On October 4 the NYSE board named two longtime staffers, Catherine Kinney, 49, and Robert Britz, 50, as vice chairmen, co-presidents and co-COOs. They’ll share the No. 2 job under chairman and CEO Richard Grasso.
Kinney and Britz both worked their way up through the exchange staff for more than two decades. They succeed retiring vice chairman Billy Johnston, the former head of specialist firm LaBranche & Co. who joined NYSE management from the ranks of the trading floor.
Grasso is the first NYSE chairman who didn’t come from either the floor or a member firm. Now, with two lifetime administrative staffers in the No. 2 spot, the floor is without representation in senior management for the first time in Big Board history. The political shift makes it far more likely that structural changes long opposed by floor members, including more automated trading and more direct access to the market for institutional investors, will come to pass. Britz - who will continue as chief technology officer in addition to his new responsibilities - was instrumental in pushing forward a greater degree of automation for some NYSE trading. “It’s a great honor,” Britz says of his and Kinney’s promotion. “I think we will do great things together.”
Kinney, who will continue to run the NYSE’s lucrative listings business, becomes the first woman to occupy such a senior position at the Big Board - and the highest-ranking woman at any major Wall Street institution. “It says a lot about having support and great mentors,” she asserts, crediting Grasso. “It’s a great step forward.”
