Founder & Partner @ Kanvas | Foster Innovation, Develop Business Strategy, Drive Growth

Katie Nowak

It’s been 3 years without my dad.
Here’s what I'm reflecting on today -

My dad taught me to build a career that I loved.

He did that by taking me to his medical presentations and dinners around the world when I was young.

I remember I joined him at a private investigator meeting in Munich, Germany, and his colleagues were torn over whether or not Dr. Nowak’s 12-year-old daughter needed to sign an NDA to attend. 😂 

In that same meeting, he introduced himself as being from “Day-toi,” instead of Detroit, as everyone else was from various European cities. Lots of laughter ensued, and the whole room suddenly felt warmer, kinder. It was his magic.

Every time I travel internationally for work or step on stage (virtually or in-person), I think of my dad. 

Every time I make a pun or a joke in a meeting (approx 23408 times a day) and see my team light up, I think of my dad.

I wish I could share with him how watching his love of his work, and thus his love of people, all over the world fundamentally shaped who I am today….

…someone who loves what she does.

I often reflect on how I could someday pay this forward to my future family, someday.

How could I involve them in international travel? Have them attend my presentations or panels? Ask them to join me while I write invoices in my office? (That was hilarious - “what do you think, Kate, let’s add an hour, I read fast!!”) … and how might I make each shared moment more fun than the last?

Today, I’m reflecting that I hope to be even half of the role model that he was for me.

I hope this inspires a reflection for you, too - he would love that.

Miss you, dad.

—
I'm Katie Nowak, an investor, innovation leader, and new venture designer sharing examples & lessons weekly. Follow me + hit 🔔 to stay tuned.

Innovation Leader, New Venture Designer, Speaker @ Kanvas || Investor @ Altra Venture Partners

If you don’t have a moat for your business, you’re in trouble. 🤯 
A moat is exactly what it sounds like - 

the water around a castle.

If your moat is shallow, intruders can simply walk through it (with some inexpensive rain boots).

If your moat is deep and wide, intruders will have a harder time (requiring expensive speed boats, scuba gear, maybe a small airplane - you get the drift).

In business, moats are imperative.

Here are the two biggest moats to have on your radar:

✨ Technology moats.

A successful tech moat means your cost to deliver drops as you scale, and your switching costs keep rising with every new feature.

The best tech moats are often built via rare talent, intellectual property, budgets, and, historically, time.

Because software is easier to spin-up than ever,

We’re seeing tech moats shift to robotics, complex hardware, and deep infrastructure - things that are still slower, harder and more capital-intensive to replicate.

The harder your tech is to replicate, the deeper your moat!

✨ Distribution moats.

Not a tech person? 

Never fear - distribution moats are one of my favorite angles!

A successful distribution moat means the cost to acquire customers goes down over time, while your stickiness and engagement go up.

“Unique” paid marketing doesn’t go the mile anymore, as most have access to the same ad platforms, targeting tools, and growth hacks. 

Real distribution moats look more like:
+ Being embedded in someone else’s workflow (so ripping you out is painful)
+ Owning a community that actually shows up for you, not just follows you
+ Ecosystem partnerships - my favorite are ones where your “competitors” quietly become your best channels

-

As someone who deeply enjoys all movies/books with magic, this castle analogy makes my heart warm.

I hope that it helps you memorialize how you think about moats in your business.

So, tell us - which of these moats are you most excited about - either in your company, or in the industry as a whole?

Bonus points if you share a moat you've noticed in the wild!

See you in the comments. 😎 

PS - this photo is of Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria. It is as beautiful as it is hard to pronounce!! It does not have a water-based moat, but certainly has elevation on its side - proving that the best moats often don't look alike.

—
I'm Katie Nowak, an investor, innovation leader, and new venture designer sharing examples & lessons weekly. Follow me + hit 🔔 to stay tuned.

Here’s how to cultivate disruptive thinking,
no matter how big or small your biz is 🤯 -

✨ Normalize half-baked ideas.

Make it okay to share 60% thoughts without a 40‑slide deck. 

Help your team shape those threads of ideas into a tapestry!

Then, you can start experimenting with full, organic buy-in from all (or most).

Plus, bringing other minds to the table early helps you see around corners.

✨ Normalize bad ideas!!

"Sacrificial ideas" is my favorite trick to help brainstorm sessions get started.

It encourages team members to participate by removing fear of judgement.

After all... their ideas couldn't be worse than my sacrificial one, right?? 😂 

Team members also will look to me to see how I set the tone in the event of a "bad" idea. If I handle it well and use it to promote openness, they feel safe. 

Intellectual safety = more ideas.

Plus, sometimes a strong reaction against an idea is just as strong of a catalyst (if not stronger) than a strong reaction for an idea. 

If you get curious about the “why" behind your reaction to ideas, you can learn a lot about your own strategy.

✨ Protect weird bets from normal governance.

This is for you, my corporate innovators!!

Ring-fence a small % of time/budget where different rules apply: different success metrics, different timelines, different approval paths. 

Key word - small. Rightsize the time/budget for your company and stage... and make sure there are clear gates between idea stages (and investment).

✨ Reward learning velocity, not just performance.

Ask...
+ “What did we invalidate this week?” 
+ “What did we change our mind about?” 
+ ...and of course, "Why?"

Disruptive thinkers are constantly updating their mental models.

✨ Don’t focus only on senior leaders.

Some of the sharpest disruptive ideas come from the people closest to the work, or newest to the team, with a fresh outside-in perspective. 

If only VP-level ideas get oxygen, you’re optimizing for politics, not breakthroughs. 

✨ Decide in public.

When you kill or greenlight a risky idea, explain why. Show your reasoning. 

That’s how people learn what’s truly valued vs. what’s just slogans on the wall.

This is huge for team morale, no matter how big or small you are!!!

-

As I wrote these out this morning I realized...

...at the end of the day, disruptive thinking is only as strong as the culture of innovation that you promote internally. Let me know if you'd like to read more content on that front. 😎 

In the meantime -

Which of these resonate most with you? What would you add to the list?

See you in the comments, as always!

—
I'm Katie Nowak, an investor, innovation leader, and new venture designer sharing examples & lessons weekly. Follow me + hit 🔔 to stay tuned.

Pamela (Walters) Oberg, MA, PMP

Vice President, Solutions - Research And Development

The Outlier Project

The Outlier Project  is the leading private membership community for anyone who believes people are a company’s greatest asset.

Member

Chief

Chief is a private network built to drive more women into positions of power and keep them there. Chief is the only organization specifically designed for senior women leaders to strengthen their leadership journey, cross-pollinate ideas across industries, and effect change from the top down.

Chief Member

Health and Reflection

In the wake of the profound loss of my parent and amidst a corporate restructuring, I decided to embark on a sabbatical. This period was dedicated to healing, reflection, and charting a new path forward in my career journey.

Sabbatical

Cognia

Provided visionary leadership in this new role, re-developing a partnership program in support of division revenue target. Program designed to support and expand engagement of membership and increasing Cognia’s value proposition. Identified strategic alignment with corporate goals and objectives to inform technology development priorities and marketing strategies. Owned launch plan development and cross-functional collaboration. Created partner pipeline through lead generation, relationship management, and negotiation.

Vice President, Partnerships - Professional Services

Collaborating with key stakeholders and colleagues, I ensured robust implementation and authentic realization of our vision for education and continuous improvement by conducting ongoing evaluation of current solutions, collaborating across functional teams – Product Management, Research & Analytics, Technology, Marketing, Professional Learning, and Sales – and introducing new solutions into the organization and marketplace. As VP Solutions Management, my focus was broad, data-driven, and covered client and employee experience, product and program management – including business process improvement and risk management – and research and development.

A critical aspect of this role was managing the client experience: connecting with clients (both directly and indirectly) to ensure Cognia provides meaningful, robust, cost-effective solutions grounded in research, solutions that provide valid and reliable results; offering appropriate on-boarding and on-going support; and creating opportunities to inform future development.  I worked in concert with my global call center and research and analysis teams to analyze a combination of client feedback and data from multiple data streams (Salesforce, ServiceNOW, etc.) to identify trends, pain points, and opportunities.

Other significant parts of my role involved building relationships and driving communication across the organization. Partnered with product management and professional learning to identify training opportunities for both clients and staff, brainstormed with marketing and product marketing to continuously improve our solutions launches, and worked with our strategic priorities director to make sure Cognia's solutions roadmap aligned with strategic priorities.

As VP Program Management/Business Operations, I had the privilege of leading, supporting, and nurturing amazing teams (65 team members): Client Care Center (global support); Salesforce; and Corporate Scheduling. Co-led (with the VP Project Management) the Program & Project Management Task Force, convened to conduct detailed business analysis of our approaches to program and project management. We improved processes, practices, and training, applying a careful change management methodology to gain buy-in and collaboration across the organization. 

In partnership with my leadership team, I facilitated operational process development, execution, and improvement in the areas of scheduling, client support, and Salesforce project planning/execution for the organization. Applying data analytics (data sourced from Salesforce, ServiceNOW, Five9, and various financials) allowed us to drive continuous improvement and identify significant cost-savings, proposing solutions to reduce our $2m budget by over $100k yet still improving service. 

Critical elements of this role included performing on-going and extensive business and risk analysis and risk management, using real-world experiences to inform leadership development for team members and drive process improvements. Our team achieved improvements in organizational productivity using cross functional engagement to build bridges and leverage relationships across the enterprise, and to define and implement organizational and business strategies in line with our desired results. I also had the opportunity to provide strategic, operational, and tactical support, enabling division leadership to execute on their priorities to advance the business strategies of Cognia. 

One of my favorite aspects of this role was my responsibility for engaging as a strategic partner to identify talent development and business priorities, and collaboratively designing solutions for successful execution of strategy and people growth.

Vice President, Program Management & Business Operations

Measured Progress

In this leadership role, I had the privilege of collaborating with and supervising a team of 22 to manage a $43m portfolio of projects and programs, including 10 large-scale assessment programs for general education and alternate assessment across nine states and including one business-to-business contract. Our diverse team of program managers, schedulers, and program coordinators worked together to: facilitate and lead internal process improvement projects and achieve efficiency gains for the benefit of both our clients and the company; drive execution of work within schedule and budget constraints; and to support our clients in the important work of educating students. 

As director, I also had the opportunity to coach and mentor team members as part of their professional development plans, one of the most rewarding aspects of the role.

Director, Client Services (Program Management)

Successfully led and directed a collection of projects, programs, sub-portfolios, and operations grouped together to facilitate effective management of that work to meet strategic business objectives. Responsibilities included three state assessment programs (six content areas, eight grades, two languages, three modes, and delivery/scoring/reporting to 500,000+ students annually), and two internal operational improvement projects. The overall objective: to ensure effective management of programs, projects, and investments to meet strategic business objectives, achieve performance objectives, and gain efficiencies. 

Core competencies: 
•	Ability to manage with vision and purpose; deploy and develop staff and other resources to ensure standards of excellence and optimal performance. 
•	Use of appropriate knowledge to successfully manage resources and execute business objectives and/or deliverables on behalf of the organization. 
•	Ability to exhibit an open collaborative and constructive approach to achieving business results that ensures accountability for function(s) under management. 
•	Ability to convey, both orally and in writing, various business priorities, goals, values, and objectives inside and outside the organization in a manner that is understandable and persuasive to target audiences.

Other responsibilities:
•	Develop and mentor project and program managers in project, customer, partner and/or vendor relationship management. 
•	Provide oversight and guidance for all assigned activities and maintains direct contact with stakeholders to meet stakeholder needs and enhance the company’s reputation. 
•	Manage profit and loss, productivity and/or business process improvement accountability impacting gross margin and/or cost of sales.

Portfolio Manager

Responsible for managing portfolio of state assessment programs; programs include three content areas (Mathematics, English Language Arts/Literacy, and Science/Science Alternative), five states (North Dakota, Montana, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island), and five unique programs. Test delivery included both online and paper test modes. Managed and led collaboration with cross-functional teams as well as three subcontractor relationships, enabling assessment of 200,000+ students in 2016. 

In addition, provided professional development and mentorship to team of skilled program managers and program assistants, using Skills Assessment (Marcus Buckingham) and Strengths Finder (Don Clifton) tools. Collaborated with colleagues on targeted Task Force committees designed to focus on initiatives in the areas of process improvements, employee development, and risk reduction.

Program Manager III

Responsibilities and Achievements:
•	Oversaw implementation of open source assessment software solution to deliver online testing in multiple states - $3M (annual).
•	Developed and executed project plans, schedules, and budgets for multiple contracts, applying PMI methodology and practices.
•	Developed and managed relationships with key client contacts, including top-level decision-makers.
•	Direct managed program team, led collaboration of multiple project managers for three coordinated programs.
•	Developed and delivered online training programs for 800 state education employees; develop and deliver in-person training for Measured Progress Help Desk.
•	Planned and executed online content strategy; responsible for internal communications and all contract publications; acted as gateway for all incoming/outgoing client communications, providing review and approval.

Program Manager II

•	Oversaw software development and multiple implementations of computer-based test delivery system, using Agile methodology, across five states; lead development through delivery of top quality paper assessments, scoring, and reporting for 350,000 students across a four-state assessment consortium annually.
•	Provided Level II support for customer support escalations of test delivery system.
•	Managed and collaborated with six cross-functional teams (including IT, Finance, Operations, and Data Reporting Services), enabling over 100,000 students to successfully test online in 2013-2014. 
•	Achieved consistent contract margins at 7% over target.
•	Developed and delivered in-person and online training programs for state education employees in four states; 98% positive reviews from participants.
•	Coached and developed staff across the organization to help them understand the larger organization and insure cross-functional impacts were identified.
•	Conducted negotiations with clients and internal staff regarding budgetary, logistic, or technical issues.

Program Manager

Enterasys Networks (acquired by Extreme Networks)

•	Chosen by CIO to manage implementation of SAP HR software solution - $1M.
•	Initiated and developed relationships with top executives in this new-to-the company position, which resulted in improved communication, efficiency in identifying and acting on technology needs; reduced expenses 12% in year one.
•	Managed multimillion-dollar IT projects for large-scale, global corporate applications, examples of which are cited below:
•	Co-RM on Global SAP Rollout:  an ERP system to join all departments within the corporation - $20M
•	Automation of Accounts Payable expense reporting system utilizing SAP - $750k
•	Managed 35 to 40 projects at a given time
•	Improved internal client satisfaction by 40%.
•	Matrix-managed cross-functional teams (business units, vendors, network, hardware, software, quality control, technical support, and training), assigning team responsibilities and overseeing tasks and timelines.
•	Often called upon to use personal judgment, diplomacy, and analytical sense to troubleshoot problems.
•	Identified user needs across the globe, matched those needs with corporate strategies, and developed solutions for those customers.
•	Developed business requirements, Requests for Proposal (RFP), and Requests for Information (RFI); wrote product evaluations and recommendations for senior management.

CIO Relationship Manager 

Vice President, Operations | Program Management | Business Relationship Management | Organizational Strategist | Transformational Leader | Relentlessly Curious | Board Director | Investor | CHIEF | Tech Nerd

I'm an accomplished executive known for my insatiable curiosity and passion for driving transformative change across diverse industries, including education, healthcare, and technology.

With a focus on program management and operations, I've led initiatives that have significantly impacted organizational performance. For instance, I've designed and led process improvement initiatives leading to 30% efficiency gains and optimized labor budgets to achieve 8% cost reductions - while sustaining stellar client satisfaction ratings.

My leadership style is rooted in collaboration, innovation, and effective communication. I've built and nurtured high-performing teams that operate with integrity, transparency, and authenticity, resulting in streamlined processes and heightened employee engagement.

One of my key strengths lies in my ability to leverage data to make informed decisions. By implementing technology and innovative solutions aligned with organizational goals, I've consistently driven success and delivered tangible results.

I'm deeply invested in the intersection of client and employee experiences, ensuring that human-centric principles guide strategic transformations. This approach has not only yielded measurable outcomes but has also cultivated thriving and forward-thinking organizations.

In summary, I bring a unique blend of leadership, strategic thinking, and a track record of delivering impactful results. Let's connect and explore how we can collaborate to drive meaningful change together.

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The Battle

Katie Nowak

Pamela (Walters) Oberg, MA, PMP

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The Battle

Katie Nowak

Pamela (Walters) Oberg, MA, PMP

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