Katie W. Byerly

Senior Manager, Organizational Change and Strategy

Katie designs and manages activities that help clients create and sustain organizational change rooted in equity, diversity and inclusion. She brings a range of experience from non-profit, public health, and philanthropic organizations focused on social justice, health equity, and systems change.

I take action for equity to practice dreaming, healing, organizing and acting to achieve collective liberation and abundance that supports thriving people and our planet for this and future generations.

Katie’s work is informed by principles from community organizing, environmental justice, and Pedagogy/ Theater of the Oppressed. A yoga practitioner, she centers people, joy and solutions in her facilitation, using breathwork and movement to help participants ground and embrace creative tension that advances social change. 

Previously, Katie worked on transforming philanthropic practices to promote health equity as a program officer at The Kresge Foundation. There, her portfolio included interdisciplinary work on many issues including climate change, food systems, racial equity and leadership development. Katie served as managing director of CounterTobacco.org where she developed tools and resources for federal, state, and local public health practitioners to counteract tobacco product sales and marketing. She started her career in public health as a field assignee through the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public Health Associate Program. In 2020, she was named to the Terrance Keenan Institute for Emerging Leaders in Health Philanthropy.

 Katie is always looking to deepen her learning and is currently geeking out about restorative justice approaches and co-operative strategies for wealth and community building. Originally from North Carolina, she now lives in Detroit where she manages a community farm, and serves on the Land and Development Committee for the Woodbridge Neighborhood Development Corporation.

Katie earned a MPH from the Gillings School of Global Public Health, and BA’s in Anthropology and Public Health in Health Policy & Management, from UNC Chapel Hill.