The Daring PR Agent Who Flipped Tragedy Upside Down
Meet the Rising Star who overcame personal loss to found a leading PR firm
The world is full of fearless innovators. Meet the Rising Stars making a difference in their communities and industries.
Who is Laura Orrico?
Laura Orrico is an actress, model, and President of Laura Orrico Public Relations. Having worked in the entertainment industry for over 20 years, she represents clients all over the country and has been personally featured in prominent productions on CBS, TBS, WGN, Funny or Die, and more.
Just Like Family
Laura is creating a name for herself by running a boutique PR firm based out of Chicago. Utilizing her past experience as an actress, she is able to better service her clients’ needs by discerning what they liked and disliked from their past experiences with PR before hiring Laura and her team. Because she operates with a small staff, she is also able to work closely with her clients and develop meaningful connections. Many of the people Laura has come to know she now considers family. Her clients have been featured in both national and regional publications such as Forbes, BuzzFeed, AXS, USA Today, NBC, CNN, Fox News, Los Angeles Times, and Chicago Tribune to name few.
A Life of Comedy and Tragedy
Laura experienced loss at an early age when her father passed away when she was 9. Because she was a very shy child, she turned to acting as a way to force herself out of her shell. She enrolled in Columbia College Chicago where she earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Television Writing and Producing with a minor in acting. During this time she also started taking classes at Second City, began modeling, and was hired as an intern to produce and write for the show 32 This Week.
Laura later moved to L.A. where she learned the value of hard work and persistence in the entertainment industry. Though she had SAG membership and previous acting credits, 75% of the work she did was knocking on doors trying to land roles. She successfully secured spots in many comedies like Just Shoot Me, Wedding Crashers, and The King of Queens. However, everything began to change in 2007 when her husband, Ryan Cosgrove, was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Eventually, Laura and Ryan relocated back to Chicago where Ryan continued his battle. Unfortunately, after 8 years, Ryan succumbed to cancer. After his passing, Laura resolved to face life with a new perspective. She decided to take her knowledge of the entertainment industry and use it to help friends who needed PR. Realizing she had a chance at an entirely new career, in 2016 she officially launched her own PR firm.
Walk for Wellness House
For Laura, the transition from actress to agent has come naturally. In 2018 her PR firm was featured in Forbes for her inspiring story about overcoming adversity. Most recently, she celebrated her firm’s 3-and-half-year anniversary and was overjoyed at the immense love she received from the 100+ family, friends, and clients who showed up to support her nationally recognized firm.
In honor of her husband’s memory, Laura still makes efforts to battle brain cancer. Every year she organizes a group called Team Coz (Ryan’s nickname) to participate in the Walk for Wellness House. She also donates to the National MS Society and helped Dr. Keith Black of Cedars Sinai (Ryan’s neurosurgeon) raise $22,000 for brain tumor research. Currently, she takes care of her mother who suffers from MS, but despite her circumstance, Laura never lets it affect her positivity. She credits her strength and sense of humor to both her mother and father and is extremely grateful to have many amazing things in her life. According to Laura, she is happy to know everything she has comes from hard work.
What keeps her up at night?
“If I have some sort of unresolved conflict, I have to come up with a solution and get it resolved quickly, or it makes me feel uneasy and keeps me up all night.”
What is Laura’s GREY Style?
This article originally published on GREY Journal.
