Lauren Simmons, Who Became the Youngest Trader to Ever Walk the Floor of the New York Stock Exchange at 23, Doesn’t Believe in Failure
“I’m just a 25-year-old girl who has this kind of cool life,” Lauren Simmons laughs, “I’m just taking it day by day and enjoying the whole process.” Her laugh is bright and infectious even through the crackle of my phone. Simmons, however, is not just any other 25-year-old woman. She is bold and fearless. She seizes opportunities and takes risks. At only 23 years old, Simmons became the youngest trader to ever walk the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. She also became one of the few African American women to do so. Today, Simmons is a motivational speaker, personal finance expert, and has been featured in campaigns for Express, Ford Motor Company, and Invisalign. Not only will she be an executive producer on her biopic coming out this upcoming summer, she is also the creator, writer, producer, and host of her TV show centered around personal finance geared towards Gen Z and younger millennials that will be coming out on a major TV network later this year.
When someone says “Wall Street,” you may imagine Leonardo DiCaprio beating his chest and urging his brokers to pick up their phones and sell in The Wolf of Wall Street, or traders surging on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the clang of the opening bell. You probably do not think of men and women sitting at stations with massive computer screens working with numbers all day, but, today, that is a lot of what trading is. On a normal day at the NYSE, Simmons worked with computers, algorithms, and numbers to trade massive amounts of money.
Growing up, Simmons never dreamed she would end up in finance. She grew up in Georgia with her mother and twin brother. Her mother taught her what it meant to be a bold, confident, and graceful woman from an early age. Because her brother has a disability, her mother often had to take time off of work to take him to the hospital. One day, her boss said, “Are you really going to put your kids before your job?” Her mother quit then and there. “There’s a lot of strength and a lot of power in that,” Simmons says, “[I] look up to her as much as possible.”
Simmons also attributes a lot of her drive to her twin brother. “He has a larger than life personality. Whatever he wants to do, he does it, and I use a lot of his drive to do what I do today. He never looks at his disability as a disability. And me being an able bodied person really has no excuse to not do anything. If he can do it, I can do it.”
Although she dreamed of pursuing architectural engineering when she was younger, she decided to study genetics in college, “partly because [she has] a twin brother with a disability.” Simmons continues, “I really wanted to impact families the way doctors had impacted mine growing up.” But she had a change of heart when she was about to graduate because the field of genetics was not as advanced as she had hoped. Instead, Simmons took a risk and moved to New York, the city she had fallen in love with the moment she set foot in it.
She embraced what she calls the millenial and Gen Z mindset: “If we want to do something, we just do it. We say, ‘Let’s make it happen. Let’s try it out. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s OK. Let’s try something new.’”
In New York, she networked with anyone, trying to get a chance and her foot in the door. Some people said no. She had people tell her that she was aiming too high or that it made no sense to pursue a career outside of genetics, but Simmons knew that she could do it. “I just had to keep taking a step back and say, ‘Okay, if people want to doubt me, that’s perfectly OK. I know that it’s going to work out and just let that be that.’” Because of her constant efforts, someone said yes. Rosenblatt Securities offered her a job as a trader based off the strong back- ground in statistics genetics had given her.
Because of statistics, the shift from genetics to finance was not as drastic as it seems. She went from genetics case studies to looking at trends and making strategic financial decisions based off the data. “Numbers were the universal language,” Simmons says.
Simmons felt like she had finally succeeded when she passed the FINRA test to become a trader. 80% of the people who take the test fail. The week before she took the test, a senior colleague who had worked in finance for decades took the test and failed. The men on the floor doubted that Simmons could pass. Simmons, however, was determined to pass to show herself that she is capable of accomplishing what she sets her mind to and simultaneously prove them wrong.
She had no idea that by passing she had made history. Instead of getting wrapped up in her success on the exam, she focused on adjusting to her new work environment. She soon went from having no background in finance to trading 150 million dollars a day. It was intimidating—both her new work environment and her responsibilities—but Simmons knew she could overcome the challenges her new job posed. “I knew ultimately whatever was going to be was going to be, and it was going to work out the way that it was supposed to be,” Simmons says, “I don’t necessarily believe in failure... Failure is also growth, and if it doesn’t work out, shrug your shoulders and move forward.”
Surrounded by colleagues that were mostly older, white men, Simmons seemed to be an outlier. She even had to wear a men’s trading jacket because the NYSE did not have a women’s size, but these signs that she didn’t fit in didn’t make her uncomfortable. As an African American woman pursuing STEM in college, she knew what it felt like to be one of the few. Simmons urges people to enter spaces that may be uncomfortable to them, but also wants people to know that they have the power to leave if their workplace is not supporting them. “Don’t wait. Don’t hesitate to go into those spaces, even if you are the other,” Simmons says, “There definitely will be a lot of growth for you and potentially a lot of growth for them.”
It was not until a year and a half after she took the FINRA test that the media seized her story. “I really didn’t think people would be that fascinated with [my] story,” Simmons says of the initial attention she was getting from the press. It turned out that people loved her story. It organically opened many doors, including speaking engagements, modeling opportunities, and an upcoming film about her life, which she is producing.
In her first ever speaking engagement, Simmons, bold as always, spoke to a crowd of 20,000 people in Toronto. “There were so many men, women, young, old, different, who were crying, and they were moved by my story,” Simmons says. “It was a moment—I felt like I could empower others through my stories and hopefully they will be able to do something that is risky and go outside the limits and chase whatever dream that is.” She hopes to continue sharing her story in her upcoming film starring actress Kiersey Clemons. “It’s amazing to be able to have my story come to life and have it on camera and film and for people to really see that journey,” Simmons says. She hopes that audiences are inspired by the film. “It’s not going to be a message that’s just for African Americans or just for women,” Simmons says, “It’s really going to be a message that is universal to all... Whatever your ambitions and your goals are, again, whatever you believe in, do it.”
And, as for the future? Well, Simmons is taking it day by day, but she hopes to share her knowledge of finance. “For me, it’s all about empowering people to be financially savvy and whatever that platform looks like,” Simmons says. Like one of her role models Suze Orman, she wants to encourage people to be financially independent. She wants people to save, live within their means, but at the same time to live colorful, vibrant lives. “Finance can be a little dry, but it is definitely empowering.”
STORY ALEXANDRA GALLOWAY
PHOTOS ANNA ZHANG