Laya came to the United States from Iran in 1978 just before the Iranian revolution. Graduating near the top of her class at the Shipley School, she enrolled at Brown University, receiving a Bachelor of Science degree and went on to receive an MBA from Columbia Business School.
After graduation, Laya began her 20-year career as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. She was one of the pioneers of Fixed Income derivatives, becoming a Managing Director in 1998. Through her professional career, Laya helped build the Firm’s derivatives business in a variety of roles, including Global Head of Collateralized Debt Obligations, Co-Head of Finance in the Securitized Products Group, and Co-Head of the Structured Transactions Group, amongst others. Most recently, Laya was appointed to a senior position in Morgan Stanley’s Structured Credit platform, heading up global origination, structuring, and distribution across all asset classes. She is viewed as a role model for women inside Morgan Stanley.
Laya is a co-founder and staunch supporter of the Iran Opportunities Fund under the auspices of the International Institute of Education (IIE) in New York. The fund, established 3 years ago under IIE’s umbrella as a dedicated fund, provides scholarships for Iranian teaching assistants to come to the US, bringing with them their heritage, language skills and cultural traditions.
With her husband, Hamid Biglari, Laya is a Trustee of the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA), a newly-established but highly energetic non-profit organization, whose mission is that of community building, image building and political empowerment of the Iranian American community. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Wildcat Service Corporation, a private not-for-profit agency dedicated to workforce development strategies, including vocational education and training to New York City’s chronically unemployed individuals.
