VIDEO: Trailblazer: Joanna Davies, NEX Traiana

As its name implies, the Trailblazer Award is for someone who has blazed a career trail for women.

Our winner has indeed blazed quite a trail. Starting in an entry-level back office job at a brokerage firm at age 18, sans university degree, she learned every role from the ground up and aspired to be a futures broker. She studied, took the necessary exams and proceeded to work as a broker in listed derivatives for nearly 10 years in an extremely male-dominated era. She felt the relationship-heavy listed derivatives business was one that suited her personality, and she developed a client network and lifelong friends that would springboard her career development.

Now a 25-year sell-side veteran, she is a managing director at a market infrastructure technology provider, where she focuses on providing a single platform for customers to interface with markets, so they don’t have to develop and manage multiple proprietary connections to participants and intermediaries.