Laura Gross is CDP’s first director of people, culture and belonging. In her role, Laura oversees employee engagement, employee relations, talent development and change management initiatives related to organizational culture and belonging, ensuring all employees feel appreciated, respected and connected to CDP’s mission, values and culture. This includes promoting racial and intersectional equity initiatives across the organization and ensuring that all operational practices, policies and programs are equity centered.
Laura is a purpose-driven leader with extensive experience in nonprofit management and operations and a demonstrated track record of building a people-centric organizational culture. She is a SHRM certified practitioner who has published articles on workplace culture and has been awarded for her work as a culture innovator. She brings a global perspective to HR strategy as an interculturalist with many years of academic and professional experience abroad.
Laura holds a bachelor’s and master’s in French and has worked for the French Ministry of Education, Cultural Services of the French Embassy, and Ciné-Tamaris, the film production company of the legendary New Wave filmmaker Agnès Varda in Paris.
Before joining CDP, Laura leveraged her intercultural and skills as the senior director of administration, people & culture at the international exchange organization Cultural Vistas in Washington, D.C. and Berlin, Germany. At Cultural Vistas, Laura honed her skills in international workplace culture development, leadership training, agile project management and ICDEI (intercultural competence, diversity, equity and inclusion).
She is also active in the choral music community, putting her degree in music to good use. She first moved to D.C. to spend four years as the director of operations at the Children’s Chorus of Washington and loved the community so much that she then spent six years on their board of directors. She currently sings with the Grammy award-winning Washington Chorus, has served in leadership roles on their chorus council, participated in their domestic and international performance trips, and has sung with them under various world-renowned conductors in famous concert halls around the world.
Laura feels equally at home in both rural Iowa and Paris, France. While she has deep ties to the Midwest, she now lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and two cats. When she’s not working, you can find Laura singing, cycling or shopping at a local market.