Helping Employees Navigate Life’s Most Overwhelming Challenges

Vanessa's 20-year professional background spans strategy development, implementation planning, business process improvement, product marketing, technology implementations, organizational design, and change management. Through the founding of Banister Advisors, LLC in 2018, her passion for client services met the opportunity to ease the complex emotional and logistical burdens that individuals and families confront in the face of critical circumstances across their lifespan. The concept for Banister Advisors was inspired in large part by the 2016 death of the founder's father-in-law, Jay Banister Laughlin, MSW, after an unexpected health crisis. The memory of Jay's sacrifice and dedication to serving his family and community as a social worker, mediator, and therapist, serves as the foundation for Banister's mission.

Vanessa holds an MBA with distinction from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington and a BA in Economics from Tufts University in Boston. Vanessa is a proud member of the 2015 Class of Leadership Tomorrow Seattle and was honored in 2019 by The Puget Sound Business Journal as a 40 Under 40 Finalist. A native of Whidbey Island, WA, she now lives in Seattle with her husband and two young sons.