Katie Fry Hester is an independently minded, State Senator in Maryland and sustainability/partnership consultant. Most recently, Katie was Americas Director at The Partnering Initiative (TPI) an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to driving cross-sectoral collaboration for a sustainable future. She led Business Partnership Action (BPA) which supports the creation of locally-owned and run country-level platforms or Hubs that systematically bring together government, business, donors, the UN and NGOs to demonstrate the alignment of interests, facilitate innovation and directly support ‘win-win’ partnerships between companies, international agencies, government and NGO to achieve sustainable development priorities. She has over fifteen years of international experience in the fields of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility, including deep expertise in multi-sector partnerships, stakeholder engagement, strategy development, research, facilitation and training. She is a Professionally Accredited Partnership Broker.