Registered Principal

At any brokerage firm, you've got your worker ants, the regular front-line employees answering phones and poking away at computer keyboards. And then you've got the queens (or kings, depending on the brokerage firm): the folks in charge.

These management types are known as registered principals. The name comes from the fact that, at a certain level of management at securities or investment banking firms, the people in those roles literally have to be registered. They have to pass the FINRA Series 24 test, as well as the tests related to getting all the relevant securities licenses.