How the ex-CFO of LEGO learned that the strongest foundation she can build is her own
Marj Lao graduated summa cum laude from the University of the Philippines — not just top of her college, but of the entire university. She topnotched the CPA board. She went on to hold two CFO roles, the last at the LEGO Group. She is, by any measure, one of the most decorated Filipino women to have worked at the highest levels of global business.
She will not tell you any of this herself.
What she will tell you, with considerably more enthusiasm, is about the first time she lifted approximately her own body weight on the trap bar.
When Mortality Gets Your Attention
2020 changed the calculus for a lot of people. For Marj, COVID was a stark reminder of mortality and the nudge she needed to finally step back from full-time corporate life. She had always envisioned retiring at 50 to be, as she puts it, “free to be herself.” The pandemic simply made the decision undeniable.
Perimenopause had also arrived. And separately —not as a consequence, but as its own concurrent reality — her bones needed attention. The two aren’t always linked, but the timing made one thing clear: she needed to start building her body with the same deliberateness she’d always applied to everything else. Estrogen plays a critical role in maintaining bone density, and as levels drop during menopause, the risk of osteopenia and osteoporosis can rise silently — without symptoms, until it’s too late to reverse.
Marj is open about this. She understands that bone health is not a problem you address when you’re already fragile. It is a foundation you build before you need it to hold weight. For a woman who had spent nearly 30 years building financial foundations for global companies, there is a beautiful symmetry on what needs to be done.
She had, as it happens, signed up for a lifetime gym membership almost 30 years earlier. Before 2020, she had been there two or three times.
Building the Physical Foundation
She started where most of us do: walking. From 1,000 to 2,000 steps a day during lockdown to 10,000 to 15,000. Then strength training — the thing her bones actually needed and the thing she'd always told herself she'd get around to.
What happened next surprised her. The woman who had built a career on collective achievement — whose greatest professional satisfaction had always come from her team's success, never just her own — discovered something new in the weight room: a win that belonged entirely to her.
"PBs (personal bests) at the gym are literally personal," she says. "I feel like a kid, proud of my firsts." After nearly 30 years of building career muscles, she was a beginner again. And she was loving it.
Two years in, she's added Pilates for flexibility and balance. Six months ago, she picked up a paddle, and so did I. We play pickleball together now, which I can confirm she approaches with the same focused, competitive energy she brings to everything else. Her serve is something I am still learning to read.
This is the through-line in Marj's Second Spring: not a pivot to stillness, not a retreat into quieter pursuits, but a deliberate, physical building. Strength. Flexibility. Reaction time. The body as a construction project, taken seriously for the first time.
The Compound Effect
In finance, Marj understood compound interest intuitively: small, consistent inputs that accumulate into something significant over time. She applies the same logic to her body now.
"More confident about my own capabilities," she says of where she is after two years of training. "An increased willingness to push myself to try something new or harder." The bone density she's building now is an investment in the woman she'll be at 70. The Pilates is insurance for the decades of movement ahead. The pickleball is, among other things, proof that Second Spring athleticism doesn't peak at 40.
Her advice for women approaching this transition is unambiguous: "I hope more women become aware and get equipped with more knowledge about menopause — from peri to post. A more deliberate understanding of the whys and whats of navigating menopause helps make the symptoms bearable and allows for a new and better chapter to evolve."
Start before you think you need to. Build before it becomes repair.
What She's Building Now
Now a UK citizen who has chosen to spend more time in the Philippines, Marj continues to hold board roles and mentor the next generation of leaders. But when I ask her what she's building now, the answer isn't professional.
"Building my physical and relationship muscles as a foundation for my long-term health and happiness."
Physical muscles. Said first, without hesitation, by one of the smartest financial minds the Philippines has ever produced.
Her final advice to me — and to anyone reading this — was simple: "Love yourself and take care of yourself. Remember that any work is only worth doing if it makes you happy."
For a woman who once structured the balance sheets of a the world’s largest toy company, she has a gift for the most essential kind of accounting: knowing exactly what’s worth investing in — yourself.
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“The strongest foundation isn’t external success — it’s what your body can do at its best.”
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Marj Lao is a Filipina finance executive and board director whose career spanned nearly 30 years in global corporate roles, including CFO of the LEGO Group. She currently divides her time between board work, mentoring, strength training, and perfecting her pickleball game in Manila.