Laura Baum

Background

About Laura Baum

Laura Baum brings strong experience providing leadership, strategic direction, and oversight of small start-up organizations as well as within large established organizations. The founder of an award-winning online community with international reach, Laura is an accomplished innovator with a keen ability to build networks and relationships. She now leads Jewish Learning & Engagement, the largest division of the planning department at Combined Jewish Philanthropies, overseeing a team of ten full-time staff and managing a budget of more than $14 million. Laura is a strategic thinker, a doer, and a network builder. She has experience developing and carrying out strategic plans and marketing strategies for organizations large and small and has cultivated leaders on her teams. Her strong fiscal management, operational, and marketing expertise are matched by her relationship-building and communications skills. She is invited to speak at conferences throughout the world. And, she is a results-oriented fundraiser who has raised major gifts. A dynamic natural leader, Laura has taught and studied leadership at advanced levels. Laura and her work have been recognized on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, in the New York Times, on NPR, and in hundreds of other publications. In 2010, Laura led OurJewishCommunity.org to receive a WOMMY award from the Word of Mouth Marketing Association for the best word of mouth communication program to introduce new products or services; among the other winners that year were Unilever, Coke Zero, and Time Warner. Laura graduated at the top of her class at Yale and then pursued a Master of Arts in Hebrew Letters, rabbinic ordination, and an MBA. She has a strong background and interest in financial oversight and governance within organizations. She’s equally good with numbers and people, and she enjoys sifting through data to find trends and share them with others.