Lauren McCullough
by Alex Paoletti ’20
For the past few years, Lauren McCullough ’12 has worked for NC IDEA, a nonprofit organization that guides entrepreneurs towards successful companies. She managed the programming for NC IDEA LABS, as well as NC IDEA SOAR, a group designed to tackle problems specific to female entrepreneurship.
McCullough is now involved with a group she co-founded, Jaden PèpLa, a nonprofit that operates in central Haiti. The group’s goal is to eliminate hunger and malnutrition in the area. The group works to achieve this by growing and supplying food, as well as providing agricultural and nutritional educations to local farmers and students. Starting next year, it will begin manufacturing moringa, a plant packed with nutritional value, in hopes of providing an affordable supply chain of moringa products.
Currently, McCullough is shifting her schedule to spend more time with startup companies, something she has done since her time with TechGROWTH Ohio as a graduate assistant at OHIO.
“I found a passion for the startup community because of its ability to quickly address large problems and the pace in which the community functions,” she said.
She recently founded Build. Measure. Impact., a company that works to support businesses in the beginning stages of growth.
McCullough earned a B.A. in Sociology-Criminology with a minor in Political Science from the College of Arts & Sciences at Ohio University, as well as a Certificate in War and Peace, followed in 2014 by a Master of Public Administration from the George Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at OHIO.
Her OHIO Experience
McCullough said she feels her time completing an Arts & Sciences degree at Ohio University has made her more adaptable.
“We were taught to learn better, think better, and ask better questions, which is really the key to any young company,” she said.
McCullough’s first experience working internationally was through OHIO, when she spent a summer in Kampala at the U.S. State Department. While she discovered the federal government was not for her, the experience fostered a love for economic development, as well as work in countries in need of resources.
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