Lauren Maillian is a change agent committed to diversity, innovation, equity, and inclusion. She’s an award-winning marketer, prolific investor, advisor, entrepreneur, and board member with a multi-hyphenate career spanning over 15 years. She advised and invested in over 40 startups and her portfolio represents over $5 billion in market capitalization.
Lauren is the Founder and CEO of LMB Group, a strategic marketing and advisory company partnering with brands like Cover Girl. She also started Straight Up and Successful, a women-focused community and professional development platform. Lauren discovers and seizes hidden, profitable value across retail, CPG, lifestyle brands, luxury goods, and finance/FinTech companies via growth, marketing, brand innovation, ESG, digital transformation and partnerships. With a deep understanding of consumer brands and culture, she is a serial entrepreneur of a number of ventures committed to brand building and investment. A pioneer in the tech and funding space, Lauren was the first Black woman to start an early-stage venture capital fund, as a founding partner and managing director at Gen Y Capital Partners. At 19, Lauren became the youngest winery owner in the country, co-founding the internationally recognized Sugarleaf Vineyards.
The former Board Chair of digitalundivided, Lauren took the helm as CEO to evolve and grow the organization to further support women of color entrepreneurs, especially in the wake of the racial reckoning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Lauren was responsible for the transformation of digitalundivided, including the expansion of its programs, research, data and community engagement, catalyzing economic growth for Latina and Black women entrepreneurs and innovators. The mission is to create a greater world in which all women of color own their work and worth. Bilingual in Spanish, Lauren expanded the reach of the organization’s mission and programs across the United States and its territories.