Laurin Kelly is the CEO of Battle Plan Strategic Consulting, a career consulting and project management firm based in Silver Spring, Maryland. She’s bringing her corporate experience to help women on the career track, impact-driven small businesses, and nonprofit organizations build processes that support their healthy growth and professional development.
I started Battle Plan Strategic Consulting as a career consulting firm. I was motivated by the challenges I experienced in corporate America trying to rise up through the ranks as a Black woman and get compensated fairly.
With my young son, I moved to the DMV in 2018, wanting to be closer to my family and for the public school system in Montgomery County. We moved originally to Columbia, Maryland; then later on to Silver Spring.
I founded the company in October of 2020 and have worked with almost 900 clients over the last few years. Most of our clients are Black women. This is something that I’m very proud of because we’ve helped them increase their salaries by close to $5 million.
On the career consulting side, we offer resumes, cover letters, LinkedIn updates, interview preparation, career consultations, and more. That’s all about professional development and helping one Black woman at a time close the wage gap.
But in early 2022 we launched another side of the house: project management consulting. I’m a project manager by trade. I am a certified project management professional (PMP) and project and program management was my role in corporate America for the last 7-8 years that I was there.
We Work With Socially Responsible Companies
We started consulting with a diverse clientele. But as of 2024, we are shifting our focus to companies that make a social impact, including nonprofits that work in the equity space. I’m very passionate about equity and am happy to support for-profit companies that work in the international development space.
In this practice, besides project management consulting, we also offer improvement consulting services, administrative support, and organizational development.
We are of course open to working with all individuals. But so far, the majority of our consulting clients are Black women. In the project management practice our consulting clients are typically nonprofits. However, as long as the company is dedicated to making a social impact, whether that be in social justice, racial equity, or health equity, we can get on board with them. There are myriad ways our clients make an impact, and we serve them with process improvement work. We’ll review their full operations, then help them implement the mechanisms and strategies that we know from experience will quickly improve their processes for greater efficiency. And, we leverage our project management expertise to help them build project management processes and tools as well because most of our clients don’t have full-time project management support.
What’s New for Battle Plan in 2024?
Now that we are settling into our niche, we plan to expand and are actively working to develop more client relationships. We have begun writing proposals. One of the connections I would like to make as soon as possible is with people well-versed in proposal writing, or who are using grants to successfully expand their businesses. I’d love the chance to learn from them.
Battle Plan is a member of the Maryland Black Chamber of Commerce (MBCC), the Montgomery County Small Business Association (MCSBA), and the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce (GSSCC). Leveraging these networks fully is high on my to-do list for 2024. I also plan to tap into more of the County and state resources available to small and minority-owned businesses.
Laurin’s Last Word
My strongest thought about what helps me most in my business, and that I would advise new business owners is to connect with the chambers, and join the local business associations. I believe in the saying, that “your network is your net worth.” So, engaging with your network, understanding your network, and both giving and taking value from building relationships with the people in them.