President and Chief Operations Officer

Laura Gardner serves as President and Chief Operating Officer at Joni and Friends. She has been with the ministry for more than a decade providing fiduciary oversight, departmental integration, and strategic planning through various senior management positions, including Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for the past five years. Laura holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Troy University and has received certification from the Harvard Business School Executive Education in Driving Nonprofit Performance and Innovation. Before joining Joni and Friends, Laura founded her own business, The Protocol Institute, LLC, where she developed world-class eLearning courses on character education, etiquette, and protocol. She was the first to introduce such tools for helping to instill these qualities in young people and wrote extensively on the topic for national publications. Laura currently serves as the Chairman of the Joni and Friends Foundation and Chairman of the Christian Leadership Alliance.