On The Day of Your Daughter’s Wedding …

While I am based in New York, I work for a UK company. In case you hadn’t heard—or, like me, were sleeping—there was a major wedding in London this morning.

The marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton got me thinking that one of the most influential people in all of England—and, you might even say, the world—is a female, Queen Elizabeth II.

How does this all relate to financial technology, you ask? Well, I'm currently working on a feature for the June issue of Waters that will examine why there are so few women in power positions at Wall Street firms, specifically at the CIO and CTO level.

Suffice it to say, women have more of an influence on UK politics than they do when it comes to establishing an investment bank's tech strategy. (See what I did there? Royal wedding to Queen of England to financial IT—and I started it all with the headline, a quote from "The Godfather." Sure it's a stretch, but you should be used to that from me by now.)

I've spoken with about a dozen or so women thus far for this article and what surprises me the most is just how divergent their responses are as to the reasons for this dearth of technology talent, and solutions to the problem. Furthermore, it seems to be evenly divided as to whether the subject feels that sexism has played a part in their career development and whether they used sexism to motivate themselves to achieve success.

Over the next few weeks I'll be speaking with many more people for the story (I'm away in North Carolina right now, playing golf), but if you have your own thoughts or anecdotes, please shoot me an email at anthony.malakian@incisivemedia.com or give me a call at 212-457-7762.

Otherwise, enjoy the endless years of coverage of Kate Middleton, the newly minted Duchess of Cambridge.