Laura Callanan

Laura Callanan

Founding Partner

Upstart Co-Lab, United States

Laura Callanan, founding partner of Upstart Co-Lab, was senior deputy chairman of the United States National Endowment for the Arts, leading all grant-making programs, operations, and research before launching Upstart Co-Lab in 2015.
As a consultant with McKinsey & Company’s Social Sector Office, Laura led work on social innovation, sustainable capitalism, and social impact assessment. She previously served as 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 which included two investments in the creative economy: Smithsonian Folkways Records and netomat.
Laura is a board member of GlobalGiving Foundation and Upriver Studios, and a member of the Global Creative Economy Council, supported by the British 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, the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship, and an adjunct professor at the New York University’s Stern School of Business. Laura is a past member of the board of Signature Theatre and the Corporation of Yaddo, and a founding investment committee member and audit committee member for the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Laura has been published and quoted in The New York Times, Financial Times, Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, The Art Newspaper and elsewhere. She is a frequent speaker including at the Global Steering Group on Impact Investing, the Skoll World Forum, SOCAP, Mission Investors Exchange.
After graduating from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs with a Master of Public Administration degree, Laura worked in public finance investment banking serving universities and other large endowed nonprofit organizations on behalf of JP Morgan and Lehman Brothers, and as associate treasurer for the Wallace Foundation. Laura’s undergraduate degree in theater is from Barnard College of Columbia University.