Katherine Miller
Katherine Miller, Senior Director of Food Policy Advocacy, James Beard Foundation.
"Katherine is an award-winning communications executive and campaign strategist with nearly 20 years of experience in politics, business, philanthropy, and new media. Katherine is a founder of the Chef Action Network (CAN), an initiative of the James Beard Foundation Impact Programs. Recognizing that food is a national passion; affects the quality of consumers’ everyday lives; and has potential impact on human, environmental, social, and economic health, CAN is focused on harnessing the power of America’s preeminent chefs to help create awareness, inspire action, and aggregate credible resources to proactively address a broad range of policies relevant to issues areas important to the chef community. CAN provides tailored research, policy, and advocacy support to chefs that participate in the James Beard Foundation’s Chef Policy Boot Camp and Food Policy Salons.
"In 2012, Katherine founded Table 81, a full-service communications firm that works with clients in the nonprofit, philanthropy, and socially responsible business fields. Katherine designs global communication campaigns to raise awareness about important issues, inspire people to take meaningful action, and result in lasting changes in policy, politics, and business practices. Her clients include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Knight Foundation, Aspen Institute, and James Beard Foundation.
"For her clients, Katherine designs campaigns that are daring and make real and immediate impact. Her professional passions include building movements, advancing international development, and empowering women and girls. The issues she works on range from domestic to international and have included helping a national coalition to end sex trafficking on craigslist.org (Dear Craig), creating a global education campaign advocating for universal access to secondary education for girls in Africa (Connect to Learn), launching a new effort to end dual-generation poverty in the United States (Ascend), and working with a coalition of foundation grantees to help low income families build savings over a lifetime.
"Before starting Table 81 and CAN, Katherine served as the managing director of Hattaway Communications. At Hattaway, she oversaw the firm’s day-to-day operations, developed the BeHeard communications training program for foundation grantees, and led the firm’s work with the world’s leading foundations and nonprofits including the Ford Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, NoVo Foundation, D5, Connect to Learn, China Medical Board, and CARE International.
"Katherine also led the public affairs department at the United Nations Foundation. At the foundation, she oversaw all of the external communication initiatives including partnerships with key UN agencies and multi-national corporations, and was responsible for the foundation’s extensive family of multi-media campaigns including the award-winning “Nothing But Nets.”
"She served as one of three on-the-record spokespeople for the Fortune 100 financial services company TIAA-CREF and managed media outreach for some of the company’s largest business areas including the Social Choice Fund, the world’s largest socially responsible investment fund with $11.8 billion under management.
"A champion of women’s reproductive and sexual freedom, Katherine is on the boards of two other major nonprofits: RAINN (the national sexual assault hotline) and NARAL Pro Choice America.[1]
- Director, New Venture Fund
