Her Story
About Laura
I actually stumbled into finance because my degree was in accounting - I wasn't planning to be in this industry. But my personality is that when I'm in something, I want to do my best, I want to grow, and I want to learn it. I like to be able to speak intelligently about whatever I'm involved in. I've always been kind of a team player, whether it was athletically in sports or with my two sisters and big family - I've always worked from a 'we' space, not just a 'me, myself, and I' space. I think that's in me innately, and maybe that's served me well, which is something you can't really teach. I'm an ex-athlete who played soccer in college, and I want to play as long as my legs will hold me up. Now I play in an over-30s women's league every Sunday - we're all adult women with children and families and priorities, but we all make it a priority to get together. I don't want my kids to see me not having hobbies. My husband is from Scotland, so we go almost once a year to Scotland with the kids. We both work for UBS, and this past maternity leave we both got 20 weeks off - they offer the same to the father as they do the mother. We used some of that time to stay in Spain for about 3 or 4 weeks and had his family come from Scotland to meet the baby. We love to travel and just like to be outside doing things and staying busy.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Laura
01What do you attribute your success to?
It's interesting that you keep using the word success, because I don't yet feel I've reached that level of success yet - I think that's probably common for a lot of women in the financial industry. There's always that feeling of 'I'm not there yet' - there's a 'there' that we're always achieving for, striving for. When I'm in something, I want to do my best, I want to be my best. I love working as a team - I've always been kind of a team player, whether it was athletically in sports, or with my two sisters and big family. You just kind of always are working from a 'we' space, not a just 'me, myself, and I' space. I think that's in me innately, and maybe that served me well, which is something you can't really teach. Education, obviously, and continuing to learn, getting my licenses - that helped a lot from a knowledge and content perspective. But I can't really pinpoint one thing. I still feel like there's still so much more for me to do and be and become, so it's hard to say whether or not I even feel like I've made it so far or been successful up to this point.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
You just have to always be curious, you always have to be interested in knowing more. You have to understand that you will never know it all. There's industry knowledge that you need to know, and I'm licensed from an industry perspective, but you've got to be able to know your own business - meaning whoever you're working for at the time. Every broker-dealer, everybody does it different, and everyone has a different philosophy on things. So really understanding what is your philosophy, what is your company's philosophy, how do you approach situations - that kind of knowledge is really important to know. You don't have to know everything about finance to be in finance, you just have to want to know more. You have to be a lifelong learner. The industry itself changes, the market changes so fast that you could know something for sure one day and it'd just be completely different the next. You have to always be ready to approach things from new eyes, from a new perspective, and be willing to adapt to the changes, because the industry changes quickly.
Keep Exploring
More Influential Women · Tennessee
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.