Local entrepreneur launches leadership company for emerging talent

A new Baton Rouge venture is aiming to fill a gap in the professional development space that its founder says is too often overlooked.

While other professional development companies tend to focus on those with already-established careers, Full Cup Leadership will focus on nurturing talent from the ground up.

“I plan to provide early-career professional development—even as early as high school—and consult for organizations who really want to invest in that part of their workforce,” Jennifer Loftin, Full Cup’s founder and CEO, tells Daily Report. “There are so many people these days who are focusing on executive coaching or mid-career changes, and I’ve always had a heart for people in the early phases of their careers.”

Loftin, who holds a Ph.D. in educational leadership and research from LSU, brings more than two decades of experience across the academic and nonprofit sectors to her new venture. She began her career with LSU’s E. J. Ourso College of Business before taking on roles at the university’s Gordon A. Cain Center for STEM Literacy and later at the education nonprofit Great Minds. At each step, she learned more about where her passion lay.

“Over the course of my whole career, I began to understand what really ‘fills my cup,’” Loftin says, “which is working with people and seeing them develop.”

Though she technically formed Full Cup last summer, it wasn’t until this month that Loftin stepped away from Great Minds—an organization she’d been with for more than 12 years—to focus on the company full time. She says she spent the last year transitioning out of her former role and reflecting on what she might be able to accomplish with her business.

Loftin’s first formal offering through Full Cup will be a July 25 workshop introducing students and early-career professionals to the CliftonStrengths framework, a model that helps individuals identify and invest in their innate strengths.

“That’s another big part of my focus,” Loftin says. “It’s a strengths-based framework that says, ‘Let’s focus on leaning into the things that we’re already good at and the ways we naturally think, feel and behave.’ I’ve found it to be so important in my own professional development.”

While Full Cup is based in Baton Rouge, the company has a statewide scope. Looking forward, the plan is to grow the business by developing relationships with employers, high schools and colleges both in the Capital Region and across Louisiana.

And in a state where brain drain remains a perennial challenge, Loftin hopes Full Cup can play a role in helping local organizations retain local talent.

“We spend a lot of time here in Baton Rouge talking about how to keep young talent here in the state,” she says. “I’m going to coach individuals, but I’m also going to work with organizations who want to ensure that they are investing in their local talent and doing their best to help them feel valued and grow within the organization.”