Laura Callanan

Laura served as senior deputy chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, leading all grant-making programs, operations, and research before launching Upstart Co-Lab in 2015. Previously, Laura edited the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s 2015 issue of Community Development Investment Review on the topic of creative placemaking. She was invited to explore the work of artists as social entrepreneurs as a Visiting Scholar to the American Academy in Rome, and as the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellowship. As a consultant with McKinsey & Company’s Social Sector Office, Laura led work on social innovation, sustainable capitalism, and social impact assessment. She served as senior adviser at the United Nations Development Programme, executive director of the Prospect Hill Foundation, associate director at the Rockefeller Foundation, and associate treasurer for the Wallace Foundation. Laura is a director of the Corporation of Yaddo and chair of the board member of GlobalGiving. She is a past member of the board of directors of Signature Theatre, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and Rhizome.org. Laura was a founding investment committee member and audit committee member for the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is the literary executrix for the estate of playwright and novelist Romulus Linney.