The 2023 Rising Stars of the Profession: Kate Kiyosaki

With consumer digital experience top of mind, healthcare organizations must accelerate transformation to remain competitive. This is where Kate Kiyosaki steps in. She loves challenges and building relationships with new leaders, which makes her the go-to-lead for complex programs with many different business and technology stakeholders. She gets results too: By helping health plans shift to digital channels, she has enabled them to save millions annually.

Kate has more than a decade of industry experience delivering transformational initiatives, mostly focused on the front office of health plans–specifically, product innovation, marketing and communications governance, customer experience, and digital transformation. She's passionate about account management as well, and she leads some of our largest payer accounts.

Kate's background includes extensive experience in business decision support and reporting, process improvement, and financial systems for global companies. Prior to joining West Monroe, she held several finance and internal consulting roles with Baxter International, both in Chicago and at Baxter's Latin America headquarters in Miami, Florida. Kate has a degree in finance from Miami University (Ohio).

Kate also brought her consulting experience abroad, as she was one of our first Fischer Global Fellows in 2016. She took three months away from her job to serve the refugee community of El Cocal, Quepos, Costa Rica through Global Vision International. She worked with community leaders to organize labor for a playground and other projects, improve Spanish fluency, create a "social emotional learning" curriculum for children, and mentor staff to improve leadership skills. Her experience helped her develop her leadership style of aiming to seek first to understand and focusing on building diverse teams.

What would you say has been the biggest factor in your success so far?

The biggest factor in my success can be attributed to feedback – having leaders, peers, and team members who are willing to spend the time to provide feedback and mentor me. Then, I internalize and capitalize on the feedback, whether positive or constructive. After receiving feedback from anyone I work with from all levels (West Monroe encourages upward feedback), I work incredibly hard and diligently to improve. It's important to me to always get better and the best way to do this is by constantly learning along the way and seeing every experience as an opportunity to grow. Certain challenges we run into can be discouraging at times, but by working with those I trust, I've been able to view challenges as learning opportunities.

What do you enjoy most about your career in the consulting industry?

At West Monroe, I am grateful to work every day with the best and brightest people on diverse multidisciplinary teams. One of the best parts is mentoring the next generation of leaders on my teams – it is a passion of mine and I look forward to the part of my day when I get to coach and mentor. It is incredibly rewarding to see them grow and take on leadership opportunities.

This deep level of collaboration leads to challenging the status quo and the typical ways of thinking to deliver better results to our health care clients that are changing the industry for the better. Working in health care is unique as the people on both sides are all working together to make a difference. It is inspiring to work toward a common goal to make a genuine impact in the space.

What is your proudest achievement to date?

I was just among the 16 leaders promoted to Partner at West Monroe, and this promotion is something I've been working toward for a decade. I'm passionate about the work I do for payers in their front office areas, the people I lead and grow, as well as the accounts I run…as we're all hoping to make health care better every day. Consulting is not a female-dominated industry, and to be a female who earned this promotion, a new mom (welcomed Cameron in 2022), and a biracial Asian American, is quite a feat.

The support West Monroe and my co-workers have provided me has been incredible, and I hope to inspire many women, moms, and people of color to keep on keeping on. It's been super rewarding to hear from my colleagues after this accomplishment – of course, the regular congrats, but also many consultants saying they're also pregnant and asking my advice on how they navigate this new major life change while balancing the demanding career as a consultant – and succeed while doing it. There were also many young women who are members of our PAN-Asian Employee Resource Group telling me that seeing "one of their own" as a Partner at this firm is inspiring, and it makes them think they can do it too.

Yes, this is my proudest achievement to date, but it's not just for me, it's for everyone who sees themselves in me.

What's the best advice you've ever been given?

Ginni Rometty, the former CEO of IBM famously said, "Growth and comfort do not coexist." I think this particularly relates to the field of consulting. As consultants, we are constantly in situations that are new and may be uncomfortable like giving a presentation at a conference or traveling to a new city for a new client. It's important to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because that is how we all grow, and consulting is an ever-changing and evolving line of work.

What does this recognition mean to you?

It's no secret that we all spend a significant portion of our lives working. I have invested countless hours developing myself and my skillsets, mentoring our next generation of leaders, and working with clients to leave everything we touch much better than how we found it.

Receiving this recognition is a testament to the time and effort I've prioritized to achieve great client service and demonstrates that my contributions are recognized and valued. It also is a testament to how West Monroe's mission of developing the next generation of leaders is truly put into action as I started at the company over a decade ago as an analyst and have grown through the ranks to a recent promotion to Partner. I'm excited to join this group of peers as well as those also being recognized by Consulting Magazine.