Donald L. Laurie advises corporations and private equity firms in framing and resolving challenges at the intersection of leadership, growth, and strategy execution

Don is Chief Executive of Oyster International LLC. He works with chief executives and senior management in the development of their leadership agendas. He supports the CEO and senior management team in defining their role, work and value added as an executive team. He brings unique experience and perspective to the development of corporate growth agendas, the building of new growth platforms and strategy execution.

Don leads the Harvard Business School, INSEAD and Oyster International research: The CEO Agenda and Growth. He is a frequent author and co-author in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) including:

• The Work of Leadership, a Harvard Business Review Classic. The Work of Leadership is the best-selling reprint on leadership in the history of HBR. The leadership principles in the article have helped executives, organizations and industries distinguish between the work of leadership and authority and resolution of technical problems versus adaptive challeng.
• Creating New Growth Platforms, provided executives and managers in large global and start-up companies with a disciplined and systematic approach to re-conceive their growth strategies and focus on building new growth platforms to deliver top line growth and greater shareholder value.
• Six Ways to Kill a Growth Initiative focuses on the leadership role of the CEO in improving the potential for successful business building in established corporations and traps to be avoided.

Don is author of The Real Work of Leaders and Venture Catalyst: the five strategies for explosive corporate growth. He is a frequent speaker at corporate management conferences, CEO summits, Business Week Roundtables, and such high-profile venues as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

He is a private investor, business builder and/or Director of a number of early and mid-stage companies including: Up-to-Date, Endeca Technologies, TEI Bioscience, Lazarus Effect, TransEnterix, Semprus Bioscience, Frequency, Amylyx, LumiraDX and others.

He is on the Board of Trustees of St. Benedict’s Prep, Indian River Medical Center and the selection committee of the Distinguished Lecture Series in Vero Beach, FL. He is an active contributor to the work of the Institute for Health Care Improvement and the Honor Foundation which supports Navy SEALs in their transition from ‘warriors’ to the private sector. He served on the selection committee for the USNA and HBR Ethical Leadership Award presented annually at the Leadership Excellence Summit at the United States Naval Academy. He has worked on various strategy related issues with the Naval War College and their Foundation.