A U.N. team, that is scheduled to investigate an alleged chemical attack that killed hundreds last week in a Damascus suburb, leaves their hotel in a convoy, in Damascus, Syria, Monday, Aug. 26, 2013. An Associated Press photographer saw the U.N. members, wearing body armor, leaving in seven SUVs. It was not clear if the team headed to the suburb where the alleged attack occurred. (AP Photo)
NEW YORK — Muriel “Mickie” Siebert, who started as a trainee on Wall Street and became the first woman to own a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, has died of complications of cancer at age 80.
Siebert died Saturday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Her death was confirmed by Jane Macon, a director of Siebert Financial and a partner at the law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.
Siebert was founder and president of brokerage firm that bears her name, Muriel Siebert & Co. Inc. The company went public in 1996 as Siebert Financial Corp.
Macon said Siebert was “a fabulous woman, a trailblazer and a pioneer” who set a high standard for those who entered the financial world after her. “She always pushed the doors open and kept them open for other people to follow.”
Siebert, who was born in Cleveland and moved to New York in 1954 at 22, started her career as a trainee in research at Bache & Co. earning a $65 a week. She went on to become an industry specialist in airlines and aerospace and later became a partner at brokerages including Brimberg & Co.
She bought a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in December 1967 after months of struggling with the male-dominated business world that initially resisted her efforts to join. She established her investment firm the same year and transformed it into a discount brokerage house in 1975.
In 1982, Siebert ran for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat of Daniel Patrick Moynihan. She came in second.