Laurie Hays is the CEO/Editor-in-Chief of The Fuller Project. Prior to joining The Fuller Project, Hays worked at Bloomberg News as senior executive editor for beat reporting. [1] Hays also worked at The Wall Street Journal for 23 years [2] as a reporter, Moscow correspondent, and editor, and she worked on a team that won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting on corporate corruption scandals. [3]
Hays was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. [4] She attended Phillips Exeter Academy in high school and wrote for The Exonian, becoming the first female editor at the weekly student newspaper. [4] Hays graduated from Harvard in 1979 with an honors degree in American history, [4] [5] and she wrote for The Harvard Crimson during college. [6]
After college, Hays took a job with the New Orleans States-Item, which merged a year later with the New Orleans Times-Picayune. [4] Her work covered the Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes, where she covered murder and politics, including stories on political boss Leander Perez. [4] In 1983, Hays was hired as a reporter for The News Journal in Wilmington.