Kirsten Gagnaire, Founder and CEO

A Seattle-area native and passionate advocate for gender and equity issues globally, Kirsten has spent much of her adult life living, working and traveling across Africa and SE Asia. She believes deeply in the wisdom of the perspectives of the people and places that are impacted by global health and development work and created Kati to help design processes and approaches that bring those voices to global policy and decision makers.

In every interaction, she centers agency and empowerment for girls and women while working towards equity and access in health, education, and commerce opportunities. She believes everyone engaged in a project must align in a way which tangibly and responsibility works in partnership with the communities in which they are privileged to work and to maximize appropriate outcomes for each environment.

Kirsten has built her career with an approach of “learning by doing” and through a mix of experience, empathy, data and pragmatism, she constantly works to find a way forward that is strategic, inclusive and realistic. She is a social enterprise innovator, thought leader, facilitator, problem solver, educator, and student. Her career has spanned a variety of perspectives including as a Global Director of a large, multi-country digital health program, a Country Director in West Africa, Managing Director in a large consulting firm, and running her own business. She has developed and led groundbreaking business models and partnerships with global multi-sector organizations including governments, corporate, United Nations agencies, and grassroots social entrepreneurs. After launching her 2 young adult children into the world, Kirsten is currently studying Spanish, re-learning piano, delving into the world of Web3 from a feminist perspective and has a BA in International Business from Seattle University. For a more complete overview of Kirsten’s career, check out her LinkedIn profile.