Leanne Meyer

Leanne Meyer is the author of Climbing the Spiral Staircase, a critical guide for women seeking to gain control of their professional paths. She directs the Carnegie Mellon Women’s Executive Leadership Academy and is the former executive director of the university’s Accelerate Leadership Center at the Tepper School of Business.

Drawing from her thirty years of senior-level consulting and executive development experience, Leanne provides evidence-based methods to change business practices around the world. Her work focuses on assisting leaders in navigating critical inflection points where many have outgrown their professional identity and, given the demands and responsibility of their roles, need to change their perspectives regarding what is important. She helps leaders assess how they spend their time and what new skill sets and behaviors they need to develop. Her clients include several Fortune 100 large and midsize companies.

Leanne’s career and creativity are anchored in leadership development—in helping people discover their potential, stand strong in their values, claim their worth, and believe in their talents to become the leaders they want to be in ways that embrace possibility and potential.

Her calling is to help leaders make sense of their lives through the reclamation of passion and purpose. Beginning in South Africa, Leanne had the good fortune to follow this calling on three continents in corporate, academic, and not-for-profit settings as a business leader, program designer and developer, entrepreneur, facilitator, speaker, educator, and coach.

Leanne resides in Pittsburgh, PA, with her husband. She holds a master’s degree in industrial psychology from the University of Johannesburg.

Elena LaQuatra

News Action 4 Anchor / Emcee

Elena LaQuatra is the morning traffic anchor and noon news anchor for Pittsburgh’s Action News 4. Elena joined WTAE in 2015 as a digital content creator for 4 the 412. After a reporting and anchoring stint at a television station in Erie, Elena returned to WTAE to a general assignment reporting role in 2018. At the age of four, Elena lost 100% of her hearing in both ears to bacterial meningitis. After receiving a Cochlear Implant and spending years rehabilitating her listening and spoken language skills, Elena now excels in speech.

In her spare time, she serves as Mistress of Ceremonies for fundraising galas nationwide and as an ambassador to numerous non-profit organizations. Elena was crowned Miss Pennsylvania USA in 2016 and competed in the nationally televised Miss USA pageant.

Her greatest passions include mentoring young women, traveling to Europe, eating her way through Pittsburgh, and spending time with her husband, family and chihuahuas. Elena is an alumna of Point Park University.