She spent 13 years on a career she wasn’t happy in. Then she walked into Finance and made it to Director in six years. Lara is proof that the "late start" isn't a liability, it's what makes her exceptional.

What you see on LinkedIn:

What you don’t see:
A decade of doubting herself in a world that wasn't built for her. A confidence rebuilt interview by interview. And the realisation, 13 years in, that the smartest thing she could do was start over.

The puzzle obsession that became a career
Lara was nine years old when she figured out what made her tick.

Her maths teacher handed the class an impossible-looking geometry puzzle and said: "I don't think anyone can solve this. But try."

Lara spent the entire weekend on it. Not because she had to. Because she couldn't let it go.

"It was that buzz, achieving something someone said you probably couldn't do."

She chased that feeling for 13 years. Maths degree. Elite PhD programme in Paris. Postdoc at Warwick. She was exceptional. But something was missing.

"Research is lonely. You can spend months on one idea. I needed to build things. I needed to see results."

The pivot: 13 years in, starting over
An old colleague mentioned quant finance over coffee. Lara had never heard of it. He explained: you use mathematics to build models that help traders price financial products, manage risk in their book, make decisions. Fast-paced. Applied. Collaborative.

"I thought: that's everything I love about maths, without everything I dislike about academia."

She had no finance knowledge. Basic coding. No relevant experience. So she spent six months studying on weekends - markets, Python, financial theory, while finishing her postdoc.

After six months, she told the recruiter she still wasn't ready.

He said: "Every single time I speak with a woman, she says she's not ready. Every time I speak with a man, they say they are. You are ready. Let's go."

Eleven hours of interviews across two days. Every member of the team, back to back. The next morning an offer. Unanimous.

Finding her edge
Here's what those 13 years gave her that no graduate hire could replicate.

In academia, your entire job is to take something impossibly complex and make it communicable to a supervisor, a committee, a journal. You learn to think in systems. To break big problems into steps. To explain why something matters to someone who doesn't care about the method, only the result.

In a quant team full of brilliant people who'd rather spend a week debugging than pick up the phone that skill was rare. And Lara knew it.

She became what is called a strat: a quantitative analyst who sits with a trading desk to witness firsthand financial markets challenges and use her technical skills to formulate the challenges and mathematical problems . A strat breaks down the mathematical problem into actionable items that lead to a solution with a trading edge. This usually entails working with technology to build a tool that automates the solution. Traders know what they need but usually can’t spec it technically. Tech have the ability to build robust tools but sit too far from the business. Lara became the bridge.

“I take the business need, figure out what exists, what needs building, break it into a plan, work with tech to implement it, test it for accuracy, then translate the output back into something the trader can actually use. They usually don’t care how the model works. They just need the answer and the trust that it is an accurate one.”

She wasn't the best coder on the team. She wasn't the best model builder. But she was the best at making things happen across the whole chain and that became her brand.

"What makes you special is what you're exceptional at. Take it to the extreme. That's enough."

The sponsor who made Director happen in three years
VP to Director typically takes four to five years. Lara did it in three.

It came down to one project and one person who believed in her before she believed in herself.

A senior male colleague had been leading a high-profile global markets project. When he needed to move on, he put Lara's name forward to lead it alone — as a VP. He said: trust me. Then went to every stakeholder individually and made the case.

He stayed on early calls without speaking. Slowly stopped talking. Then stopped joining altogether. Not abandoning her — scaffolding her.

"He said: Lara, I told them you can do it. I'm here if you need me, but you can do this."

She delivered. She got promoted. And something shifted permanently.

"Not only did someone believe in me, they were right to. I proved it. I don't have imposter syndrome anymore."

Lara’s advice for women in Finance:
💡 A late start is an advantage. Everything you built before walks in the room with you. Use it.

💡 Find your brand and go all in. Exceptional at one thing beats decent at everything, every time.

💡 Stop waiting until you're ready. You won't feel it. The opportunity won't wait. Go anyway.

💡 One project can change everything. Stop surviving your to-do list. Find the high-visibility moment and own it completely.

💡 Find a sponsor. A mentor gives advice. A sponsor puts your name in rooms you're not in. That's the one that moves careers.

💡 Protect your life outside work. This can feel unnatural for women – be deliberate about it.

💜 Role Models — the real stories. Because the "late start" is sometimes exactly the right start.