The lack of gender diversity in the upper echelons of Wall Street is not a pipeline issue, banking veteran Sallie Krawcheck, the CEO of Ellevest, said recently.
So why hasn’t a big bank seen a female CEO take the helm yet? According to Krawcheck, the answer is rather straightforward.
"They're not getting promoted. It's pretty simple," Krawcheck told Yahoo Finance during an interview at the Fortune Brainstorm Finance event in Montauk, New York.
Krawcheck spent nearly 30 years on Wall Street, holding high-level positions across the finance industry’s top institutions. She was CEO of sell-side research firm Sanford Bernstein, CEO of Smith Barney, CFO of Citigroup (C), and president of global wealth and investment management at Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC).
She left the industry after being ousted from Merrill Lynch in 2011. She went on to build Ellevest, a women-led digital investment platform for women that aims to close the gender gap in investing.
Even in 2019, there has yet to be a female CEO of one of the bulge bracket banks.
"I would have thought we would have by now because 'That's only fair, and there should be change, and the industry should reflect the world as it is today,’” Krawcheck said.
Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
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