Jacqui Szeto is the VP and Director at TD Securities Fixed Income Sales. She is an amazing chinese lady with enthusiasm and talent in all her endeavour. Besides her job in TD Securities, Women in Capital Market association, and as a young mother at home, she even founded her own small business that was ranked as Canada’s top 50 small businesses by Globe and Mail 2006. She brings together 16 years of working experience on the trading floor in Toronto and Hongkong, broad connections in the finance industry, and deep insights on how to move up the corporate ladder as minority.

She has shared with the CCFA her career development  including how she:

        * struggled to merging with Canadian culture cos she is not allowed to talk with Chinese students in high school when she just came to Canada,

        * broke into the trading floor by proactively buying traders coffee to sit with them and observe their work as an mid-office intern student,

        * relocated to TD Hongkong in order to jump from retail, commercial to institutional money market sales, and working with central banks in Asia;

        * came back to Toronto, perfecting English, and again proved that hard working is able to make her succeed not only in Hongkong, but also in Toronto;

        * saw prospects in debt market and switched career to restart the client base in debt market from the scratch, always push up her limit;

 Because she encounter the same systematic barrier for minority in finance industry, here is her tips :

        * When in Roman, do as Roman's do. Blend into the western culture by watching 'American idol', making friends with non-chinese, and always improving English;

        * Find a mentor, be proactive in looking for senior people's honest feedback, in canada, no boss will tell you why you are bypassed by promotion or where to go;

        * Look out on how to brand yourself, try to jump out of Chinese's stereotype that 'quiet, work by himself, job security first, no need for promotion';

        * Dress well and social well at work,  networking and softskills put people ahead of others in the long run;

        * Be creative in solving problems for the boss, avoid throwing the boss unsolvable problems, never take things for granted or just do whatever told to do...

Also she would like to recommend the following books   

       Straight from the Gut - Jack Welch ( former CEO of GE)

       The Tipping Point

       Good to Great

       Nice girls don't get the corner office/ Nice girls don't get rich

She also recommend an innovative way to read as audio books since we can listen on the way to work or while excercising . these business related audio books are available online for itune stores or at the SpokenWords audio book store.

Another accomplishment of Jacqui's is her own  small business: a shopping website www.goneshopping.ca

It is nominated as Canada's top 50 small business in 2006, and now is again nominated as 'The SavvyMom Mompreneur of the Year Award'. If you like her speech yesterday, please go to the following link and give her your vote!  www.mompreneuraward.ca/MomBio.aspx?momID=209