Before she was a founder, Lauren Hickman spent over a decade in Supply Chain management, work that gave her an unusually clear view of how companies actually get perceived by the corporations and partners they depend on. She holds an undergraduate degree from Fisk University and an MBA from Clark Atlanta University, and she still works in Corporate America today implementing Supplier Diversity Programs alongside running her own company.
That corporate vantage point became the foundation for Speak Up La™ Inc., the consulting and media business she founded to help entrepreneurs launch, brand, and get press-ready. The company offers interview prep, media production — streaming, blogs, vlogs, podcasts — and consulting for businesses trying to figure out how to present themselves to the world. In 2021, she expanded it significantly with the launch of the Speak Up La™ Show, funded in large part by an investment from her own mother.
Hickman has described the founding motivation simply: she wanted a space of her own where she could help people through her gifts, rather than only inside someone else’s org chart. It’s a modest way to describe building a company that now sits at the intersection of corporate consulting and media production — not a small pivot for someone who spent ten-plus years inside a single function.
She’s also blunt about what keeps her going: “The clients I work with are EVERYTHING! I have been so blessed that so many have come to me to help them launch their business or help them to secure their dream job!” For a founder whose entire pitch is about helping other people control their own narrative, that’s a fitting note to end on — her business exists because people trusted her with theirs.