Senior Art Advisor | Specialist in Portfolio Structuring & Corporate Acquisitions
Within the elegant halls of The London Art Exchange, where creativity dances with commerce, Lani Hayes stands out as a woman of numbers in a world of brushstrokes. A former financial analyst turned Senior Art Advisor, Lani brings a uniquely calibrated perspective to the gallery’s clientele—translating complex financial structures into culturally rich, investment-savvy acquisitions. Her background in high-stakes finance, combined with an intuitive eye for aesthetics, makes her one of the most trusted voices for collectors navigating art as an asset class.
Whether she’s guiding a corporate board through a multi-piece acquisition or helping a first-time investor build a resilient, diversified portfolio, Lani’s approach is defined by clarity, caution, and confidence. She doesn’t just sell art—she structures futures.
From Finance Towers to Gallery Walls
Before entering the art world, Lani Hayes made her name in the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. After graduating top of her class in Finance & Economics from the London School of Economics, she joined a global investment bank, where she spent nearly a decade managing portfolios for institutional clients and family offices.
But despite her meteoric rise in the finance world, Lani longed for something more tactile, more expressive. “I missed meaning,” she recalls. “I wanted to work with tangible assets—something with soul and story, not just spreadsheets.”
A turning point came during an advisory project where she helped a private client diversify their holdings through fine art. What began as a side conversation about paintings turned into a three-year engagement—one that saw Lani immerse herself in art market trends, provenance research, and collector psychology. She left the banking world soon after and began working with a private gallery consultant. Her financial acumen proved invaluable, especially to high-net-worth clients looking to demystify the investment side of collecting.
In 2023, Lani was recruited by The London Art Exchange to help formalise its approach to portfolio strategy and financial acquisition modelling—a move that positioned her at the heart of one of the UK’s most innovative art investment platforms.
Structuring Value: Her Role at LAX
As a Senior Art Advisor, Lani’s primary role is to help clients view art through a dual lens: emotional resonance and financial return. She specialises in acquisition strategy, diversification planning, and high-level portfolio structuring—particularly for corporate entities and ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
“At LAX, we treat every collection like a financial ecosystem,” she explains. “It must have liquidity potential, capital growth projections, risk balancing—and above all, cohesion.”
Lani works directly with the gallery’s analytics and compliance teams to build bespoke client reports, incorporating historical performance, market comparables, holding timelines, and exit strategies. She also collaborates with external advisors—accountants, lawyers, and private bankers—to ensure that art holdings are seamlessly integrated into broader wealth management plans.
Her clients include hotel groups, law firms, venture capital funds, and tech founders seeking cultural assets that speak to both sophistication and fiscal sensibility.
Corporate Acquisitions & Strategic Placements
One of Lani’s standout strengths is her ability to bridge the personal and the professional. Her corporate acquisition service has transformed the way companies approach art—not as decoration, but as a statement of identity and a financial tool.
She’s orchestrated entire building-wide installations for fintech firms, developed rotational art schemes for luxury co-working spaces, and helped hospitality brands create “collection-forward” environments that align with brand values.
Under her guidance, The London Art Exchange now offers corporate portfolio packs with built-in tax efficiencies, valuation timelines, and swap-out strategies—making art as agile as any commercial asset.
“Lani essentially created a new revenue vertical for us,” says Christian Shaw, Head of New Business. “She took a concept that was often overlooked—corporate art—and turned it into a profitable, scalable investment model.”
Methodical, Modern, and Always Measured
Lani’s work is defined by a meticulous approach that echoes her finance roots. She’s known for her in-depth due diligence, cautious optimism, and insistence on transparency—values that have helped build her loyal client base.
She regularly runs investment simulations for clients, incorporating everything from market volatility to artist trajectory. She also leads internal workshops on art market risk, teaching junior advisors how to assess not just the beauty of a piece, but its long-term viability.
Despite her analytical orientation, Lani insists that passion and intuition still matter.
“Data is essential. But the moment art becomes a spreadsheet exercise, you’ve lost the magic,” she says. “The best collections are built on a foundation of both numbers and narrative.”
A Voice for Women in Wealth and Art
Lani is also a vocal advocate for gender diversity within the art investment world—an industry still dominated by male advisors and collectors. She mentors young women entering finance and creative industries, and recently launched an LAX initiative that focuses on women-led collections and female artists with underrepresented value trajectories.
Her personal collection includes works by contemporary African and Middle Eastern female artists, alongside modern European pieces. She often says, “I buy art like I buy stocks—high conviction, low noise, long-term.”
In her downtime, Lani is an endurance runner and classical music enthusiast—passions she credits with keeping her grounded in a fast-paced world. Her London flat is filled with plants, playlists, and catalogues
The Next Phase
Lani is currently developing a new suite of digital tools for corporate clients, designed to track portfolio performance, cultural ROI, and ESG alignment. She’s also working with LAX’s compliance team on new reporting structures that meet the evolving standards of tax authorities and wealth regulators.
As art investment continues to rise in global popularity, Lani sees her role as one of guidance, not persuasion.
“My job isn’t to sell art,” she says. “It’s to help people make clear, confident decisions about what they live with, what they believe in, and how they want their capital to speak.”