Founding PartnerUpstart Co-Lab
Laura Callanan, founding partner of Upstart Co-Lab, is disrupting how creativity is funded by connecting impact investing to the creative economy. Previously senior deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts; a consultant with McKinsey & Company’s Social Sector Office; senior adviser at the United Nations Development Programme; executive director of the Prospect Hill Foundation; and associate director at the Rockefeller Foundation where, in addition to her responsibilities managing the endowment, she co-led the Foundation’s first impact investing efforts. Laura is a board member of GlobalGiving Foundation and Upriver Studios, and a member of the British Council Global Creative Economy Council. She has been a visiting fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, a scholar-in-residence at UC-Berkeley/Haas School of Business, a visiting scholar to the American Academy in Rome, and the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship.