Sharon Y. Bowen, the first Black woman to head the New York Stock Exchange, was born on July 23, 1956, in Chesapeake, Virginia, to Leverta Wilson and Allen Dosher Bowen, Sr. She is the youngest of five children. Her father was an electrician at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Her sister, Sheila Bowen Taylor, was the first Black woman to serve as a nuclear engineer there.