Kate Catherall is the founder and principal of Slow Clap (LLC). Passionate about building capacity for progressive causes, Kate brings over 15 years of leadership experience in public engagement, advocacy, and electoral politics.

Most recently, Kate served as Chief Engagement Officer at Avalanche Insights, where her team led survey research and guided narrative development for national organizations on a range of key issues including clean energy, reproductive freedom, gun violence, gender equity, and affordable housing. During her time there, Avalanche guided messaging for over $1 billion in media spending during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles. Kate continues to work with the Avalanche team as a Senior Advisor.

Kate is the Co-founder and formerly Senior Partner of Arena, an organization that convenes, trains, and supports the next generation of progressive candidates and political professionals. She is the proud creator of Arena Academy, a program which has scaled to train thousands of campaigners since it’s inception in 2018. She now serves the organization as Board Chair.

Prior to founding Arena, Kate was a Senior Vice President at 270 Strategies, where she consulted on public engagement strategy, behavioral research, and organizational design for candidates, advocacy organizations, and philanthropies. At 270, Kate worked on a wide range of issues, from civic engagement to food security to public health to elevating the teaching profession to international conflict resolution.

Kate has trained movement leaders in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East, with participants hailing from more than 40 countries. She got her start as an organizer on Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, and has since worked with dozens of candidates up and down the ballot including rising stars like Lauren Underwood, Cory Booker, Lina Hidalgo, and Andy Kim.

Kate resides in Oakland, California with her partner Conrad and her retriever mix, Louie. She spends as much time outside as possible, and loves film, music, writing, travel, forest bathing, and pizza.