Meet Jackie Lavorgna

Meet Jackie

Jackie Lavorgna is a strategist, writer, and runner based in Manchester, New Hampshire.

She is the founder of Lavorgna Strategy Studio, a consultancy specializing in strategic foresight and strategic planning for mission-driven nonprofits and higher education institutions. As part of this work, Jackie authors Strategy Stories on Substack, which is dedicated to signal scanning and strategic frameworks for curious leaders. She holds a PhD in Business with a focus in strategic management, a Strategic Management Professional certification from the International Association of Strategy Professionals, and foresight practitioner credentials from the Institute for the Future and the University of Houston. She also teaches in the Hutton School of Business at the University of the Cumberlands as an adjunct faculty member.

Before launching her consultancy, Jackie spent nearly a decade at Southern New Hampshire University, where she facilitated two consecutive enterprise-wide strategic plans engaging hundreds of stakeholders. Earlier in her career, she worked as an immigration law paralegal supporting couples and families navigating family-based immigration pathways, an experience that shaped her belief that good strategy is inseparable from human stakes.

Jackie's work sits at the intersection of planning and uncertainty, focused on helping organizations build the capacity to adapt, not just the plans to execute. She brings that same lens to her own life, including a years-long journey from beginner runner to marathon finisher, and the unexpected strategic education that came with a celiac diagnosis along the way.

Q&A

Why do you believe people need to hear your talk? I believe that people need to hear my talk because we are all experiencing different amounts of disruption, unforeseen challenges and obstacles, and finding a way to navigate them with confidence and direction and clarity is really critical. 

What are three words you use to describe your talk? Uplifting, strategic, and motivational. 

What does community here in New Hampshire mean to you? Community here in New Hampshire to me means bringing together all of the different constellation pieces of our ecosystem from our city areas, our lakes region, the way mountains, the seacoast where I grew up, and New Hampshire is a really unique space where you see all of those elements come together into one really unique vibrant community. 

What made you want to be a part of TEDxAM? My idea for wanting to be a part of TEDxAM originally started about eight years ago when I saw one of my colleagues when I worked at Southern Hampshire University, Dr. Shanita Williams, give her TED talk on processing feedback with a strainer instead of a sponge.

And that metaphor really stuck with me first and foremost because it's really good advice, but secondly because it made this idea of speaking at a TEDx event something that wasn't just like other people do that idea, but something that someone that I actually knew in real life had done and it became this like achievable concept.

It really inspired me and really stayed on my list of things that would be amazing to do someday that felt approachable, which is like a “not yet.” And then this year, I decided what if it was just here?

What do you hope audiences take away after hearing your talk? I hope that after hearing my talk, audience members come away feeling confident and empowered to face whatever challenge they're encountering right now with confidence and clarity. 

And if you had a song that you would use to encompass your TEDx talk, what would it be? Taylor Swift's “Ready For It.”  

This or That

Coffee or tea? Yes. I'll take both, coffee and tea. 

Early bird or night owl? Early bird. 

Do you have a favorite spot in New Hampshire? I think my favorite spot in New Hampshire is Ellacoya State Park up in Gilford. 

What's one word you would use to describe TEDxAM? Local. 

Mountains, lakes, or seacoast? Seacoast. 

What's one thing you're really excited about right now? TEDxAM. 

And do you have a favorite TED talk? My favorite TED talk is how to start a movement where you have the guy who's in a crowd and he starts dancing and it follows his first follower and subsequent followers and how that one person dancing in the crowd goes from being an outlier and on the way into a movement.