Winner of one of 2023’s Rising Star Awards, Jessie Li, Vice President, EMEA Electronic Equity Sales Trading at Instinet provides her take on diversity and recognition in the workplace.
Winner of one of 2023’s Rising Star Awards, Jessie Li, Vice President, EMEA Electronic Equity Sales Trading at Instinet provides her take on diversity and recognition in the workplace.What does this award mean for you?
I am extremely honoured. It definitely felt very rewarding to receive this award and to be acknowledged and recognised for my own hard work, especially considering how it was completely unexpected for me, given I just recently started this new chapter of my career in the EMEA region. To me, this award also means that as a minority, we are being seen, encouraged, recognised and celebrated, as that often tends to get lost in the daily grind. It also serves as a tremendous motivation for me personally to keep striving for better and to take on new challenges.
I’ve come to appreciate how my own diverse background gives me a unique perspective and helps me to think innovatively as I bring Instinet’s offering to clients across the region.
And on another level, the award also serves as a token of our industry’s commitment to diversity. It is reassuring to see all the collective efforts in this business continuously push, promote and champion for a true sense of equality and diversity of all kinds. This means a significant deal to me as a female, as Asian, and as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
How are you seeing diversity impact the industry?
I see diversity as the foundation for equality but you can’t have a true sense of equality without embracing talents from all kinds of backgrounds, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, education or sexual orientation. The productivity of a business is actually elevated by diversity because it facilitates the flow of different ideas and leads to creative solutions for many challenges. Diversity allows organisations to tackle issues from a more holistic, well-rounded point of view too. I think the financial sector as a whole has definitely come a long way in terms of diversity and gender equality.
Throughout my own professional advancement from New York, to Hong Kong, to London and Paris, I’ve had the pleasure to work with some great financial institutions where diversity is not just welcomed but also embraced. At Instinet for example, across regions and business functions, the firm makes an effort to maintain a diverse balance of employees, which is part of what helps us arrive at new ideas and solutions in this fast-moving industry.
What still needs to change for the better?
Having more female representation, especially in senior management and leadership positions, would be a positive improvement. As rising talent, we look up to our management teams, particularly in front offices across the street these days, and female figures are still too rare, and that can be particularly discouraging to young women who are coming along in the industry. It is something rather powerful and inspirational to be able to look up and see someone that is “just like you” succeed.
What would you like to do, to support positive change in the industry?
I plan to continue advocating for minority groups, promote the importance of diversity, and most importantly continue delivering and performing in my role to the best of my abilities.
I’m hopeful that my own efforts will serve as an example for other budding talents, across all minority groups, be it gender, race, or sexual orientation, in our industry. I’d like them to think that if I can make it, so can they, and that it might encourage others to continue with their own career ambitions. Being female should by no means ever be a barrier or a factor that stops us from reaching our full potential, nor should any part of our personal identities really, as that is what makes us special, that is where our strength lies.
At what point would we not need to have a Women in Finance Awards?
Once we can walk onto any trading floor, enter any office or management meeting, across functions in the industry, and you can see a fair amount of female representation in decision making positions, then I don’t think we need to create an award about it any longer.
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