Read our interview with Laura on arts as a force for change.
Laura Callanan is the founding partner of Upstart Co-Lab, a national collaboration connecting artists, impact investors and social entrepreneurs to create more opportunities for artists to deliver social impact at scale. Laura was appointed Senior Deputy Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts in 2014. As Scholar in Residence at UC-Berkeley/Haas School of Business Laura authored three business school case studies featuring artist social entrepreneurs. She was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship and invited as a Visiting Scholar to the American Academy in Rome to continue this work. As a visiting fellow, Laura edited the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s 2015 Community Development Investment Review on the topic of creative placemaking. Laura was previously a consultant with McKinsey & Company, a Senior Adviser at the United Nations Development Programme, Executive Director of The Prospect Hill Foundation, and Associate Director at The Rockefeller Foundation.