Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Candidly. Laurel previously led a global business unit at Google and holds her MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with an undergraduate degree from Texas State University. Laurel has experienced, first hand, the impact of missing out on two decades of compounding interest on wealth while paying down debt, between her and her highly educated mother. She is a subject matter expert on the interplay between the student debt, saving, and retirement savings crisis and has been a key contributor on The Hill, successfully advocating for transformative legislation such as the CARES Act and SECURE 2.0. As a prominent voice in financial technology and student debt solutions, Laurel has been a featured speaker at major industry events including SXSW, NAPA, SPARK, EBRI, and the Milken Institute and her expertise has been widely recognized, appearing in leading publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., Business Insider, and Fortune.
