Laura Katz

Laura Katz

Area Director

Laura Katz is the area director, senior business consultant, and senior public service and outreach faculty with the UGA SBDC in Athens. She has extensive experience in marketing and business development for both large corporations and small business. She has helped develop, price, and bring to market new products for companies such as Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, and Levi’s. In the second part of her career, she has worked with small business owners implementing business development and marketing plans.

In 2011, Laura joined the UGA Small Business Development Center as a consultant and was promoted to Athens Area Director in 2015. During her tenure she has earned several awards: UGA SBDC Consultant of the Year (2014), ASBDC State Star (2015), UGA SBDC Flewellen Awards for consulting excellence (2013, 2015, 2018, 2020), UGA SBDC Program Innovation of the Year Award (2017) and Senior Business Consultant (2021).

In 2022, Laura achieved the rank of UGA senior Public Service and Outreach Associate faculty, which is comparable to that of professor. Katz is a nationally recognized speaker on marketing, work/life balance and agribusiness. Her program FarmSMART is implemented nationally by the SBDC’s of Alabama, Mississippi, and Missouri in response to the SBA’s Rural Initiative (2018).

Laura enjoys working with business owners, utilizing her education and experience to help transform their businesses.

Education

  • MBA (Marketing), Binghamton University
  • BS (Organization Behavior & Leadership), Binghamton University

Contact

(706) 542-7436
Laura Katz Headshot