woman to hold a seat on the floor, representing discount brokerage York Securities—despite bigoted attempts to derail her advancement that included severing her phone lines and filling her desk drawer with cheese.

She went on to launch her own institutional trading firm that was successful for the next decade. 

First Black woman named chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.

Janelle Jones became the first woman of color to hold the position of chief economist at the DOL, following her 2021 appointment by President Joe Biden. 

Prior to her time at the DOL, Jones was an economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute—working on a variety of labor market topics within EPI’s diversity program—and the Economic Analysis and Research Network. She was also a research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research—where she worked on topics including racial inequality, unemployment, job quality and unions—and an economist at the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. 

Jones stepped down in the summer of 2022 to take a position as chief economist for Service Employees International Union, which represents nearly 2 billion employees in more than 100 professions in the U.S. and Canada.

The first Indian American woman to serve as chief economist for the International Monetary Fund. 

In 2022, Gopinath became first deputy managing director at the IMF and the second woman to hold the second-most powerful position at the fund, where she works to ensure the stability of the international monetary system, including exchange rates, international payments and macroeconomic and financial-sector issues that can affect global stability. 

Prior to joining the IMF, Gopinath was the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University for 17 years. She was also a co-director of the international finance and macroeconomics program at the National Bureau of Economic Research and has worked as the honorary economic adviser to the Chief Minister of Kerala.

The first woman to earn a certified financial planner designation.

Alexandra Armstrong started working in the financial services industry in the 1970s, becoming the first woman in the country—and the first person in Washington, D.C.—to earn her CFP designation.

Armstrong also was the first woman to lead the International Association for Financial Planning, the precursor to the Financial Planning Association. In 2004, she became the first woman to receive the P. Kemp Fain Jr. Award, one of the highest awards bestowed by the FPA. She served as chairman of the Foundation for Financial Planning in 2000 and continues to serve on that board.

The chair emeritus and co-founder of Armstrong Fleming & Moore, a DC-based registered investment advisory firm, Armstrong has published two books on women and finance: On Your Own: A Widow’s Passage to Emotional and Financial Well-Being and YOUR NEXT CHAPTER: A Woman’s Guide To A Successful Retirement.

One of the first famous female investors.

Dubbed the “Grand Dame of Dividends,” Geraldine Weiss was one of the first women to make a name for herself in finance and prove that women could be successful stock-pickers. 

Even after receiving a degree in economics and finance from UC Berkeley in 1945, Weiss found she was unable to find work as an analyst or stockbroker in the male-dominated industry. Frustrated, she began publishing her own investment newsletter, Investment Quality Trends, in 1966 at the age of 40—under the name G. Weiss.

Weiss popularized the theory of using dividend yield as a valuation metric by indicating that there is a strong relationship between a company's ability to pay dividends over time and the performance of the company in the stock market.

It wasn’t until 11 years later however, when she appeared as a guest on the PBS program “Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser,” that she revealed her identity after achieving a consistently successful track record.

The first person in American history to hold all three top economic positions in the federal government. 

After being sworn in as secretary of the U.S. Treasury in 2021, Janet Yellen is not only the first woman to hold each of the top economic positions in federal government, but the first person, period.

Yellen served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under the Clinton administration from 1994 to 1997 and was also the first woman to chair the Board of Governors for the U.S. Federal Reserve in 2014. 

Yellen’s work has focused on a range of issues pertaining to labor and macroeconomics, including a study of “efficiency wages,” and why firms often choose to pay more than the minimum needed to hire employees. Firms that offer better pay and working conditions tend to be rewarded with higher morale, reduced turnover and greater productivity, she found.