Lauren grew up in Pretoria, attended Pretoria Girls High School and then went on to The University of Pietermaritzburg to complete a B Com degree.

Marketing is her ‘passion’ so she spent the next 15 years in various Marketing roles (working for Glaxo Smithkline, Dairybelle, Coca-Cola, Nampak). In 2001, at the age of 33, she was first appointed as a Director and quickly grew to love the ‘General Management’ side of the business environment.

In 2003 Lauren joined Simba (a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo) and in the next 4 years moved from Marketing Director to Commercial Director and then finally to CEO. She was the first ‘South African’ and the first ‘Female’ CEO for PepsiCo South Africa.

In 2010 Lauren left the corporate world and is currently on  “sabbatical” pursuing her passion  - ‘The development of Female Talent in South Africa’.
She has started an initiative called GREAT (Girls Responsibly Enlightened and Trained).

Her hobbies are reading, exploring new & interesting restaurants, travel, running and most importantly – fun times with her precious daughters. Her proudest moment in life was passing her helicopter pilot’s license in 2007 and hence seeing a childhood dream to ‘fly’, come true.