As creative content strategist and senior copywriter of website, email campaigns, and fundraising materials, I support this recently launched nonprofit’s mission to empower scientific breakthroughs, clinical trials, and improved treatments that change lives and enable better outcomes for rare cancer patients and their families.

A creative force from the 1960s until her death in 2007, artist Laurel Burch was renowned for vibrant, vivid artwork and uniquely original jewelry. I provide creative direction, content strategy, and copywriting for website, email, and social media campaigns in support of Laurel's daughter Aarin’s commitment to keep her mother's exuberant art and vision alive for fans worldwide through an online store, Berkeley flagship retail store, and collaboration with licensing partners.

Compose, Inc. is a Professional English development organization that provides weekly online courses in reading/writing and business English for union organizers in Unite Here, the nationwide labor union for hotel and restaurant workers. As a consultant, I tutor remotely each week with union organizers enrolled in these classes to provide technology training and strategies for improving business writing, speaking, and reading skills.

WRITER: After 8 years as an agency Copy Director and Creative Director, I returned to my passion for writing and editing full-time in 2011. Collaborating with a roster of diverse clients, I guide communication strategies and provide an authentic voice to tell their stories, create connections, and inspire action. I also create, curate and manage digital content across multiple channels to market brand values and services to customers or members. Writing portfolio at wheaterwriter.com.EDITOR: Per client confidentiality agreements, I'm unable to share editing examples of business communications, white papers, film proposals, grants and academic texts; please contact me to discuss.EDUCATOR: I currently tutor organizers of Unite Here, a hospitality industry labor union that represents 300,000 working people across Canada and the United States, in professional reading, writing, and speaking skills. While earning my MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA-TESOL) at San Francisco State University (SFSU) August, 2017– May 2021, I was a City College of San Francisco ESL Teaching Assistant for two semesters, an SFSU CMS (Composition for Multilingual Students) Teaching Assistant for three semesters and FYC (First Year Composition )Teaching Assistant for one semester. In 2019, I worked as a group conversation English tutor for Liceo Internazionale, Rovereto, Italy high school students (English level A1 to C2); from August, 2018– May, 2021, I was employed as a reading/writing and study skills tutor for a diverse range of university students (multilingual and English speakers) at the SFSU Teaching and Academic Success Center.

The Tutoring and Academic Success Center (TASC) is an on-campus tutoring and academic support center at San Francisco State University. I worked as an in-person and online reading/writing and study skills tutor with recurring weekly and drop-in hourly sessions for multilingual and native English-speaking undergrad and graduate students. As a TASC embedded tutor/teaching assistant in first-year composition classes, I assisted instructors in-class and created lesson plans and activity handouts for students.

Leveraging TESOL pedagogy and communications expertise, I provided content strategy and copywriting for digital apps, website, email and print campaigns for New York City's nonprofit Black Car Fund Drivers Benefits program as well as outreach campaigns for its partner BeneStream serving qualified Black Car drivers and independent Uber, Lyft, Juno, and Via drivers in New York State.

For San Francisco Travel Association's Illuminate SF initiative, inaugurated in 2013 and updated annually, I drove creative strategy, researched and wrote original content for www.illuminatesf.com website, press releases, annual event guides, self-guided light art tour guides, and video scripts. Additionally, I developed accompanying articles for the www.sanfrancisco.travel website to inspire and move San Francisco visitors and Bay Area locals.

Drove content strategy and wrote all print and digital ads, email campaigns, blog posts, signage and promotions, fact sheets, fundraising presentations, and media kits in support of The Bay Lights, a multi-million dollar public light art project permanently installed on the San Francisco -Oakland Bay Bridge by internationally renowned artist Leo Villareal. As Consulting Story Director for Jeremy Amber's Emmy-nominated documentary "Impossible Light," I provided story direction and structured the film in the most dramatic way possible to bring narrative drive to its final cut. The film premiered as one of the top eight documentary films in SXSW Film Festival’s 2014 Grand Jury competition. Trailer at impossiblelightfilm.com "Love and appreciate working with Kathi! She stepped into all of our messaging challenges with force and clarity to wrangle our multifaceted message into vital communications. The website, info sheets, patron and corporate funding decks, print and digital ads — even fine-tuning blog posts, writing and directing videos. Her clarity and focus is a treasure to me in my massive swirl of this project!"Amy Critchett, Executive ProducerThe Bay Lights

In my role as Experience Design Strategist, I collaborated with national medical associations’ leadership to assess and improve the overall experience of their annual conferences and events against the organization’s objectives. Upon defining event goals and objectives in cooperation with internal stakeholders, I evaluated the event journey to provide actionable recommendations that would deliver more effective, engaging, and immersive experiences that connect people and move them to action, building engagement in conference sessions and events for: • American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC)• American College of Physicians (ACP)• American Society of Hematology (ASH)• American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA)• American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM)The resulting plan was used to develop and build out event resources for the associations’ onsite experiences, website and email campaigns, including protocols, event checklists, videos and other templates and tools to ensure they aligned with strategic business and brand objectives.

Brand strategy, marketing concepts and multi-platform copywriting for small- to mid-sized B2B companies' results-driven marketing programs.

• Interpreted clients' brand, USP strengths and program benefits against market conditions and competitive analysis, resulting in an actionable, promotional strategy.• Consistently pushed the creative execution of client websites, landing pages, banner ads, email campaigns, catalogs, and direct mail while remaining on-brand and on-strategy.• Took ownership of challenging projects that required ambitious thinking, strong collaboration, and a quick turnaround.• Worked closely with agency principals on successful new business development efforts and agency marketing projects, including cross-platform collateral, websites and pitch decks."I managed Kathi in 2011 when she was a Creative Director at the advertising and marketing agency Creative Lift. She consistently brought fresh, exciting ideas to the team. She was a strong writer who created compelling stories that drove results. She’s a caring, dynamic, fun, enthusiastic and patient leader who put her creativity to work for key marketing strategies, creative team direction, website development, packaging and more for Guthy Renker, Babycenter, Charter and Facebook."Allison L. Bucchere, 
Former Group Creative Director
CreativeLift

• Directed writing and development of brand voice and strategic creative as SBC brand transitioned to A&T and introduced AT&T U-verse nationally, helped grow and guide agency team from 4 to 28 people.• Also developed concepts and multi-platform DM and digital campaigns for clients American Express, Bare Neccessities, Chipotle, USAA and affiliate partners including ADT, Experian, Explore Cruise Travel and Hertz, and multiple new client presentations.• Top-notch senior copywriter equally at home brainstorming fresh ideas and writing on-target headlines, engaging descriptions and detailed long-copy communications."Kathi’s stellar leadership style is notable. During her years as Copy Director at Haggin Marketing / SolutionSet (now Epsilon), she gave clear direction to her team on all print and digital projects for AT&T, USAA and multiple new biz pitches including Chipotle, Regis StyleClub and Bare Necessities. I've seen Kathi mentor junior writers and have witnessed their professional growth. Her feedback was constructive and fair. She offered ample room for creativity, individual interpretation and ownership."Elizabeth Till, Former Account Director, AT&T and USAA
SolutionSet

Branding and key messaging, content strategy and copywriting services for Bay Area non-profit organizations."You provided outstanding strategic insight for copywriting and for your teammates in other phases of the project, such as Marketing insights during the Discovery Phase and the great advice you gave on developing Brand Strategy. One thing that I thought was exceptional, was your passion for excellence. I found it invigorating and it clearly upped the level of our team's performance, and the end result reflected it."Jerry Ball, Taproot Foundation Account Directorfor Horizons Foundation