Laura Horak Email & Phone Number

San Francisco, Ca, Us

Leveraged experience as a beta tester, startup advisor, content producer, community builder and ‘crowdfunding junkie’ to create a consultancy. Acquired over 50 clients through referrals and raised over $15 million in funding and grants. Projects include: SpaceVR, Femsplain, CONBODY, Fitlot, BetaNYC, AloeBud and the "Undocumented & Unafraid" immigration reform campaign.

Led and executed inaugural HackCT (Northeastern Connecticut transportation) hackathon aimed at fostering innovative solutions for public transit challenges in the region, attracting over 100 participants across 3 days, featuring notable speakers such as Kyle Daigle, COO of GitHub, and State Senator Mae Flexer.Responsible for building hackathon from concept to reality, managing a team and logistics, formulating strategies for community growth, offline and online engagement, stakeholder outreach, media storytelling to raise awareness and support for the transportation initiatives.Established and nurtured a 50+ member online community on Discord, fostering ongoing conversations and collaboration among industry professionals, government representatives, and technology leaders from organizations such as the US Census Bureau, GitHub, and UConn.Facilitated ideation sessions and ‘Shark Tank’ style evaluations of solutions by industry experts, leading to the development of seven GitHub project repositories built to solve for each challenge presented in the region’s transportation system.

Park City, Ut, Us

Member of award-winning ski school for adults and children, taught lessons that were customized to our guests based on their individual abilities, ages and goals.

San Francisco, Us

Worked with the marketing team on community building and storytelling efforts to connect governments with pro bono technologists skilled in data, design, comms and ops for COVID-19 rapid response. Initiatives include Brunch & Learns, Happy Hours, Show & Tells, various newsletters and launching Open Re/Source, a virtual panel series with What Works Cities, ELGL and the National League of Cities.

San Francisco, Ca, Us

Worked with CEO of Product Hunt to launch Today in Tech, a product that leverages AngelList’s network to connect, inform and inspire the community. Responsible for the strategy and execution of the beta test (on and offline): sourcing the initial group of testers, liaising with the technical team developing the product, devising a content strategy and establishing processes that scale for the public release. Assisted the Venture team with their efforts to deepen AngelList’s presence in the Canadian market and foster revenue growth. Drove initiatives to build community internally among AngelList employees, including monthly events and designing hackathons to further include remote staff.

San Francisco, Ca, Us

Responsible for managing a manufacturing intellectual property (IP) transfer, executing on the Swyft, SNBC & Yaret tripartite agreement. Responsibilities included interfacing with the Chinese R&D team to hand off all IP deliverables to SNBC including firmware, debugging tools and assembly drawings for the X2 robotic system.

San Francisco, Ca, Us

Selected to spearhead StartupBus Americas 2016, an annual competition (part hackathon, part road trip) designed to empower the tech community, challenging top tier talent to hop on a bus and conceive, build and launch a startup in 72 hours.Themed buses from 6 cities converged in Colorado to pitch during Boulder Startup Week – solving specific challenges across a variety of industries, creating the first interdisciplinary event of its kind. Partners included Techstars' Startup Week, BBVA, Cisco, Uber, Knight Foundation & Burton D. Morgan Foundation.Responsible for event strategy, partnerships and end-to-end execution. Tasks include managing logistics and production, venue sourcing, sponsorships, budget tracking, recruiting and re-branding.

Launched a nationwide digital hotline for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign where voters could ask questions via Twitter, Facebook and text. Coordinated over 100 staffers, volunteers and voting rights lawyers, responsible for responding to over 120,000 interactions in a week.Collaborated with the legal and Latino departments to translate all content into Spanish.

Worked with the CEO to develop and implement startup competitions and a mentorship hub for the New York and Milan Summits in partnership with W Magazine, Westfield and ePITTI.com. Developed and implemented the DKNY Challenge (http://ow.ly/10bQXJ) and The Fashion Pitch (http://ow.ly/10bRHW), competitions that give emerging startups the chance to develop partnerships with iconic brands. Conceptualized the program, sourced and vetted applicants, mentored finalists on pitch development and coordinated logistics.Managed the New York Summit’s Mentorship Hub, organizing over 150 meetings pairing startups with mentors from venture capital, fashion, retail and tech industries designed to provide candid feedback and actionable advice to catalyze industry innovation.

San Francisco, Ca, Us

Lead the UK bus for the StartupBus Europe 2015 competition, culminating on stage at Pirate Summit in Cologne. Mentored 30 innovators on the road, stopping in tech hubs in 10 cities across 5 countries in 3 days. Partners included British Airways, Incubus London and Ford. (http://ow.ly/10dvw5)Responsible for sourcing sponsorships, managing recruiting, developing partnerships and operating all travel logistics, within 2 months.

New York, Ny, Us

Worked with the CEO and President to introduce an early stage marketing strategy plan, implement test core activities (including events to connect engineers and entrepreneurs), source high caliber curriculum developers, explore brand presence options, and to build a narrative around Thinkful on social channels.Fostered internal communication to develop a company culture, helping departments and executives identify needs and talents within the Thinkful community. Initiatives included: producing a weekly video series, leveraging partnerships, cultivating influencers, assisting with 9 course launches, hosting weekly and educational events, developing a SXSW panel, generating an internal culture blog, and empowering mentors (created how-to guides, distributed swag).

Vancouver, Bc, Ca

First US-hire. Worked with VP Community to plan and execute community-building programs and activities for specific geographic regions and campuses in North and South America. Tasks included: planning programs and incentives, identifying key regions/campuses, seeking and recruiting brand ambassadors, creating and nurturing a Community Manager Advisory Council, exploring high-value partnerships, fielding requests to various departments, participating in conversations with users, organizing and promoting events (both user-created and official) and representing the company at various events.

London , Co

Member of the Digital SWAT team and Innovation Committee. Designed and implemented an online recruiting platform using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Craigslist developed to attract highly engaged, first-time research participants. Managed all of the operational aspects of the targeting process, including liaising with vendors on project needs, setting up the landing pages, programming surveys, creating and placing ads using social media, selecting and scheduling respondents. Conducted competitive analysis of marketing research and consulting firms.Participated in workshops and seminars in the digital, social media and multicultural spaces such as WPP/Kantar’s Online Video Summit, ad:tech, Social Media Week, Internet Week, and Advertising Week.

London , Co

Supported qualitative and quantitative Client Marketing teams in designing and writing proposals and presentations, interacting with clients to determine project viability, working with Project Management teams and moderators to select optimal research design. Role required strong sense of prioritization by fielding a myriad of marketing requests from management, moderators, and PMs. Designed and implemented proposal, capabilities and presentation templates. Leveraged experience in creating video deliverables for proposals and client studies to assist in developing standardized video process and output. Clients included Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Yahoo, Diageo, Nike, Oppenheimer Funds, McDonald’s, Lexus, Starbucks, PepsiCo, American Express and Pfizer.

Supported Senior Project Managers in directing qualitative research projects both domestically and the UK, India, Mexico, Canada, Japan and China, among other countries. Served as a liaison between the client and moderators and managed all fieldwork related details, including overseeing recruitment, monitoring and approving facility charges. Participated in the development of a new online qualitative / quantitative technique able to capture a larger respondent sample more efficiently for focus group research.Interacted with clients and assisted in determining the best research design for Chanel, Reckitt-Benckiser, Tommy Hilfiger, Schwan’s, Wendy’s, Brown-Forman, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and Unilever.

Supported the New Client Services division. Designed templates in Word, developed proposals in PowerPoint, edited images with Photoshop, interpreted and reformatted data in Excel, performed background research on corporations, updated fact sheets and case studies, in addition to video and audio editing. Worked on a new initiative with the head of the Multicultural division to gain further insight into the Hispanic teen sector.

London , Co

Assisted in editing copy for marketing publications, pamphlets, and company newsletters. Aided in organizing press and marketing material for the Advertising Research Foundation’s Marketing Conference.

Washington, Dc, Us

Projects included research on alternative transportation systems in different countries, displaying focus group data on consumer credit approval processes, as well as preparing briefings, interpreting and analyzing press reports for public relations clients including the launch of Bogotá's world renown TransMilenio.

Worked in the Governmental and Legislative Affairs Group, responsible for monitoring legislative processes and lobbying on behalf of UVPA’s clients such as Microsoft and Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar.

Ba, Majors: International Political Economy, Communications & Media; Minor: Media, Society & Culture

Education record

Education record

Education record

Education record