Laura Faulkner joins the Lab as Director, Strategic Partnerships and Philanthropy. As director, Laura works to expand the organization’s partnership development capacity, developing new concepts that support EDL’s design efforts across colleges, industries, states and regions. Laura also directly engages with partners, bringing expertise and senior project strategy skills as the Lab designs more equitable models toward the future of work. Laura brings a unique set of experiences working at the intersection of education, workforce, data and technology. For 12+ years, Laura has worked on designing solutions aimed at making education and workforce systems more skills-centric, equitable, and data-driven. As the Director of Strategic Partnership and Philanthropy, Laura works to expand the Lab’s strategic partnership capacity, as well as sustain and grow the Lab’s portfolio – with a particular focus on the Digital Transformation work stream. Laura also works closely with the Lab’s program leads to build out compelling concepts and strategies for new projects.

Laura previously served as the Director of Talent Sector Strategy at Brighthive, a B-Corp that helps organizations share data to achieve common goals. Within this role, Laura led the company’s go-to-market strategy for the workforce and higher education sectors, drove business development, and led sector partnerships. Laura also led a range of complex client engagements for data collaboration projects within the workforce, post-secondary education, and skills domains. Previously as Partnership Solutions Lead at Credential Engine, Laura developed partnerships with industry associations, employers, and community-based organizations to improve data quality and promote credential transparency. Laura also served as a Community Engagement Manager at Opportunity@Work, where she promoted skills-based hiring strategies and designed playbooks and toolkits for communities to better support economic mobility for individual with skills acquired through non-traditional paths. Laura holds a BA in Political Science and an MPA from Clark University in Massachusetts.

Laura lives in Baltimore County with her husband, daughter, and two pit-mix dogs. When she’s not working, you can find her out and about in Baltimore, watching old Law and Order episodes, or experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen.