Susan Estes

Susan M. Estes (born 1959) is an American business executive and CEO of OpenDoor Securities, a firm that primarily traded in United States Treasury securities. Along with Brian Meehan, she co-founded the company in 2013, becoming the first woman to own and operate a bond trading business, an historically male-dominated industry. The company provided anonymous electronic Treasury trading. OpenDoors Securities ceased operations on January 13, 2021.

Background Estes grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. She studied at the University of Redlands in California, earning a bachelor's degree. In 1985, she joined Morgan Stanley as a junior trader, specializing in U.S. Treasury and global bond trading. In 1999, she was promoted at age 40 to managing director of Morgan Stanley's government bond trading group, overcoming sexism in the process. According to The Wall Street Journal, her group represented approximately 5% of the firm's revenue at the time. Headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey, the company's clients include pension and hedge funds, primary dealers, and trading firms. The overall value of the U.S. Treasury market exceeds $17 trillion as of .

By 2015, the trend in bond trading was moving away from the big investment banks or primary dealers, such as J.P. Morgan Chase, towards mutual funds and electronic-trading specialists, such as OpenDoor. In November of that year, Estes attended a conference at the Federal Reserve in New York City, where the changing market for Treasuries was discussed. In contrast to past such conferences where the primary dealers were predominant, Estes said following the 2015 meeting, "The dynamics are shifting, primary dealers are being pushed out". By 2020, trading levels had dropped in bonds and affected U.S. Treasuries to such an extent that Estes was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as calling the situation "chaos".

Awards Estes won the "Excellence in Treasury Trading Award" in 2019, one of the Women in Finance Awards bestowed by Markets Media. Commenting on the lack of women in the American finance sector, Estes said, "The lack of gender diversity in the finance and technology workforce is not a secret. Women that I know who have excelled in this predominantly male environment come from very diverse backgrounds but are bound together by one common element: They each love what they do".

She was also awarded an honorary doctorate by her alma mater, the University of Redlands.