Katie Hong
KH Consulting & Coaching
Katie Hong is a consultant, facilitator, and executive coach with more than 30 years of experience across the philanthropic, nonprofit, and government sectors. She is known for her strategic insight, systems thinking, deep listening, and ability to create inclusive and reflective spaces where people can connect more deeply with themselves and one another in service of meaningful change.
Katie’s consulting practice includes supporting organization-wide change efforts at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and The California Endowment, coaching senior leaders at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, United Way of Greater Los Angeles, and other philanthropic and nonprofit organizations, and supporting funders collaboratives such as the Washington State Education Funders Table.
Previously, Katie served in leadership roles at the Raikes Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she led efforts focused on youth and family homelessness, youth development, housing, and education. Earlier in her career, she directed the City of Seattle’s Office of Housing, advised Gary Locke and Greg Nickels, and served as a White House Fellow.
Katie holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and a BA in Development Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She is a certified Big Leap coach and Leadership Circle Profile practitioner, and has additional training in Theory U, Social Presencing Theater, embodied social justice, and the Enneagram.
She currently serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors of Citizen University and is deeply inspired by the organization’s commitment to civic participation, relational trust, reciprocity, and mutual aid.
My Approach
My work is informed by more than three decades of professional experience supporting systems change and transformation—as a public and private funder, and as a consultant and coach to philanthropic and nonprofit organizations—and is grounded in Theory U, an awareness based systems change framework developed by the Presencing Institute that supports individuals and groups to sense emerging possibilities and bring them into being. At its core, my approach is relational, reflective, and inclusive, focused on creating the conditions necessary for meaningful transformation.
I approach this work with curiosity and humility. I do not see myself as the expert with the answer, but as a partner in helping groups learn, make meaning, navigate complexity, and discover what becomes possible together.
Audio reflections
Unleashing Social Change Podcast—Episode 31: Katie Hong, “Re-Thinking Philanthropy”
A conversation about money, power, and identity in philanthropy — and what it takes for those on the grantmaking side to honestly face our relationship to power if we want to be genuine partners in change.
A Joyful Pause Podcast—A Joyful Pause with Katie Hong
A conversation about power, awareness, and our conditioned tendencies — and the practices that help us step into genuine choice. This episode accompanies a retreat I co-facilitated on releasing old power stories and claiming a new narrative.