Kathy is the Founder and President of Centera Corporation, an executive development and leadership consulting firm, located in Minneapolis, MN. She actively advises CEO’s and C-suite executives on leadership effectiveness, executive succession, and corporate governance. Her clients include 3M, UnitedHealth Group, Wells Fargo, US Bank, Thrivent Financial, Medtronic and State Farm Insurance, to name a few.

Prior to founding Centera in 1995, she gained 15 years of broad experience in senior executive and officer level positions. Her experiences and competencies cover the major human resource functions including: executive compensation, health and welfare benefits, CEO and executive succession, organizational culture, employee and labor relations, and corporate governance gained through director and senior vice president roles with the global companies of Northwest Airlines, Grand Metropolitan PLC, The Pillsbury Company, and Burger King Corporation.

She has used leadership development and change management strategies to help numerous domestic and international companies build sustainable competitive advantage. She is accustomed to working in many cultures and has initiated large-scale projects in Asia, Europe and the United States.

Kathy also leverages her human resource knowledge and business acumen as a board member of Best Buy, Inc., a Minnesota based consumer electronics company, and as a trustee for the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota’s largest private university.

Kathy has been a member of the Board of Directors at Best Buy Company, Inc. since November 1999. She has been a member of the Nominating, Corporate Governance, and Public Policy Committee (NCGPP) since joining the board, and has been Chairman of the Committee since 2005. She has also been a member of the Compensation and Human Resources Committee since joining the board. She chaired the CEO Selection Committee during the 2012-2013 business and leadership crisis and has successfully transitioned the board’s independence and governance through an investor-focused process.

Kathy brings a seasoned perspective to the boardroom, having experience with activist shareholders, business and leadership crisis, shareholder relations, board refreshment, Sarbanes-Oxley, Say- on-Pay, and other proxy access matters