Stacey Cunningham made history Friday when she became the first female president of the New York Stock Exchange in the institution’s 226-year history.

Cunningham — who began her career with the exchange as a 19-year-old intern in 1994 — said she was touched when colleagues said she was an example for their own daughters. She also acknowledged women who had paved the way for her rise, and the work that remained to be done in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

“I do look forward to a day when a woman taking a job isn’t newsworthy,” Cunningham told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. “But we aren’t quite there yet.”

Experts in workplace gender dynamics agree. Ursula Mead, founder and CEO of job-review platform InHerSight, noted that although none of the big Wall Street banks is helmed by women, now two of the major exchanges are, the Nasdaq having appointed Adena Friedman as CEO at the beginning of last year. “I think having two women lead the exchanges can go a long way towards changing the perception of women in finance,” she said.

Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, said Cunningham’s appointment should serve as a reminder that more still needs to be done for women to achieve parity in finance and other male-dominated fields. “A single appointment does not totally destroy longtime practices and approaches but it does signal that there’s a real opportunity,” she said. “Disrupting the boys’ club culture is a good thing. This could be an opportunity to begin that.”

Having a board committed to diversity helps, and big investors’ growing comfort with taking on advocacy roles has the potential to advance gender parity.

“You have to have a board that advocates for change or thinks differently,” said Di Ann Sanchez, a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Special Expertise Panel of the Society for Human Resource Management.

“We do have some progress at the board level,” said Barbara Krumsiek, senior fellow at the Women’s Leadership Institute at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “Investors who increasingly feel that diverse boards lead to better outcomes… like large pension funds have made this a priority. They have that tool of advocacy, which they’ve exercised,” she said.

For women to be better-represented in corporate leadership, support needs to come from corner offices, as well. Cunningham credited the mentors she had over the years with pushing her to believe in herself and her ambition. “I think it’s so important for women to not hold themselves back,” she told NBC News. “I’ve been very, very fortunate to have mentors that have pushed me.”