She’s going public!
The youngest woman trader on the New York Stock Exchange is set to launch her show, Blavity reports.
Lauren Simmons had plans of pursuing a career in medicine in 2016 when she moved to New York after graduating from college. It was there that she realized her love for math, shifting her focus to a career in finance. Simmons went on to take the Series 19, an exam all floor brokers have to pass to earn their badges. She passed with flying colors, making history at just 22-years-old as the youngest and only woman trading full-time at the NYSE.
Now at age 26, Simmons is preparing to launch her show entitled Going Public, a Shark Tank-esque inspired show that allows business owners to offer shares of their companies to investors and viewers. Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) are usually only reserved for institutional clients or people with extremely high net worths; Simmons launched the show to promote diversity in the sector.
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“Wall Street has done a phenomenal job of making itself seem like an exclusive boys’ club, and that information [about stocks] is hard to digest. It’s not. Going Public lets everybody be a part of [the investment world]. It isn’t as hard as people have made it out to be in their minds,” Simmons said.
Simmons believes that most companies aren’t recruiting a diverse group of traders because they don’t think it’s essential. The NYSE recently launched an advisory council to address its diversity issues, including 20 member CEOs from the world’s largest brands who have agreed to pool their networks and identify potential board members. After the recent social uprising, Nasdaq is now mandating that companies listed on the stock exchange include women, racial minorities, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community on their boards. While an attempt at progress, many people have still pushed back against it, calling the requirements unlawful.
Nonetheless, Simmons is doing all she can to push the inclusion issue, even serving as executive producer of her biopic, which is in the works. Her new show is an extension of that mission, with Simmons even going above and beyond to ensure that she had a crew and director that “look[ed] like [her].”
“With Going Public, we are making sure that all sorts of Americans are represented. Oftentimes, we think of Wall Street, and we think of many of the companies that are listed as being founded by older white men. It’s important that we have diverse founders and that everyday Americans hopefully get to invest in the Tesla or Amazon of this generation. I love the concept of the show and being able to do that,” Simmons said.
Going Public will be launching soon via Facebook Watch, YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku.
Congratulations Lauren!
Photo Courtesy of Going Public