“Intellectual honesty, passionate creativity, and unstoppable determination are the qualities I find most compelling in the leaders of new ventures. Staring down the toughest issues the organization faces can be difficult. It is often uncomfortable. But I’ve found that those who confront challenge and push through to a decision consistently create exciting, valuable businesses in the long run.”

 

Katherine epitomizes the Silicon Valley entrepreneur: As the co-founder of Brio Technology (NASDAQ: BRIO), she grew a two-person, “kitchen table” tech startup into a $160M public business intelligence company, subsequently acquired by Hyperion and Oracle. If you have used a ‘Pivot’ table, you’ve been touched by Katherine’s work. Subsequent to Brio, she was the CEO/Founder of three additional tech startups in enterprise software, health-tech and life science. Successful exits have been a hallmark of her entrepreneurial career where she has attracted funding, designed profitable growth strategies, driven revenue, and created new market categories.

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After starting her career as a management consultant in New York City, Katherine was drawn to Silicon Valley to join Metaphor Computer Systems (a Xerox PARC spin-off), one of the most creative and ambitious tech companies at the time.  Among her career highlights, Katherine counts that, as VP Marketing in Hewlett Packard’s Global Software Business, she led the development of the new market strategy which moved HP Software into Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and to the top of Forrester’s ratings. Escaping the corporate world, she co-founded and led Aurora SFC Systems; a radically innovative hardware business that manufactured and sold high-performance, ‘green’ chromatography instruments to the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. Aurora was acquired by Agilent Technologies. Her third startup was Seattle-based LightScan Technologies, an initiative formed to create the next generation of micro-endoscopic cameras from a large portfolio of patents owned by the University of Washington.

 

Today, she is an accomplished growth strategist, executive coach, and candid advisor – valued for her wisdom, versatility, and her energetic, unselfish support of high-potential entrepreneurs. She was an early advisor to Women’s Startup Lab, is now senior mentor with Singularity University, leads “Radical Candor” workshops, and is an active investor with the Band of Angels.

 

As a Sage Partner, she focuses on venture acceleration, and is particularly interested in working with founders to design go-to-market plans that scale.

 

Katherine holds a BS in Engineering/Operations Research from Cornell University and a minor in English Literature. When she is not working with entrepreneurs, she enjoys tending her garden, playing golf, and skiing with her 4 adult children.