Kate is the founder and principal of SISU Communications. She works on a diversity of community building projects, and research and social change initiatives that centre on building a vibrant and equitable community.

Before creating SISU Communications in 2019, Kate led a stellar body of community change as Director of Community Initiatives with the City of Edmonton for more than 17 years. With her high-performing teams, Kate led City efforts to address some of the key challenges of a growing, diverse urban centre.

Kate and her teams successfully spearheaded several City Council-supported initiatives, including two high profile Mayor’s Task Forces in Edmonton – one that led to the formation of REACH Edmonton (2011) and the other, the bold EndPovertyEdmonton strategy (2016). Other significant initiatives include: Women’s Initiative Edmonton, Edmonton’s award-winning Winter City Strategy, and RECOVER: Edmonton’s Urban Wellness Social Innovation Strategy. As part of these complex change initiatives, Kate honed her project management skills and her expertise in research, policy review and analysis, and strategic planning.

Policy review, analysis, development and implementation have been core to the work Kate has led to advance systems change. The policies, plans and programs that emerged from the work to end poverty, for example, span game-changing policy opportunities at the City of Edmonton, such as the push for a living wage, social procurement, affordable housing, low-cost transit, anti-racism and gender equity. On another front, Kate and her team played an instrumental role in researching and developing a GBA+ lens at the City of Edmonton, which resulted in staff-wide training and ultimately, mandated policy (2019).

More recently Kate provided an extensive policy review and analysis of over 40 policies, from different orders of government, that intersect with and impact the daily lives and experiences of newcomers to Edmonton. This policy review, including both gap and opportunity analyses, provided a solid foundation for the inaugural Belonging: The State of Settlement and Immigration Annual Report, being presented to Edmonton City Council in June 2021.

Kate grounds her approach to change in the concept of collective impact and the need to find new, collaborative solutions to the complex challenges facing communities. She believes in the pivotal role governments can play in convening people around change – in attitudes, policies and systems. Her work with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, in the Arts and Heritage Sector with museums, historic sites and on the Art of Living Implementation Plan at the City of Edmonton, has informed her understanding of the importance of building bridges across silos and bringing people together in radical collaboration for equity and change.

Kate was the proud recipient in 2015 of the Edmonton City Manager Award of Excellence, and of two team awards- for Ending Poverty (2016) and RECOVER; Urban Wellness (2019).