Laura Yaeger

Laura is a founding member and leader of Huron’s higher education business and has been consulting in the higher education and healthcare industries for more than 25 years. She has worked as a strategic business adviser to more than 50 premier universities, academic health centers, healthcare organizations and other nonprofit research institutes.

About Laura

Laura specializes in helping large research universities, university systems and academic health centers become better positioned to achieve strategic and financial goals, manage risk and prepare for the future. This includes areas as diverse as strategic and financial planning, research and student lifecycle management, organizational and service delivery design, operational performance improvement and enterprise risk management.

Throughout her career, Laura has:

• Advised numerous colleges and universities, with budgets ranging from $100 million to $5 billion, to identify and implement opportunities to improve organizational efficiency, reduce costs and increase revenue. These assessments have spanned across all major operating functions, including budget, finance, facilities, human resources, information technology, research and student lifecycle support services.
• Established a service line dedicated to providing comprehensive student lifecycle services and solutions to Huron’s clients, including strategy, organization design, business process improvement and technology.
• Helped universities and academic health centers transform their research enterprise support environment to improve service, optimize cost reimbursement and mitigate compliance risk.
• Led engagements with both public and private colleges and universities, conducting enterprise risk assessments and assisting with implementing organizational and operational improvements to mitigate risk.

Laura is a frequent speaker at conferences sponsored by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA). She was recognized as one of the Top 25 Consultants by Consulting Magazine in 2015 in the excellence in leadership category.

Since 2011, Laura has served as an executive board member for the Children's Research Fund at Lurie Children's Hospital. In this role, she is responsible for providing leadership for the Lurie Children's Research Fund affinity group program, which helps build awareness of the impact that basic science, clinical and community health-based research programs have on patient outcomes and the community.

Prior to joining Huron, Laura was a partner and founding member of the higher education consulting practice of Arthur Andersen LLP.

Laura holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.