Trading Desks Culture In Citi Is Changing, But Female Workforce Count Remains Low

Deirdre Dunn, who started working on Wall Street over 20 years ago, recalls how different things were. “If I looked at trading when I started, I would say a phone or occasionally a computer got broken at least once a week, or once every two weeks,” said Dunn in addition to the mini baseball bat his colleague used to keep to hammer his phone back.

Now the co-head of rates trading, she continued, “That kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore, or it rarely happens.”

Wall Street is changing with the pleas of major banks to increase women’s involvement in holding key roles. The change was not significant, but they were getting there slowly.

The lockdown, however, had shook the workforce.

Citigroup was the first major US bank with a female chief executive officer, pushing to close the pay gap between male and female employees. While trading desks thrived during the pandemic, the workforce witnessed as women quit their job.

But at the same time, this might be the perfect moment to push even more offers to women. The flexibility to juggle between personal life and work has never been better than ever. Ayesa Latif from Citigroup commented, “The world is not going to end if I wake up earlier, go through my emails, and then every morning, from 7 to 8, I feed my kids breakfast.”

Despite the statistics, the number of women that remain in the finance industry has been stable. It’s unfortunate that in Wall Street, the percentage has remained at 20% for female employees. Dunn pointed out how more people need to talk about it.

“There is some discussion over ‘I wasn’t yelling, I just have a loud speaking voice,’” Dunn revealed when it comes to the conversations going on the trading floors. If we want to see these changes happen, Dunn suggests that we “address them head-on and discuss it.”