Laura J. Trudeau is the Principal of Trudeau Consulting, LLC, a firm that supports cross-sector coalitions to address urgent community needs. Previously, she held the position at The Kresge Foundation as senior advisor to the president, following 10 years as managing director of Kresge’s Detroit Program. In the latter capacity, she oversaw efforts to activate the foundation’s multifaceted investment framework that fostered green, healthy, active neighborhoods and a vibrant downtown while increasing access to economic opportunity, education, transportation, and arts and culture. She worked nationally with community development grantmakers and practitioners to identify promising initiatives for the redevelopment of older industrial cities and helped strengthen connections between Detroit and other cities to encourage the sharing of innovative strategies.
Signature projects at Kresge during Trudeau’s tenure included the revitalization of Detroit’s East Riverfront and Eastern Market, the M-1 RAIL (QLINE) streetcar on Woodward Avenue that opened in May 2017, establishment of the Kresge Artist Fellows and the Detroit Revitalization Fellows, the Detroit Future City Strategic Framework Plan to improve conditions in neighborhoods, and the Foundation’s involvement in the Fund for Detroit’s Future (Grand Bargain), a foundation collaborative to resolve the City’s bankruptcy filed in 2013.
Trudeau joined Kresge as a program officer in 2001, initially working on the foundation’s national facilities capital challenge grant program. She was instrumental in developing Kresge’s Green Building initiative that ran from 2002 to 2008. Previously, from 1972 to 2001, she worked at what is now JPMorgan Chase in the trust office, commercial banking and public affairs. And as Vice President and regional head for philanthropy and community relations in the Midwest, she oversaw the bank’s grantmaking activity in Detroit and surrounding areas.
She chairs the board of Detroit Future City and is a member of the boards of Invest Detroit, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Pewabic Pottery, Detroit, and Venture North, Traverse City. Her past board and executive committee service includes the Local Initiatives Support Corporation Detroit Advisory Board, Gleaners Community Food Bank and Eastern Market Corporation.
She is a graduate of Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan.
