Liz Mangham Recognized as 2023 Influential Women in Business Honoree

The Baton Rouge Business Report honors professional women in the Capital Region who have distinguished themselves in business or through government or nonprofit work through their annual Influential Women in Business Awards. Southern Strategy's Managing Partner, Liz Mangham was recognized as a 2023 honoree for not only her impact at the State Capitol, but her meaningful influence across the Capital Region.

Liz Mangham was first exposed to politics as a child through her parents, who were both active on the Louisiana political scene.

“When I was in high school, my father’s law firm got involved with Gary Hart’s race for president,” Mangham says. “But I thought I wanted to get into broadcast news from Murphy Brown.”

Today, many of those in governmental affairs look to Mangham and her lobbying firm, Southern Strategy, for advice and guidance on the pivotal issues of the day, including education and criminal justice reform.

She spent time in Baton Rouge, Shreveport and Lafayette while growing up. With an attorney dad and a teacher mom, education was a priority in the home. Education, Mangham’s dad told her, is the only thing someone can’t take away.

Mangham started her undergraduate career at LSU before ultimately graduating from a small women’s college in Georgia with a double major in English and history.

Mangham began her career in politics working on campaigns and after two years of working on the road, she returned to Louisiana in 1996 and got her first lobbying gig with the then- Louisiana Trial Lawyers Association, now called the Louisiana Association of Justice. The experience instilled in Mangham the importance of being able to relate and connect with people, and to build a professional relationship based on trust.

“I saw lobbying as a way to improve people’s lives, to make meaningful change,” Mangham says. “Advocacy is education—it’s teaching people about an issue.”