Hi, I'm Laura. Some people call me LC.

👋🏼 I’m a strategic insights-based user experience leader that loves leading diverse, tenacious, human-centered teams that deeply understand human behavior to help create better user experiences and innovative product solutions.

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Making the world a better place through technology, storytelling and impactful experiences is where my passion lies and people are at the center of it all.

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I love being in the work as much as I love leading teams with 15+ years of experience as an IC and 9 years of experience as a people leader.

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Since a close family member passed, whom I was the primary caregiver to, I’ve been focused on the direction of my career and the skills I want to develop. This includes the teams I want to work with, the industries I wish to acquire expertise in, and the products I aspire to help build.

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My career hasn’t been a straight line but there is a consistent thread. The impact the team had, the way teams collaborated, the type of leaders I grew alongside and a clear mission. 

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The thing is, I make the biggest impact when I am putting systems in place that help others thrive — whether it be building a content management system for editors, helping interior designers spend their time doing what they love or rethinking the refugee admissions process — my goal is removing friction in the system through technology and accessible design.

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This thread is consistent with my operational approach. If you treat your team like a product, constantly elevating and iterating on ways of working to increase employee engagement and delivery excellence, your team will grow along with the impact it has. 

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As a researcher, designer and product strategist, I’ve helped teams: 

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• Create a shared understanding of who they are designing for that transcends individual business silos, illuminating how each interaction with the product or brand contributes to a person’s holistic view of how they are supported and valued as a customer.
• Design holistic end-to-end experiences informed by data, research and empathy; and, building systems for gathering, analyzing and shining light on actionable insights that inform the customer experience across every touch point.
• Making safe spaces for change agents to think innovatively and thoughtfully about the future products, services and processes.
• Find solutions to complex, ambiguous problems – and then create a path to execute. 

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My Career Journey

In the summer months following undergrad, I landed my dream job as a journalist. Finally, I was seeing the results from years of late nights and hangovers. 
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Rewind. That didn’t happen.
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Reality was, after undergrad, I was back working where I was working before college ~ at a restaurant during busy shifts and as a retail manager when I wasn’t working at the restaurant. 
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Then, one night, I a professor at the University of Memphis called me. The professor said a graduate assistant dropped from their fall semester. If I was interested, I could attend the University of Memphis the next semester. Tuition would be fully paid. The university would also pay me $1000 a month if I worked 20 hours a week at the school. My job would be to teach undergrads digital journalism, or how to tell stories online. 
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I had no idea how the professor got my phone number. What I did know was I needed to learn more about telling stories online. Every job post required knowledge of html at the time. Junior reporters were now online producers or digital content creators. Working at a restaurant and managing a retail store was not going to help me get my dream job. Going back to school was top of mind already. 
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It was as if the professor, Dr. Rick Fisher, reached out and pulled me in the right direction. 
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The professor gave me a huge hug when I arrived for a 48 hour campus visit. Can you imagine someone hugging you when you first meet?! It was strange then, even stranger to think about today.
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It’s important to first understand where you’ve been to understand where you are going.
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Going to Memphis gave me the opportunity to learn from many great leaders that were now sharing their expertise as teachers. It also gave me the opportunity to teach web design early in my career. 
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The masters program gave me valuable business skills through its MBA partnership as well. Most importantly though, this was the first of many leaps of faith I took. I went to Memphis for 48 hours before packing my car and moving there. It gave me the confidence I needed to do this again and again.

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Working at The Washington Post was my dream job as a kid. I started at The Washington Post as a digital producer at age 23 right after graduate school thanks to my decision to go to graduate school. It wasn’t supposed to happen at age 23!!

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This left me open to a new dream.

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Being a journalist wasn't the end game. Helping people live better lives through impactful experiences was. I needed to do this by first understanding people's needs, behaviors and goals and then I could create experiences that were impactful.

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Just like my trip to Memphis, I charged towards the dream to be a UX designer with tenacity and curiosity. Putting my learner hat back on, I left my job at The Washington Post to join at team of strategists with diverse backgrounds at Gannett, owner of USA Today and 100+ local newspapers and broadcast stations. Our primary goal was to understand and create concepts that visualized the future of storytelling across platforms. Here, I began my UX design journey, partnering with IDEO to learn human-centered design, then teach it to as many people as possible at the company in order that we reimagine the future of news with a user-centric approach.
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My ability to thrive in uncertainty and unknown territory has opened so many doors. I have a lifetime of great leaders to thank for letting me learn alongside them, starting with Dr. Fischer.
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People inspire me. 
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People are at the center of everything I do.