There’s a certain story we’re used to hearing about successful women. They knew what they wanted. They were confident from day one. They had a five-year plan, a ten-year plan, and probably a colour-coded spreadsheet to go with it.

Terri Duhon’s story looks a little different.

A trader turned entrepreneur and board director at Morgan Stanley and beyond, Terri has built her career by making choices that didn’t always look like the obvious ones. She chose the trading floor over investment banking. Left a successful career to build one of her own. Made her way into boardrooms without the traditional C-suite title. And when a door didn’t quite seem to be made for her? She made a case for why it should open anyway.

That’s the thing about badass career moves: they rarely look badass beforehand.

For Female x Finance’s five-year anniversary, we’re celebrating women who are rewriting the rules of ambition and Terri is a pretty perfect example. Here are five of her most badass moves.

As a senior at MIT, Terri had two obvious options in front of her: investment banking, the traditional prestige route, or financial markets. She chose financial markets.

And it wasn’t by accident. She was drawn to the energy on the trading floor.  It was palpable and exciting. Then, during an interview, after watching a male trader rudely dismiss a female salesperson, Terri noticed something important: where the power sat in the room. Rather than accept a position on the receiving end of that dynamic, she went after the seat that held more influence. She became a trader.  

Sometimes the badass move isn’t following the most prestigious path. It’s understanding where you want to be and going there.

In 2004, Terri walked away from a successful trading career to start her own business. On paper, it probably looked like the riskier move.

But ambition doesn’t always mean climbing higher. Sometimes it means stepping off the ladder entirely. There was no guarantee her business would work. No perfectly mapped-out next step. Just the conviction that building something of her own was worth the uncertainty.

Because sometimes the biggest career risk isn’t taking the leap. It’s staying somewhere simply because it looks good on paper.

There’s a familiar formula for getting into the boardroom: become a CEO, CFO or senior executive first, then get invited in. Terri didn’t follow that formula.

Instead, she built her reputation around something that matters considerably more than a job title: judgement, expertise and the ability to contribute where it counts. Her story is a useful reminder that there is rarely only one route into a room.

The “required” experience? Sometimes it’s genuinely required. And sometimes it’s just what people have historically expected to see. There’s a difference. Terri didn’t wait until her résumé looked the part. She made the case that she did.

When Terri set her sights on becoming an Associate Fellow at Oxford University, there was one small problem: she didn’t have the advanced degree typically associated with a university lecturer.

So she made her case. Two decades of experience in finance, she argued, brought a different kind of expertise, one that could be valuable to Oxford’s students. She became a lecturer and then and then Associate Fellow. 

A little badass? We think so.

Because sometimes the qualification you’re missing matters less than the value you can clearly explain that you bring. A useful career rule: don’t disqualify yourself before anyone else gets the chance.

One of Terri’s smartest career moves came from paying attention to how influence actually works in a boardroom. She noticed that technical roles — like chairing a Risk Committee — often came with an immediate level of authority. While some other topics, meanwhile, could be easier for people to dismiss.

So she built credibility where it was hardest to question: risk, strategy and governance. And then she used that credibility to create space for the conversations she cared about — including gender equity.

That’s a different kind of badass move: not just getting a seat at the table, but figuring out how to make the table listen.

There’s one thing that makes Terri’s story particularly relevant to the way we think about ambition at Female x Finance: she didn’t make these moves because she was always completely confident.

Self-doubt and imposter syndrome didn’t magically disappear as her career progressed. They came along for the ride. The difference was that they didn’t get to make the decisions.

And maybe that’s a rule worth rewriting in itself.

We often talk about confidence as the prerequisite for ambition, as though you need to feel ready before you can make the move, ask for the opportunity, change direction or take your seat at the table. Terri’s career tells a different story.

You can be ambitious and uncertain. You can be brave and still have doubts. You can take the unconventional route and still end up exactly where you belong.

Because being badass doesn’t mean never being afraid. It means making the move anyway.

So maybe the ultimate badass move isn’t choosing confidence over doubt.

It’s choosing bravery over confidence, every single time.
💜 Role Models — the real stories. Because behind every "overnight" success is a 14-year-old who decided money stress would never run her life.