writer / podcaster
wisconsinite
Trying to make sense of what AI or election integrity means for your organization? After 25+ years inside those rooms, Katie will help you think through yours.
The morning after the 2016 election, Katie Harbath sat in her car on Constitution Avenue and didn't move when the light turned green. She was running global elections at Facebook, through Russian ads, congressional hearings, and Cambridge Analytica.
Katie was inside the machine when it misfired — and left with her integrity intact.
About Katie
Twenty-five years inside the rooms where technology and democracy collide.
favorite house plant?
favorite season?
favorite pizza topping?
East coast or west coast?
Mountains or beach?
what's your favorite coffee order
Katie grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the daughter of a paper mill manager whose one rule still runs everything she does: don't half-ass it, and stay humble while you're at it. At 23, she walked into the Republican National Committee with a memo and no title — the start of eight years in Republican politics, through a House committee and presidential campaigning, before Facebook recruited her in 2011 to build its global elections program from scratch.
Katie knows the difference between a congressional letter (routine) and a CEO called to testify (real). Clients have told her she ends up being closer to a therapist than a consultant — not because she offers sympathy, but because she's actually been where they are. When someone tells her they feel like everyone else has this figured out, she can tell them the truth: nobody does.
Where It Started
Having been in the room when it goes wrong doesn't make you cynical. It makes you calm.
She also has a name for the discipline underneath it: **panic responsibly.** Not "don't panic" — the risks are real. It means taking the downside seriously, doing the hard thinking while things are calm, and deciding with the information you have.
Today that runs through everything under Anchor Change — advisory work, the Briefing Network, and her book, *Disrupting Politics.*
What She Calls It Now
Katie can sit across from a member of Congress and a tech executive, let them both talk, and tell each what the other one meant. She calls it connecting the dots.
Lori Brewer Collins
Brewer Collins Leadership
"Katie is one of the most principled and insightful leaders I've had the privilege of working with. Her superpower lies in seamlessly bridging the worlds of tech, policy, and democracy — transforming complexity into clarity with sharp, meaningful insights."
TRUSTed INSIGHTS, LASTING IMPACT
