Diversity as a driver for innovation

“I am an optimist by nature. In the last 25 years I have seen how finance has changed: today there is more space for us women, also thanks to a greater awareness around inclusion and gender issues. The glass ceiling is there, but it does have cracks.” Laura Tardino has 20 years of experience in the investment industry. Now Managing Director for Italy at Golding Capital Partners, she explains how her career has been a mix of coincidences and seized opportunities. In her words: “After graduating from DES, Economic and Social Disciplines in Bocconi University, and doing an internship at the OECD, I started my PhD in Siena, but I didn’t have a vocation for academia. I’ve always been a pragmatic person, so when an assistant professor at the university told me that Sanpaolo SGR was looking for young people, I jumped at the chance.” 

In the field, Tardino discovered that her courses in micro and macroeconomics, in addition to her mathematical skills, were strategic. So was having studied subjects that opened her mind. “It helped me to have studied humanistic subjects such as epistemology, which is useful to have a 360-degree view of things. In finance that allows you to solve problems and analyze phenomena from different angles,” she says. These skills were also valued at BNL (later acquired by BNP Paribas). Here she worked for 15 years in various roles, from portfolio manager to market strategist. “The turning point was when I joined BNPP, where there were many women in management and a strong focus on the issue of inclusion.”

Her next move, to the Scottish investment company Abrdn, was a critical. “In 2015 I was contacted by the country head of the company, a former colleague of mine, and I became head of institutional business development, working from Milan.” Eight years later, she broke the glass ceiling when she joined the German Golding Capital Partners as managing director in May 2023. 

Reflecting on her journey, Tardino considers herself lucky: “I remember when I started there were very few women. I was part of the first wave of female graduates to enter the male-dominated world of finance. It was a world where you only found men in decision-making roles, and the same was true for portfolio managers.” But things are slowly changing. “Today I have many female portfolio managers among my clients. But it’s still a struggle to get to the top, although firms like Golding are hiring more women.” According to Tardino, it will take time, but the financial sector is moving in the right direction. In this sense, the evolution is driven “in part by listed companies, which have to answer to their stakeholders, so the sector is very closely monitored. Gender quotas have helped accelerate the change.” 

Now that she is a managing director, Tardino is an advocate of diversity as a driver of innovation, and a leader who wants to set an example. “I haven’t changed as my career has progressed. I think you need to lead by example, in an authentic way,” she adds. Tardino also participates in mentoring programs and believes in intergenerational exchange. To young women, she gives the same advice she herself followed after high school: “Never give up, set goals for yourself and even when you fall down, reflect on where you went wrong, keep your eyes on where 
you’re going.”