At the 2011 World Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia, Hester raced in the lightweight women's double scull with crewmate Sophie Hosking winning a bronze medal just a fraction behind the double from Canada.

In Munich at the first World Cup of 2011 Hester and crewmate Sophie Hosking in the lightweight women's double scull won gold after a real tussle with teammates Kathryn Twyman and Andrea Dennis in the second GB boat, achieving an historic one-two in their final.  The bronze medal was won by the USA. In Lucerne, Hester and Sophie Hosking took silver behind Canada. 

At the 2011 GB Rowing Team Senior Trials held on 16-17 April at Eton/Dorney, Hester was 4th in the lightweight women's single scull.

At the 2010 World Rowing Championships on New Zealand's Lake Karapiro, Hester and crewmate Sophie Hosking won both their heat and their semi but were 5th in the final of the lightweight women's double scull in a time of 8:13.90.

For the 2010 World Cup Series Hester raced in the lightweight women's double scull with Sophie.  They won silver in Bled behind the USA, took gold in Munich and then won silver again in Lucerne.

Hester took up rowing at the age of 17 while at Latymer Upper School and was coached in her early career by Don McLachlan.  She made her international debut in 2005, winning gold in the lightweight single at the World U23 Championships and bronze in the senior lightweight women's quad at the World Championships in Japan the same year.

In 2006 Hester took bronze at the World Championships at Eton in the lightweight women's quadruple scull.

She was 8th in the lightweight double scull at the 2007 World Championships and this was enough to achieve Olympic qualification for the boat.  In 2008 she raced in the lightweight women's double scull at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and finished 11th. 

Hester missed the first World Cup of 2009 through illness but in Munich was GB lightweight women's first ever World Cup winner with Sophie Hosking in the double.  In Lucerne they won gold again establishing themselves as a strong partnership for the 2009 World Championships.  At the Championships in Poznan Hester and Sophie won a World Bronze medal in the lightweight women's double.  Coached by Paul Reedy, they were the first GB boat in this discipline to medal since 2002.  In the World's final a strengthened Greek boat led out and proved too strong for GB, and in the race for the line just two-hundredths of a second separated Poland and GB, with Poland taking silver and GB a creditable bronze.

Hester learnt the cello from the age of 6.  She graduated from York with a degree in Music and qualified to teach secondary school music at Cambridge.   After working for 2 years as Head of Music at The Elvian School, Reading, Hester has taken a career break to row full time.  She currently does freelance work with the Get Set Education programme for LOCOG and runs the Great Britain women and lightweights' choir.

Hester is Lottery Funded through UK Sport.