Meet Kate
Kate Sargent is a 2× founder, CEO, fractional Chief People Officer, executive coach, and organizational strategist who helps companies build exceptional leaders, high-performing teams, and businesses where people, performance, and purpose grow together.
Over more than 20 years, she has partnered with founders, CEOs, boards, and private equity and venture capital firms to solve their most complex business and organizational challenges, from executive hiring and organizational design to leadership development, compensation strategy, and change management. Known for pairing operational rigor with a deeply human approach, she aligns people strategy with business strategy to drive sustainable growth.
Kate has built and led People and Talent functions for organizations at every stage, from early-stage AI startups to global consumer brands and mission-driven businesses, including Apple, The North Face, Method, Allbirds, Beyond Meat, Plenty, The Citizenry, and The Possible Zone. As Co-CEO and Board Member of Infinite Ranges, she also helps companies modernize through AI, cloud, cybersecurity, and data, giving her a rare view of how leadership, people, and technology shape performance.
Beyond her executive roles, she invests in organizations that expand access to opportunity, serving on boards and advising groups that build pathways for underrepresented and first-generation talent. Through KJS Coaching & Consulting, she leads a team of seasoned HR leaders, recruiters, and advisors who act as an extension of their clients' leadership teams. Kate has coached more than 2,000 professionals and advised hundreds of executives, founders, and boards, driven by one belief: the strongest organizations create more leaders, not just better results.
Book a ConsultationWhere I've Worked.
A few things 20+ years of this work taught me.
After more than a thousand coaching sessions and decades of building people functions, a handful of principles stick. These are mine.
Your story is your strategy.
No fluff. No spin. Just strategies that work.
Hiring decisions get made by humans. We coach for that.
Doing right by people doesn't need a reason.
The Generosity Flywheel
Generosity creates trust. Trust creates opportunity. Opportunity fuels growth. Growth expands our capacity to give. Generosity moves outward, from the person we help to the next person they help, until it's simply how a whole community works. That's the Generosity Flywheel: the reason we started, and the force that will always drive us forward.
The KJS Team.
I built KJS to do this work the way it should be done. These are the people I trust to do it with me.
Kate Sargent
Kate started KJS to do this work the way it should be done: honest, human, and genuinely useful. Over 20+ years she's coached more than 2,000 people through the biggest moments of their careers and advised companies from seed-stage startups to the Fortune 10 on the people strategy behind their growth. No fluff, no spin, just real guidance and a deep belief that doing right by people is its own reward.
Phillip Oaks
Phillip shapes where KJS is headed. Across 30+ years in leadership, including executive roles at Amazon and Walmart, he helped build some of the businesses that reshaped how the world shops. He's led enormous teams and multi-billion-dollar bets, but what he cares about most is helping people and companies grow at the same time, turning big, ambitious goals into plans that actually work.
Ryan Hudock
Global people and operations leader shaping team scale, organizational design, and leadership capability across tech, creative, and adjacent industries, building the structures, systems, and talent foundations that help people and organizations grow.
Dawn Robertson
A global CEO, president, and managing director across nearly three decades with Fortune-ranked public companies, private-equity-backed businesses, and global consumer brands. Dawn is chairman of Splitit and lead independent director of DesignMe, and she co-founded The Whisper List to put the right opportunities in front of the right women leaders.
Donna Cooper
Donna makes sure every promise KJS makes gets delivered, and delivered well. She builds the behind-the-scenes systems that let deeply personal, high-touch work grow without ever feeling less personal. Clients rarely see everything she's holding together, which is exactly how she likes it.
Christina Mackiewicz
Christina helps KJS grow with intention. She works alongside Kate to keep everything clear, steady, and moving, the person who turns a hundred moving pieces into forward momentum. Practical, unflappable, and usually three steps ahead, she's the reason a lot of things just work.
Tom Dillon
Tom leads marketing at KJS, which on any given day means a little bit of everything: brand, content, storytelling, and whatever else helps more people find their way to this work. He's spent eight years turning strategy into things people actually see and remember, and he's happiest when big ideas meet hands-on execution.
Erin Robinson
With 9+ years in Human Resources and Talent Acquisition, Erin helps organizations align purpose with performance through establishing scalable, compliant and human-centered HR practices. She drives lasting impact by building authentic and honest partnerships with leadership and management across all levels, and is recognized for her grounded and empathic approach to solving complex challenges.
Dalena Cain
Dalena Cain is an HR strategist and people operations consultant who partners with startups and small government contractors to build practical people practices that strengthen compliance, support business growth, and create healthier workplace cultures. With more than a decade of experience across employee relations, workplace investigations, HR operations, benefits, compliance, and leadership support, Dalena helps organizations navigate complex people challenges, strengthen internal processes, and build clear, consistent HR foundations.
Ashley Thomas
Ashley supports KJS recruitment operations by sourcing, screening, and interviewing candidates to identify strong talent. She has 10 years of Human Resources experience and enjoys being on the people side, helping build strong teams.
Virginia Flister
Virginia gets to know the people behind the job descriptions and the resumes. She helps teams find the right hires, supports candidates through big decisions, and sorts out the processes that make hiring harder than it needs to be. Warm, direct, and always willing to get into the details, she cares just as much about how people are treated as who gets hired.
Katelyn McArdle
Katelyn helps non-profits, start-ups, and small businesses prepare for scale. An operations specialist with 15+ years in the non-profit sector and more than $25M raised, she focuses on the systems, marketing strategy, and at-a-glance insights that set organizations up for sustainable growth.
Navigating your own career?
1:1 coaching, free resources, and self-paced programs to help you move forward.
Work With MeBuilding people strategy at scale?
HR consulting, executive search, training, and outplacement for organizations.
Work With KJS