Lauri Union

Nulsen Family Executive Director, Bertarelli Institute for Family Entrepreneurship

Lauri Union is the founding executive director of the Bertarelli Institute. She came to Babson with extensive experience both in family business leadership and entrepreneurship through organizational transformation. At the age of 27, Lauri became president and CEO of her family business, Union Corrugating Company, a deeply troubled manufacturer of building products. Union grew the company significantly and led it to become an industry leader, remaining on the board after a private equity sale. Her work at Union Corrugating is featured in two Harvard Business School cases. She also led the turnaround of a large family business in the food industry from severe distress to stability and profitability in just 12 months.

Union earned her BA in economics Magna Cum Laude from Princeton University as well her MBA from Harvard. She completed certificate programs in Marriage and Family Therapy, Family Business Advising (CFBA), and Family Business and Wealth Advising (CFWA). Union is currently a doctoral candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of Education, where her research focuses on family entrepreneurship education.

Union began her career as a management consultant at Bain and Company, and is both a Wildacres and Acharai Leadership Fellow. She has been named a global "Top 100 Family Influencer" and one of 15 global leading academics by Family Capital Publishing.

Union is a thought leader, featured in numerous articles, interviews, and case studies.  Her most recent articles have been featured in Business Insider, Entrepreneurship Magazine, and Family Business Magazine.  Her published cases include Diunsa: An Entrepreneurial Family’s Digital Response to COVID-19 which has been published in the journal Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, Next Gen Transformation at Rotoplas, which is published in the Harvard Business School case library, and Waterston, an approach to family entrepreneurship teaching featured in the book Teaching Entrepreneurship Volume Two (Elgar 2021).