I hold the space.
You carry the culture.
What would change if people in your organization felt like they could be open and honest in the room instead of in the hallway afterward?
I help leaders at associations, foundations, and service-oriented organizations build the spaces where people gather, the skills that carry culture forward, and the structures that make it grow.
Every organization has a culture.
You can build yours on purpose.
I don't have a five-step system to build culture.
(psst... nobody does!)
What I do have is a way of seeing the environment culture actually grows in, and the three parts of it worth tending:
Space
The rooms where people gather. The conditions for honest conversation, real engagement, and sustainable outcomes.
Skills
Leadership moved form theory into daily practice. The behaviors that carry culture forward at every level.
Structures
The systems, expectations, and agreements that hold culture, even when the people change. The bedrock that turns good intentions into how things actually get done.
Together they make the culture container: the environment your culture grows in.
I help you build it. You carry it.
"Laura has a keen ability to understand the big picture view of everything that’s going on and help me drill down to what’s most important. She has helped me increase my confidence when doing things outside of my comfort zone, which has led to improved communication in the organization, more accountability on my senior team, and a consistent focus on our strategic priorities. I truly value her positive attitude and the consistency of our work together."
I've spent 15+ years helping leaders work through their most complex culture challenges.
I work with associations, foundations, and service-oriented organizations doing mission-critical work for people who can't afford for them to get it wrong. It usually starts with me facilitating a room — a board retreat, an annual planning day — and grows into the deeper culture work from there.
Before consulting, I was an Army officer. I'm also a registered dietitian. Which is really to say I've spent my whole career on behavior change: why people do what they do, and what it takes to do something different.
I'm your outside person. I can name the thing an insider can't say without it costing them. And that's usually what moves the work.
LET’S WORK TOGETHER
Facilitation is how we start.
Culture is where it goes.
We begin in a space, like a retreat, a planning day, a workshop. Over time, the work moves into the skills your leaders practice and the structures that hold it all together.
Space
Facilitation
Where culture shows up first.
Whether you need to facilitate high-impact meetings, plan a retreat that fosters connection, or run a team-building session that strengthens collaboration, I design the space so each conversation feeds into the next, all leading towards your specific outcomes.
I based my work in appreciative inquiry, building from what's already working rather than spending the day litigating what's broken.
In the room, I'm the outside person, which means I can push: name what I'm seeing, ask the question everyone's avoiding, notice the person holding something back and make space for them to say it. That's usually where the real shift happens.
"When she facilitates, I get to experience meetings and trainings just like my team members. I value that opportunity because as someone who has facilitated many retreats and meetings, I know that it’s impossible to fully participate when I also have to facilitate. One thing I love is that when the meeting is over, the relationship doesn’t end. She works with us to ensure we have what we need to move forward - a summary of the meeting, action items, and a follow-up plan. She’s there to help us succeed."
Skills
Leadership development
Leadership as ongoing practice.
Real change is a practice, built over time. So even my standalone sessions are designed to be used the next day. They're interactive and conversation-driven, closer to a facilitated room than a lecture, and built around what your team is actually wrestling with.
The sessions teams ask for most cluster around what culture actually runs on:
- The conversations teams avoid: Accountability and difficult conversations, active listening, generative communication
- Coaching instead of managing: Helping leaders grow their people rather than solving everything for them
- Leading through change: Steadying a team through a transition when no one can fully explain what's next
- The self-awareness underneath it all: Emotional intelligence and leading from strengths
“Laura’s work calls leaders to step beyond the everyday status quo and embrace a higher, broader perspective—one that aligns with their personal values, authentic communication style, and sense of self. She helps leaders see not only their teams and workplace cultures but the larger world they influence. In doing so, Laura elevates leadership as a whole by empowering individual leaders to grow, shift, and evolve.”
Structures
Organizational design
The part that makes the rest hold.
Almost no one comes to me asking for organizational design first. They come for a retreat, or some leadership work. But if we keep working together, this is often where it goes, because a great meeting and a sharper leadership team still leak if the structures underneath them don't hold.
Structures are the bedrock: the systems, expectations, and agreements that keep a culture steady for years.