Welcome to Brazen Careerist!

About Me

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Lauren Westbrook graduated from Harvard College with highest honors and a B.A. in Social Anthropology. After graduation, Lauren founded Westbrook Strategies, an image and interpersonal communications consulting firm based in New York City. Several months after starting Westbrook Strategies, Lauren also started a full‐time position in Marketing (Brand Management) in the Consumer Products Division at L’Oreal USA.

Westbrook Strategies offers a unique brand of customized, one‐on‐one coaching for individuals looking to improve how they present themselves in important social situations. Not to be confused with charm school or etiquette classes, Westbrook Strategies was developed specifically for regular people, with regular salaries, interested in practical, unpretentious techniques and solutions for the potentially nerve‐wrecking situations of everyday life: meeting and making conversation with new people, wearing the right thing to an important party or event, sounding impressive during a big presentation at work, choosing the perfect restaurant for a first date – the list goes on. From college students and CEO’s, to cab drivers and celebrities, through Westbrook Strategies, Lauren has served over 350 clients since the company’s founding in 2007.

During her three years at L'Oreal, Lauren worked for daughter brands Maybelline‐ Garnier, L'Oreal Paris and Softsheen‐Carson, developing and promoting products in all of the company's product categories (skincare, hair care, and cosmetics). Lauren also created L’Oreal’s first “Innovation Day” to boost employee morale, improve cross‐functional relationships and generate new product ideas. As a result of Innovation Day, L’Oreal attained 65 new product launch ideas and Lauren received a manager‐level promotion in only six months. Lauren left L’Oreal in 2010 to fully pursue her passion for entrepreneurship and further develop Westbrook Strategies.

Lauren, who loves her family, great bargains, reality TV, international travel, and good food (especially pizza, Chilean sea bass, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches), currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where she is getting her MBA at Stanford Graduate School of Business and is opening Westbrook Strategies’ first West Coast office.