Laura Sutphen is the EVP / global head of social purpose at Golin. For more than 25 years, she has worked at the intersection of strategy, innovation, public relations and social good to help companies tell their social impact stories. She has worked for six public relations and advertising firms including Ketchum, Fenton, Hill & Knowlton, and DDB, as well as starting and leading her own agency for more than a decade.
She’s done all sorts of crazy things over her career – from naming and launching that little emergency contraceptive drug called Plan B and bringing it to women around the globe, to traveling to Kenya to film a documentary on microfinance, to getting in a food fight with Henry Rollins and the Beastie Boys in the greenroom at the Tibetan Freedom Festival (for which she did the PR), to launching a Golden Globe award-winning film on racism and redemption for TNT, featuring Angelina Jolie and Gary Sinise.
On the more serious side, she leads the environmental sustainability efforts for Walmart, positioning the retailer as the leading innovator on sustainability leadership, and built Procter & Gamble’s overarching corporate responsibility platform, positioning them as a leader on social and environmental sustainability, including scaling their signature initiative Children’s Safe Drinking Water as a global leader. In 2011, Laura launched the Just Label It!, a national campaign that petitioned the FDA to label GMOs and has counseled many clients on GMO issues. For Warner Bros./DC Entertainment, Laura launched We Can Be Heroes, the largest cause marketing campaign in the company’s history that provided aid to the drought and famine in the Horn of Africa in partnership with three global NGOs. She led a global team on traditional and digital promotion, advertising, media strategy, and celebrity ambassador programming with Anderson Cooper and Daughtry. And with the Environmental Protection Agency, Laura spearheaded consumer and B-2-B media for its ENERGY STAR® and Green Buildings programs. Other client leadership includes taking Netflix on its launch roadshow, internal communications for Pfizer, leading company strategy and PR for Clif Bar & Company, and working with brands including L’oreal, SunRun, Kellogg, General Mills, and Mattel.
She is a graduate of Syracuse University, holding a BS in critical theory and a double minor in speech communication and public relations from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication. She has been a Jivamukti yoga and meditation teacher for more than 20 years, with more than 1,000 hours in yoga philosophy, anatomy and Sanskrit study.