Women in Focus: Oksana Cole

Current role:  Head of Sales for E-Trading TIX & Matchbook Rebalance Americas

First role:  Relationship Manager, ICAP 

I came to TP ICAP (bit of background):  I joined TP ICAP from BGC 5 years ago to start an Electronic Trading platform in Credit/Rates. We’ve since grown exponentially in the space. I run the sales team for the group that provides hands-on support to over 300 traders. We are speaking to the E-Commerce Teams at all banks to ensure that we are always in their internal discussions of electronic players in the space. We are seeing an uptick in electronic trading in 2021 and hope to continue to grow our product suite.

My proudest moment at TP ICAP:  My proudest moment at TP ICAP was launching our Credit electronic offering from scratch. We had to get all of our customers set up and trained in the matter of a month while onboarding new customers daily. We continue to come up with innovative ways to keep our offering fresh! Hiring an amazing team around us to help grow the business we call TIX! 

My inspiration is (can be a person known or famous):  My mom is my inspiration. She came to this country at the age of 31 without knowing English. My dad wasn’t around much so she mostly raised us herself with the help of my grandpa. I can’t imagine how hard that was for her being a new mom myself now. America wouldn’t accept her accounting degree so she decided to retrain to become a nursing assistant while knowing very limited English. She did all of this for us to live out the American dream. 

If I could change one thing to advance women in the workplace: A lot of women in the industry put off having a family because of the worry about advancement of their career. I was one of them. I think firms need to support and embrace this part of our lives. I am lucky to work for a firm and management that supports new mothers, mothers to be. I was promoted while pregnant with my first baby. Having a baby should not be taboo. I hope this changes overall in finance. 

Advice to my younger self: Always believe in yourself and don’t be afraid of going after the unknown. I came into this business in 2008 with little knowledge about the business. Prior to getting hired by Marketaxess, I did all of my internships in internal audit and thought that was going to be my career path. Boy was I wrong! Selling electronic trading platforms is what my career path quickly became.