Kathy Graham is the Founder and Principal of The HQ Companies, Inc., a group of four firms focused on strategies for board, career, and corporate growth in this digital age. For corporations, many of her recent consulting engagements involved identifying and recommending prectical solutions for the cultural/people/position aspects of digital transformations.

Kathy earned an MBA in Analytic Finance, Econometrics, and Statistics from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a BS in Business Administration with a Marketing concentration from North Central College.

She has combined her experience of observing how professionals through C-Suite executives actually progress or not in their careers with her academic knowledge to create the content, programs, and successful outcomes that are the hallmark of The HQ Companies.

CIVIC INVOLVEMENT

Kathy is Co-Chair of Membership for the Chicago Finance Exchange, an invitation-only organization of the top 200 Chicago women leaders in finance.

Kathy has served for seven years on The University of Chicago’s Alumni Club of Chicago Board as a Board Member, most recently as Chair of the Alumni Engagement Committee for all of the University’s colleges and formerly as Co-Chair of their Governance Committee.

Since 2017 Graham has led 2020 Women on Boards Chicago as Chair, growing the event in size and content each year—last year's event featured 45 private and public company board directors interacting with 300 notable attendees.

KATHY GRAHAM'S SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS—PAST 10 YEARS

Kathy Graham designs and delivers workshops and keynote speeches on human capital for professionals through C-Suite.

• Requested to moderate and direct a panel on Steps to powering a digital culture and mindset in the finance function: New approaches in building and developing your finance talent at the 2019 AICPA & CIMA National Conference for the CFO TRACK of Finance Redefined—received high marks from attendees for presentation.
• Created a workshop that utilized gamification in 2015 to teach first time managers how to master new demands.
• Designed Creating a Social Story, an interactive workshop for CFA Society Boston (2012), then CFA Society Chicago (2014) on utilizing social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) legally to enhance careers and company profiles.
• Created Career Strategies for You, a highly rated career development workshop given from 2009-14 at top-tier university and business associations across the U.S. to audiences ranging in size from 50 to 200 attendees.
• Crafted 2013 Money Smart Week™ program with Chicago Tribune finance writer Gail Marks Jarvis, sponsored by CFA Society Chicago, University of Chicago Alumni Club, and Northwestern University Kellogg—attracted over 200 professionals and CFA Society Chicago became a Money Smart Week™ Partner.
• Engaged by CFA Society Boston, CFA Society New York City, and CFA Society Chicago to design and deliver Your Career Campaign™ workshops from 2009-11 to crowds of 200+ offering practical ways to reinvent careers.
• Engaged by CFA Society Chicago to design Career Strategist individual sessions that sold out repeatedly and received the highest ratings during 2009 as personal effort to assist those impacted by Great Recession.
• Delivered as a first day morning speaker Safe Sailing in Stormy Weather at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Ninth Annual Private Equity Conference in June 2009.