Our Authors

Nicole Lapin is the New York Times bestselling author of Rich Bitch: A Simple 12-Step Plan for Getting Your Financial Life Together . . .Finally and Boss Bitch: A Simple 12-Step Plan to Take Charge of Your Career. Nicole is no stranger to breaking down complex business principles for all to understand, utilizing her signature sassy style. From anchoring business shows on network television, including on CNBC, Bloomberg and CNN, to contributing money reports to TODAY and MSNBC, Nicole has a long history with speaking the language of money fluently, and using that language to empower an entire generation of women to take control of their lives and their finances.

Star of the CW’s business competition reality show Hatched, Nicole helps a fresh wave of entrepreneurs to get their businesses off the ground with smart advice and actionable feedback on their products. She was the first woman to be voted “Money Expert of The Year” and Redbook magazine’s first-ever monthly money columnist. Nicole graduated as valedictorian from Northwestern University.

Matthew D. LaPlante is an associate professor of journalism at Utah State University, where he teaches news reporting, narrative non-fiction writing, and crisis reporting. He has reported from more than a dozen nations, including Iraq, Cuba, Ethiopia, and El Salvador, and his work has appeared in Washington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, CNN.com, and numerous other publications. LaPlante is the author of Superlative: The Biology of Extremes and cowriter of several books on the intersection of scientific discovery and society.

Justine Larbalestier is a Sydney-born researcher and writer. She has written a radio show about the end of relationships, a short film about the Midas legend, and extensively on American science fiction culture, particularly in the ’40s and ’50s as well as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Her first book is The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction ( Wesleyan University Press, 2002).

Gretchen Moran Laskas is an eighth-generation West Virginian, the setting for her first novel, The Midwife’s Tale. Her young adult novel The Miner’s Daughter, about the coal camps of West Virginia in the Great Depression, will be published by Simon and Schuster in 2007. Her short fiction has been published in numerous literary magazines, including Salt Hill, Pleiades and Mobius, and is included in the anthology American Girls about Town. Laskas now lives in Virginia with her husband and son. The Midwife’s Tale has won Appalachian Book of the Year, the Weatherford Award for Fiction, for outstanding contribution to Appalachia, and has been nominated for Southeastern Booksellers Book of the Year and the Virginia Library Award. It also received a Library Journal starred review and was selected as a “Must Read” by Working Mother Magazine and was a Featured Alternate Selection of the Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club.

Carolina Lasso is the author of The Path to Flourishing, founder of Plenari.co, and the creator of the PlenaMente podcast. She served as the Global Head of Marketing at SIY Global and is a certified Search Inside Yourself teacher. She’s passionate about creating practical tools to help organizations and individuals align with their purpose and flourish, by combining her business background with her experience as a personal development teacher. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and an MBA from New York University, specializing in marketing and finance. She worked as a marketing leader at Google, American Express, and Telemundo/ZGS. Carolina is a certified Life Purpose Coach, speaker, certified mindfulness facilitator, marketing instructor, consultant, and bilingual meditation narrator. She enjoys oil painting, dancing, visiting her family in her native Colombia, and discovering new places around the world.

Paul Laudicina is the founder of the Global Business Policy Council, a specialized strategic advisory services unit within Kearney, to help senior leaders in business, government, and civil society rise to the challenge of navigating in a transformed world. A quarter-century later, the Council is one of the world’s best-known and most highly-regarded private-sector think tanks.

A graduate of the University of Chicago in political science and government, he is the Vice Chancellor of the International Academy of Management and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Paul is also a CEO Coach working with Korn Ferry, the world’s largest executive search, human resources, and leadership development firm, through which he actively mentors a rising generation of CEOs.

Paul has also remained politically active throughout his career. As a close advisor to Joe Biden and the Biden campaign, he was “in the trenches” from the snowy beginning in Iowa as he will be through the 2020 Democratic National Convention as a member of the Platform Committee. When not on an airplane, he divides his time between Scottsdale, Arizona, and Santa Fe, New Mexico; his Kearney office in the Washington, DC area; and client sites and podiums across five continents.

Jacqueline Laurita, one of the original cast members on Real Housewives of New Jersey, is a former cosmetologist in Las Vegas turned full-time stay-at-home New Jersey mom. Her husband Chris, brother of Caroline and Dina Manzo, owns a wholesale apparel business. Jacqueline has three children and always puts her family first. As a Warrior Mom, her mission is not only to recover her youngest son, Nicholas, from Autism, but also to help many other families by becoming an active advocate in the Autism community. Aside from spending time with her family, Jacqueline continues her passion and career in the beauty industry as an owner of a beauty Medspa in Oakland, N.J.