Lorette Davids, group financial manager at Provantage
Finance has traditionally been a male-dominated profession and Davids is candid that early in her career she sometimes felt she had to work harder to prove her competence. Her response was not to become louder, but to become more prepared. Authority, she found, accumulates quietly through consistency, through understanding the numbers, through never walking into a room unprepared.
Credibility is built through consistency. Be curious, continue learning, understand the business behind the numbers, and never stop developing your technical skills.
She has been shaped by strong women: her mother, whose values of hard work, resilience, and integrity formed the bedrock of who she is; and professional leaders who showed her what confident, authentic leadership looks like and taught her to trust her own judgement.
Mentoring, for Davids, is about helping people grow in confidence and creating room for them to develop; not just in their technical skills but in their belief in themselves. Her final word to every young woman in finance is the most important: "Believe that you belong at the table. Your knowledge, work ethic and character will open more doors than trying to fit someone else's idea of what a leader should look like."
