'We need a call to action': Stacey Cunningham, the NYSE's first female president

She is the first woman to lead the New York Stock Exchange in its 226 years. Faced with falling sales and government pressure, though, she finds the attention to her gender a distraction

The Fearless Girl is on the move. The bronze sculpture of a little girl defiantly facing off against Wall Street's Charging Bull launched a million selfies and became an unlikely avatar of the #MeToo movement. Soon it will be transported a few hundred metres down the road in downtown Manhattan to confront another symbol of entrenched masculinity: the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Stacey Cunningham says she couldn't be more delighted.

"I think she's fantastic," says Cunningham, the 67th president of the NYSE and the first woman to head the male-dominated institution in its 226-year history. "For me, she is a message to individuals, though. I think we need to call ourselves to action, especially as women, not to hold ourselves back."

Whether or not NYSE is sheltering a marketing operation or a vital financial institution is the least of its problems