Diane Schueneman

Diane Schueneman started at Merrill Lynch & Co. in pre-automation days, working at night as a billing clerk while she was still in high school. It was an inglorious beginning for someone who had, as Head of Global Infrastructure Solutions, run the back office of the nation’s biggest brokerage. She managed services, operations, technology, and information security for the firm, which had net revenues of $35 billion.

Ms. Schueneman is one of a handful of women in top technology jobs on Wall Street. Her rise at Merrill began in 1971 when, lacking the money to finish college, she parlayed her early jobs there into a position in fixed-income sales. Over the next 33 years, she headed numerous businesses.

She oversaw a $1 billion overhaul of brokers’ work stations, a watershed accomplishment that experts say has given Merrill a several-year advantage over its competitors. Ms. Schueneman is currently a Board Member of ICAP Plc.