Laya was raised in a tra­di­tion­al Ortho­dox home and was des­tined to become a house­wife until her life took an unex­pect­ed turn. After ini­tial­ly study­ing at Yeshi­va Uni­ver­si­ty, she began work­ing dur­ing the infan­cy of com­put­ers, climb­ing the indus­try’s ranks to become one of Mas­ter­Charge’s first female pro­gram­mers. Laya went on to found two suc­cess­ful data pro­cess­ing com­pa­nies serv­ing For­tune 500 clients and was iden­ti­fied by the Philadel­phia Busi­ness Jour­nal as one of Philadel­phi­a’s Top 25 Women Busi­ness Own­ers. When not writ­ing, speak­ing, or spend­ing time with her grand­chil­dren, she trav­els exten­sive­ly through­out the world.