Jennifer Laird

Mastering financial concepts and tools with vision and confidence

You could characterise my career by saying that it has always been about discovery. For the best part of 20 years I have worked in academia and in the pharmaceutical industry, predominantly in research and development and often leading large research projects in the lab.

A few years ago I pivoted from technical leadership in research to focus on business development with my company, Eli Lilly. Where previously I’d been looking for new opportunities for the company's pipeline in terms of discovering, developing and marketing new products, now I was charged with going into the outside work and discovering the best opportunities to collaborate, to licence, merge or acquire other companies.

I realised that I needed to build the understanding and the next-level skills to navigate the financial side of these kinds of deals. And although, as a scientist, I was very familiar with maths, I had no formal exposure to corporate finance and accounting. It was this need that brought me to the London School of Economics and the Finance for Executives programme.

Choosing LSE wasn’t difficult. The school not only has a strong reputation in economics and finance, but in political sciences too which are so important in doing deals and collaborating. When a friend who works in banking recommended the programme, my decision was made.

The learning experience was perfectly calibrated to my needs. Faculty on the programme don’t assume that you bring any knowledge so they start from zero. But what sets LSE professors apart is the way that they build knowledge fast, and provide you not only with the tools you need to do your job – but with real insight into where those tools come from. I had an honorary chair at McGill University, and as a fellow teacher, I really appreciated the intellectual depth and rigour you see in action at LSE. You discover concepts, explore why they are useful and then learn how to apply them; so it’s not just useful and practical, there’s also a setting of context that brings everything together and reveals why certain things are so important.

The programme has given me critical insights and understanding of my colleagues in finance. I’ve come away with the frameworks to really understand this side of the business – how to valuate companies and appreciate the drivers of value.

Within my own cohort there was a huge breadth of diversity across counties, people, roles and sectors. Together we explored a range of problems and perspectives that enriched our learning and understanding exponentially. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Finance for Executives to anyone who like me needs to master critical tools and concepts and to deploy them with vision and confidence whatever their industry.