Lena Courcol: Financial Analyst
Name:
Lena Courcol
Age:
27
Occupation:
Financial Analyst
Name:
Lena Courcol
Age:
27
Occupation:
Financial Analyst
My climate origin story:
I had always enjoyed the environment. In high-school, chemistry, biology and geography were my three favourite sobjects. I knew I wanted to go into something that mixed all three of those together. At the same time, though, both my parents come from business backgrounds. So despite my scientific liking in school, I always had this business lens through which I saw the world. When I left for university, I wanted to start by building a really robust foundation of my environmental knowledge before going into something like environmental consulting or sustainability consulting. I did a McGill Arts and Science undergraduate in Environment and really enjoyed the interdisciplinary approach. I came out of my undergraduate feeling like I knew a lot about lots of different things, but never at a particularly deeper level. Knowing that I wanted to study the mix between business and the environment, I applied to the Columbia Masters in Sustainability Management thinking that I would never, ever get in. Fast forward, I got in! That is then where I learned the applied skills I was looking for. I did a little bit of finance, accounting, and other more technical environmental skills. I did an Internship at SIA in Impact Investing, and then started my job at New Market Funds. I always knew that this was going to be a temporary job, kind of like a trampoline point that allowed me to move back to Canada and get a good oversight of what is happening in the Canadian Space. But I ended up really enjoying working at New Market Funds, so I told them I wanted to continue impact investing as a financial analyst. Because I didn’t have any of the technical know-how for the role, they ended up training me on the job and I’ve now been here for a year!
A useful skill of mine:
I feel like when people think of financial analysts, they think of the technical, accounting, and finance aspect. But I don't necessarily think you need to be that good at maths. Maths was never an A-plus subject for me. But I do think you have to be relatively creative and be able to see the bigger picture. All of your maths is being applied to the real world and if you don’t see the bigger picture, it’s difficult to create something that is relevant. If a deal doesn’t work, for example, there are many different levers through which you can turn it into something that could work. So being creative and being able to see how the maths applies to the real world is an important skill.
A piece of advice:
A few years ago, I realised that I often got caught up in wanting to create a process. In order to get to a certain place, I was stuck in needing to create and follow a very logical path. But in doing so, you put on blinders and don’t necessarily see what other paths could get you to a certain place. I’ve benefited from people reminding me to take a moment, step back and think about things in a different way. Collaboratively, we always come up with approaches that I would have never thought of. So I recommend taking a moment, being less process driven and trying to see what other opportunities exist.