Male bastion crumbles

Press, 7 May 1983, Page 24

Male bastion crumbles

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney Christchurch-born Mrs Lynsey Heap has broken 98 years of tradition on the Melbourne Stock Exchange — described as the male bastion of Australian finance — by becoming its first woman member. Mrs Heap stopped the trading on the exchange yesterday when she was introduced — the first woman to be admitted since

trading began in October, 1884. Mrs Heap has joined the Melbourne broking firm of Eric J. Morgan and will be admitted to partnership on July 1. The former shorthandtypist came to Australia with her husband in 1964, and said that when her marriage split up shortly after that, she returned home a few times before joining the Melbourne exchange in 1969 as a secre-

tary to the general manager. In 1978 she became the first woman executive on the exchange when she was promoted to secretary to the committee. “I was administering the policy of the committee, then the chance came up to join Morgan’s, and here I am,” she said. “I’m now a broker, and my background on the exchange will be very useful.”