(Traders present the final winner of the Wall Street Women 2015. The editors regret the delay.)
Excellence in Leadership
Marisol Collazo
DTCC
As U.S. CEO of DTCC Data Repository, Marisol Collazo leads a growing team that oversees OTC derivatives and products. Her role is to expand into multiple jurisdictions; one example is Canada, a recent expansion for the firm.
This is pretty impressive when you consider Collazo not only went to college at night and then law school at night while working on Wall Street, but she remembers being told as a young girl that her options were limited.
I went to Catholic school and the options were typing and accounting; an executive administrative assistant was a coveted job, she said. Times have changed, and theres more awareness. While there are more women going to colleges, you still don’t see a balance in the workplace.
Collazos original role model was her mother, a real estate broker who came to the U.S. from Puerto Rico. I am a Latina, and I saw her realize her own goals and her independence here, Collazo said. She was always telling me I was going to be a lawyer because I was always debating everything under the sun.
Instead, Collazo pursued a career on Wall Street just as more regulation and automation was transforming the markets. She has served at Barclays Bank and Mizuho Capital, and as the OTC head of CTB trade capture projects for Deutsche Bank. I would actually sit with the traders to write the terms because it was not customized at that time. So I had a lot of interaction with the trading floor, she recalled.
She joined DTCC Data Repository in April 2007 on the eve of the financial crisis, which presented plenty of opportunities for the clearing entity.
It was a unique time for DTCC because we’re in the unique position of providing transparency to the credit default swap market. We had a role to play as the reforms kicked in with the type of transparency that we were able to provide, she said. It has been an interesting journey.
Collazo says she is impressed with the new generation of women on Wall Street. They are more bold and confident, and they know what they want. And they are not as patient, which is a good thing, she said. I have three boys, and theyd better have it together.
