Understanding Value: Fifty Years of Family Dollar

by Laura Rowley

79 pages, Hardcover

First published March 19, 2010

About the author

Laura Rowley grew up with ten siblings in an Irish-American family, where the best way to win the room was to tell a good tale. At age 11 she won a prize in a poetry contest, and it was off to the races: newspaper reporter, magazine editor, TV producer, digital jack-of-all-trades, and fintech executive. 

An award-winning journalist, Laura is the author of seven non-fiction books and a novel, The Glassmaker’s Secret. Laura held editorial and executive roles at CNN, People Inc., The Huffington Post, Yahoo!Finance and a Wall Street fintech firm. She published histories of four Fortune 500 companies, including The Target Corporation (John Wiley & Sons), CBRE, Humana, and Family Dollar (Fenwick Publishing), and ghostwrote several memoirs. She also authored Money & Happiness (Wiley), which looks at the intersection of personal finance and values.

Laura has appeared on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS, CNBC, Fox, Bloomberg, NPR, and other media. Her freelance writing and essays have been featured in The New York Times, Gannett, Money, Parents, Self, and other publications. She earned a B.S. with honors from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and an M.Div. from New York Theological Seminary. She has three daughters.

Laura is an avid runner, greedy reader, frequent flyer, adventure lover, and serial people-connector. Write her at laurarowleyauthor@gmail.com.