Complexity of Leadership and Anti-Human Trafficking: Laura Parker
CEO of The Exodus Road | Author and speaker on sustainable, integrated leadership | Proving it’s possible to lead well at work, love well at home, and not lose yourself.
Laura Parker is Co-Founder and CEO of The Exodus Road, a global anti-trafficking organization operating in the U.S. and internationally. Over the past fifteen years, she has helped grow the organization from a startup in Thailand into a multi-million-dollar nonprofit with cross-cultural teams across Southeast Asia and Latin America. She became CEO in 2021 after serving in key leadership roles across marketing, communications, and executive leadership.
Having lived internationally for eight years and led teams in high-security environments, Laura brings rare credibility to conversations about leadership under pressure. Her work centers on sustainable, integrated leadership—the belief that the same principles that create healthy organizational culture also foster healthy marriages, sustainable careers, and personal wellbeing. She lives in Colorado with her husband, Matt Parker, and their three children.
WHAT SHE SPEAKS ABOUT Lead from the Inside Out: Self-Aware Leadership as Competitive Advantage The Whole Leader: Showing Up Fully at Work, Home, and for Yourself Leading the Impossible: Building Global Organizations Under Pressure Digital Exploitation and Online Safety: Protecting Children in a Connected World
Laura also helped create and advance Influenced, a digital safety curriculum for families and schools. With child exploitation increasingly beginning online, the program offers parent courses, teen programs, and certification training for educators to help protect children in a connected world.
WHAT MAKES HER DIFFERENT Laura tests leadership principles in real life—while building a global organization, sustaining a long-term marriage, raising teenagers, and protecting her own wellbeing. She does not just teach sustainable leadership; she demonstrates what it looks like. Event planners value her honesty about struggle, her credibility around solutions, and her practical insight on leading internationally, preventing burnout, and building healthy culture.
“While I've had a heartbreaking front-line look at the darkest things that human beings can do to one another, I also have had a front-row seat to the bravery and perseverance of the people we get to work alongside and empower.”