Laura Conn

Laura Conn is an economic development professional who specializes in expanding access to finance and investment to the agriculture sector, ranging from catalytic grant funds to impact investing to village-level savings and loan associations. Laura started her career in project management of large-scale USAID-, USDA-, and privately funded agricultural development programs in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. Working with teams from around the world, she provided operational support to poverty reduction and economic growth programs and grant funds intervening in the agricultural sector.

Laura later shifted into technical advisory roles, specializing in designing and implementing catalytic investment initiatives to promote access and adoption of agricultural finance in frontier markets. Using customized grant funding, Laura incentivized private sector actors, including agribusinesses, business advisory services, and financial service providers, to adopt more inclusive yet profitable products and services. Through these grant incentive programs, businesses were able to build the evidence base for adopting more sustainable and accessible offerings to the public, such as crop insurance products for smallholder farmers in Ghana and affordable lending products for agribusinesses in Zambia.

Hailing from the North Country, Laura is a graduate of St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY and holds a Master of Arts in International Affairs (Int’l Development) from the George Washington University in Washington, DC. Having worked for many years in francophone West Africa and Haiti, she has working proficiency in French and limited working proficiency in Spanish.