Laura Barkan

Project Founder & Director, Nutrition Program

Laura Barkan is a leadership consultant and a dedicated non-profit volunteer who became involved with OCI in 2012. After an initial visit to Koru, Laura and her family launched a lunch program for the Menara School that now serves 600 children a healthy daily lunch. The impact of the lunch program has led to OCI’s focus on combining nutrition with education and teacher training at the schools OCI supports. Laura travels to the school regularly to work with the students and teachers and is committed to helping OCI enhance learning and opportunity in Kenya.

For nearly 20 years, Laura has worked with the leadership of large public companies – as well as individuals seeking new insights – to help them learn how to change, lead and communicate more effectively.  Laura currently partners with The Rock Center at Harvard Business School to design entrepreneur-to-entrepreneur learning opportunities and Women Unlimited Inc. by running leadership development workshops for high potential women.

Laura also enjoys volunteering at The Park School in Brookline, MA, where her children attend, and she will be President of the Parents’ Association in Fall, 2016.  Laura’s has two high-energy boys (Jacob age 13 and Oliver age 11), a wonderful husband John (all who have traveled to Koru twice to help OCI) and an even higher energy Portuguese water dog puppy, Otis.