Community Update

Encino Author Norma Yaeger Signs Breaking Down the Walls at Barnes & Noble Thousand Oaks

Encino's own Norma Yaeger will sign her new book Breaking Down the Walls: 50 Courageous and Successful Years at the Forefront of the Women’s Movement on Saturday, July 27 at 2 PM at Barnes & Noble Thousand Oaks, 160 S. Westlake Blvd. 

Breaking Down the Walls tells the remarkable story of Yaeger, the five-foot-tall dynamo who rose from near-poverty in the early 1960s to found two securities brokerage firms and a mutual fund, despite the sexism she encountered at every turn in the old-boy-network of the financial services industry.  

In 1962, stuck in a crumbling marriage to an angry, underemployed husband and with three hungry children, Yaeger longed to find a way to provide for her family. A chance remark by the husband of an old friend led her to the training program at a New York brokerage, which took her on despite the fact that there had never been a woman stockbroker in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. From the hostility she encountered as the only woman in her class of trainees, to the lack of support she received from her husband and family, to the outright sexism of the Stock Exchange itself - which refused to allow women on the trading floor because they were “bad luck” - the odds against her success were long. But for the indomitable Yaeger, failure was not an option. In a long career of “firsts”, she not only changed the future of the financial services industry, but also threw open its doors for the women who followed in her high-heeled footsteps. 

But Yaeger’s book is more than the just the story of one woman who dared to “lean in.”  Throughout Breaking Down the Walls, she clearly explains the often-opaque world of the stock market in understandable terms, discusses its recent turmoil, and decries the unethical behavior she sees in some of the market’s current practitioners. Her book is a must-read for investors as well as for those interested in women’s issues. 

Norma Yaeger’s stellar career as a stockbroker included stints at Hornblower and Weeks, where she was the only woman on the management advisory board; Bear Stearns; and Drexel Burnham Lambert, as well as the two companies she founded, Yaeger Securities and Yaeger Capital Markets. Now retired, Norma still avidly follows the stock market from her home in Encino, where she lives with her second husband, Lawrence Yaeger.  

Barnes & Noble Thousand Oaks is located in the Promenade at Westlake, at the corner of Westlake Blvd. and Thousand Oaks Blvd. For more information about the Norma Yaeger signing, call the store at (805) 446-2820.