Laura Close | CEO & 2x Founder | Executive Career Strategy & AI Tech Entrepreneur $7.4M raised

Laura Close is the CEO of Close Cohen and a serial entrepreneur and career strategist who successfully pitched and raised $7.4M in Venture Capital across Silicon Valley, Chicago, and Seattle. As Co-founder of Included, an AI-native people analytics platform, she drove customer acquisition for enterprise software contracts that led to hockey stick growth for the company.

A featured AI speaker and thinker, Laura is leading the AI upskilling of Close Cohen. Her viral posts and thought leadership on AI have been featured by The Wall Street Journal, and she was flown out to speak at AWS re:Invent on the role of GenAI in the workplace.

Laura has quarterbacked CFO, CPO, and CTO candidacies and negotiations at F500 companies such as Cisco and Intel, as well as junior executive application cycles at Nvidia and other Magnificent 7 companies. She applies a background in high stakes political strategy to empower corporate executives, building Close Cohen into a trusted career accelerator for C-suite leaders.

Leveraging early career, expert level campaign strategy mastery in the political sector, Laura built Close Cohen around a proprietary methodology designed for executive victory. This approach is rooted in strategy and customer-centricity, treating every career pivot as a targeted campaign to capture the market correctly. Close Cohen’s deliverables are a tightly constructed, data-informed strategy that ensures every variable from executive messaging and negotiation to market positioning, is intentionally designed resulting in rapid, high value outcomes for C suite leaders and founders navigating critical junctures.

“A winning career strategy is akin to a successful political campaign: intentional, multi-threaded, data-informed, and highly persuasive. Whether you are a founder navigating high-stakes revenue challenges or an executive strategizing your next move, we provide the discipline and messaging required to secure your victory.”