Get To Know Kate

Kate McCracken is a wise and soulful leader who lives and works according to the belief that “we do better when we feel better.”  For nearly 20 years she has been working and consulting with businesses and organizations to help maximize their impact by investing in the wellbeing of their greatest resource: the people. 

Kate is willing to be her own laboratory; meaning she’s learned by living and experimenting in life and work. With a background in leadership and organizational development, human resources, non violent communication, community mental health, restorative practices, and diversity, equity, inclusion, & justice – Kate brings a deep well of compassion to her work.

Get To Know Kate

Kate McCracken lives and works according to the belief that “we do better when we feel better.”  For nearly 20 years she has been working and consulting with businesses and organizations to help maximize their impact by investing in the wellbeing of their greatest resource: the people. 

Kate is willing to be her own laboratory; meaning she’s learned by living and experimenting in life and work. With a background in leadership and organizational development, non violent communication, community mental health, restorative practices, and diversity, equity, inclusion, & justice – Kate brings an endless capacity for compassion to her work. This compassion yields the “feeling better” that creates the doing better, together, in the name of bringing out the best in ourselves and our work. Kate currently travels the world coaching, facilitating, and consulting with companies and organizations seeking to achieve their goals by taking exceptional care of their teams. 

Kate’s Core Values

Multiple Truths

We all hold a portion of the truth, multiple – even conflicting – things can be true at one time, and there is always a third way.

Our world is better when we break free of absolutes and seek to understand the other truths.

Love

Love is an ever present force that is opposite of fear. It is what draws us to connect, drives us to pursue what matters to us, and keeps us grounded in the experience of being human.

Our world is better when we love what we do and who we do it with.

Kindness

Kindness is honest, bold, and makes room for accountability, difficult conversations, and holding ourselves and each other able to reach our greatest potential.

Our world is better when we divest from “nice” and commit to kindess for self and others.

Equity

Each human is innately deserving of relationships and environments that meet their needs. Both their basic needs and what they need to experience the promise of success.

Our world is better when we look to those most effected for solutions to the problems we want to solve. 

Change

Most of what we experience as humans is change. Change is hard for many of us, and it is also the gateway to our collective liberation. We must change by allowing ourselves to be changed.

Our world is better when we surrender fully to change while holding closely to our values.

Specialized Training & Education

  • Adult Learning

  • Art of Hosting

  • The Circle Way

  • Coaching

  • Cognitive and Dialectical Behavioral Therapies

  • Conflict resolution

  • Curriculum Development

  • Design Thinking

  • Facilitation

  • Financial Management

  • Group Dynamics

  • Mindfulness

  • Motivational Interviewing

  • Nonviolent Communication

  • Organizing

  • Project Management

  • Restorative Justice / restorative practices

  • Somatic Experiencing

  • Strategic & operational planning

  • Studio Art & Arts Administration

  • Trauma-informed care

  • Youth development/Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES)

Additional Experience

Designed and facilitated 15,000 hours of training and other adult learning sessions many of which have been on the subjects of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice.

Held roles in arts administration, community development, education, healthcare, hospitality, law, media and entertainment, retail, and technology. See more at my work.

My Identity

As a queer, fat, white woman of Mexican heritage who is the parent of an autistic child I have experiences from many perspectives. I am humbly aware of how my life was, and is still, shaped by the privileges and access my white appearance and middle-class upbringing gave me. Like many in this country, I am from a family of origin that carries the epigenetic trauma of being othered and the violence that followed.

I am a highly sensitive, empathic, introverted believer in magic. My western astrology chart tells me that at the time/place of my birth the sun was in Taurus, moon in Gemini, and Sagittarius at the horizon (ascendent/rising sign) which means I am solidly grounded, hilariously dynamic, and stubbornly adventurous. The Dagara Medicine Wheel of West Africa tells me that I am the Earth element which means I hold on to the center of being and invite us back to ourselves.

I name these parts of my identity and experience to inform where my capacity to relate and build relationships with people of different identities and experiences comes from. When it comes to doing racial equity and justice work, I am a white woman. I do not leverage my intersectional identities to distance myself from the problematic nature of whiteness. And still, I’m a Mexican person whose ancestors were indigenous to this continent. I lost access to the much of the culture of those ancestors when it was safer for past generations to appear “American.” What I’m saying is, I am not just one thing – I can see that you aren’t either – and that is what allows me to show up in the world and do what I do well.

My Identity

As a queer, white woman of Mexican heritage who is the parent of an autistic child I have experiences from many perspectives. I am humbly aware of how my life was, and is still, shaped by the privileges and access my white appearance and middle-class upbringing gave me. Like many in this country, I also from a family of origin that carries epigenetic trauma and from ancestors who immigrated to the US recently enough to tell me their stories themselves. I was one of the first generation of children who were raised with “Positive Discipline” in the early 1980s (which meant “time outs” and “lectures” instead of spanking. I live now in a family that requires significant supports and resources to ensure neuro-atypical family members can experience success in a neurotypical dominated world. I am a highly sensitive, empathic, introverted believer in magic. My western astrology chart tells me that at the time/place of my birth the sun was in Taurus, moon in Gemini, and Sagittarius at the horizon (ascendent/rising sign).
I name these parts of my identity and experience to inform where my capacity to relate and build relationships with people of different identities and experiences comes from. Close friends and colleagues referred to me as “baby Brene” when Brene Brown’s work was just entering the public sphere . When it comes to doing racial equity and justice work, I am a white woman. Period. I do not leverage my intersectional identities to distance myself from the problematic nature of whiteness. And, the ways I have learned to show up in the world thanks to my intersectional identities and life experiences have allowed me to be a white woman who can do racial equity and justice work well.