About me
I'm Kate — a Texan who ended up here.
I grew up in Texas, started my career in Austin, and talked to everybody — the guy in line, the neighbor with the dog, the stranger at the bar. That never left me. I biked from Texas to Alaska one year. I got an MBA. I trained as a clown. I've lived in New York, nomaded around the world, and kept finding the same thing: the best part of any place is the people in it, once someone makes the first move.
So I make the first move for a living. I'm the one starting the chalk circle in the park, MC-ing the opening ceremony, getting a boardroom to actually look at each other. Dance floors, forests, U-Hauls, payphones, offsites — all of it counts.
Story
Today's tech-fueled media age blocks, separates and moves us away from connection. I developed a personal practice and an experience design methodology centered on how to find joy in unexpected connection with the other. It's what loosened the grip that control, planning and expectation held over my life — and the scripts I carried.
Over the last four years I've engaged with over 4,500 strangers around the world through workshops, corporate activations, speaking engagements, performance art and interactive installations I designed and facilitated. Looking back, these skills were honed through every conference, training, happy hour, offsite and interactive dinner in the first chapter of my career.
I had it all mapped out. Every box checked.
I spent 10+ years scaling early to mid-stage startups in Austin and New York (most notable exit: TrendKite). I wasn't thrilled with who and what was getting funded — so I went and got an MBA from UVA Darden. I apprenticed my way into venture capital, working with firms from Everywhere Ventures to Sands Capital, and eventually became a Chief of Staff running a $20M secondaries syndicate with $30M+ deployed and a 1,000+ LP community.
But the more I dove into expected returns, the more curious I grew about unexpected ones: the real, connected, non-transactional kind. I noticed how heady and disconnected many of those rooms felt. So I nomaded around the world for a while, practiced Serendipity Seeking daily, and left fundraising behind to give this path my full focus.
Since then I've produced projects like The NY Portal Authority for Darren Aronofsky and SONY Pictures — a citywide experience reinstalling payphones across the five boroughs for an open-world game — and The Tree of Becoming, an interactive installation inside a U-Haul that moved over 350 strangers through a collective ritual. I now do emergent facilitation, global opening ceremonies, and learning design for organizations like SkillsCamp and School of Wonder. This is the work I build for others.
I bring inviting, creative, tenacious on-stage energy paired with strong, pragmatic operational chops from a decade in corporate. I believe experiences are the future, and I hope to serve as a bridge between the warehouse and the boardroom, planning and surrender, control and play, fear and love.
If you've read this far — let's connect by chance, on purpose.
What I'm for
We are remembering what it means to be human. To meet what's real, unscripted, alive. To step out from behind the screen and back into the street, the park, the conversation. To look up and meet each other's eyes.
We're done thinking, reading and optimizing our way to belonging. We're ready to be surprised again — to learn through experience, not instruction.
Life itself is the medium. Growth happens through contact, not control. Curiosity is medicine. Play is not childish, it's essential. The body is wiser than the calendar. Art isn't separate from life; it is life, when we're paying attention.
We build courage through play. We design for serendipity. We dance with the unknown until it's familiar again.
We reject the myth of stranger danger. We refuse the story that seriousness is the only path to change. Awe, laughter and spontaneity are sacred teachers too.
Our practice is presence. Our art is connection. Our rebellion is aliveness.
Things I'm proud of — silly and serious.
Biked from Texas to Alaska. Months in the saddle, a lot of weather, and more kindness from strangers than I knew was out there.
Produced The NY Portal Authority for Darren Aronofsky & SONY Pictures — payphones reinstalled across the five boroughs for an open-world game.
Built The Tree of Becoming inside a U-Haul and moved 350+ strangers through a collective ritual in it.
Engaged with 4,500+ strangers around the world in four years, and recorded hundreds of those conversations.
Ran a $20M secondaries syndicate as Chief of Staff — $30M+ deployed, 1,000+ LPs — then left fundraising to go make people dance.
Got the MBA at UVA Darden and still list clown training on the same résumé.
Talked grown adults into a chalk circle in Washington Square Park. Repeatedly. Sober.
Held a boardroom and a 2am dance floor in the same week without changing who I am in either.
What I bring to every room
Ten years scaling startups, an MBA, a stint in venture and a Chief of Staff seat — plus a decade of movement, theater and street performance. I can hold a boardroom and a dance floor with the same nerve.
5Rhythms · Brazilian Zouk · Clown · Improvisation · Ritual & Gestalt Theater · Nordic LARP · Authentic relating · Immersive theater · Vocal training · Street & participatory performance
Awards & grants
Shadow Traffic Grant recipient
Clients
Sony Pictures · Daybreaker · Sandbox · School of Wonder · SkillsCamp · Shadow Traffic · Think Olio · Reforesters Laboratory · Fabrik NYC · UVA Darden · Everywhere · Sandhill Markets · Immersion Festival · Unhinged · Noodle · SAFE · TrendKite · VOW
Education
MBA, UVA Darden
Certified, Kaospilot Experience Design