Kate Hatter
Company: Legal Gantt
Title: Chief Marketing Officer
Age: 22
Hometown: Louisville
Resides (city or neighborhood): Fern Creek
Hobbies: Party planning, swimming, CrossFit, baking, and DIY crafting
Twitter/Instagram/other social media handle: LinkedIn: kate-hatter/
Favorite tech gadget: Thermapen Mk4
How did you get into the career you have today? Entrepreneurship, innovation, and business have always been fascinating to me. From there, I allowed my passions to dictate my self-education. Experimentation and exploration have been my best friend in nourishing my love for new ventures.
What’s one thing Louisville can do to improve its tech and/or startup ecosystem? Our community can better support our BIPOC voices, ideas, and experiences. The existing organizations can collaborate to create an equitable environment through better access to funding, incubation, and affordable or untraditional education. Most of the time, the Legal Gantt team walks into investors’ rooms and we are the only non-male or racial minorities. We would love to see diverse perspectives and needs represented, as such representation would benefit us all.
Who has been one of your top mentors? Why? Dustin Hall — currently at Brown-Forman— has facilitated many of the most valuable lessons I have learned in my career. The most important lesson: Everyone deserves to show up to work as their whole selves. We both have a dedication to diversity and inclusion. Among other teachings, he has shown me how to fight for my vision, remain positive against adversity, prioritize mental health, and collaborate with others without compromising my values. I owe him a great deal for my personal and professional growth.
What’s your best piece of advice for companies and individuals looking to be more innovative and disruptive in their fields? Think of category disruption or invention as a game. Focus on reinventing the rules. Make your competition play by your rules. To do so, think of everything as competition. Let innovation drive growth. Examples of this concept include Airbnb, Uber, and Keurig.
What accomplishment are you most proud of? In 2015, I received the New Albany Entrepreneurship Award from IUS and Purdue as nominated by my peers. The award is on display at my desk to this day because it reminds me that people believed in my work even when I doubted myself.
What innovative company (other than your own) do you admire and why? Louisville’s El Toro is one of my favorite local organizations to follow. I respect how El Toro has grown, hires, and operates. El Toro’s ad tech is incredibly interesting.
