Kathryn C. Brown, J.D.
Organizations increasingly face challenges no sector can address alone requiring senior leaders to be idealistic as well as pragmatic. Kathryn Brown, J.D. brings a unique and valuable perspective to her coaching engagements due to what Harvard Business Review describes as her “tri-sector” leadership experience, having led executive functions with high performing teams in government, industry and in the not-for-profit sectors.
She is adeptly skilled at helping executives apply their array of skills, abilities, tools, talent, and tactics to new challenges, while they strengthen their ability to lead teams and organizations. With her strong sense of mission, she is distinguished as much by mind-set and experience as she is with her understanding of people, cultures and senior executive teams and Boards.
Kathryn Brown’s personal passion, commitment, fortitude and humility combine with her contextual perspective and experience serves leaders she coaches well. She is adept at supporting people while negotiating the complex senior executive tasks of integrating people, influence, stakeholders and markets to achieve company goals. Kathryn Brown, J.D. is able to coach and support senior leaders as they work to identify an intellectual thread across sectors and markets giving them the capacity to understand underlying principles and to transcend some of the constraints that leaders face when dealing with cross-sector issues to reach strategic company goals.
Recent engagements
– Kathryn Brown undertook the leadership of the Internet Society after Lynn St. Amour’s enormously successful reign. Building on the base that Lynn established, Kathy expanded the international footprint of the organization and increased ISOC’s services to its members and participants. Of particular note during Kathy’s term of service was the “IANA transition” and a tumultuous WCIT. ISOC became a source of reliable international reporting and analysis for many, including me. The activity level of the chapters increased notably and positioned ISOC as a global player in the world of Internet Governance debate. I thank her for her diligent leadership and wish her well in the next phase of her busy life.” – Vint Cerf, Founding President of the Internet Society; Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google
– “As Internet Society CEO, Kathy has been an unfailing supporter of the Internet Engineering Task Force and the broader Internet technical community. Her leadership and strategic vision were particularly critical to the success of the IANA stewardship transition and to the evolution of the IETF’s administrative structure.” – Alissa Cooper, IETF Chair
– “Kathy’s dedication and contribution to shaping the Internet Society to what it is today has been exemplary. Characterized by strategic thinking, innovative ideas and, most valuable, her tireless efforts to increase the credibility and visibility of ISOC globally and specifically in the Africa region. Her brilliance and guidance inspired us to do our best!” – Alice Munyua, Board member of Global Digital Partners and former Internet Society Trustee, Kenya
Industry expertise
Kathy Brown is a respected and recognized leader in the communications/Internet space having served as CEO of the Internet Society, a global organization formed to promote the worldwide adoption of the Internet. Additionally, Kathy served as SVP Public Policy at Verizon reporting to the Executive Vice President of Policy and Communications. Other notable positions include serving in U.S. President Clinton’s Administration as Head of the Office of Policy Analysis and Development at the National Telecommunications Information Administration and Chief of Staff to Federal Communications Commission Chairman. Earlier in her career, she was a partner at the D.C firm of Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering (now Wilmer Hale) and upon graduation from Syracuse University College of Law served in clerk and senior administrative positions at the New York Court of Appeals.
Kathy has led talented individuals and teams through challenging transformations in the government, and in the private and the not-for-profit sectors. Her many years of experience are an asset to the talented individuals she supports in the coaching experience.