HR executive moves to mentorship in Tetons
Kathleen Brown has worked in human resources for large companies, now advises startups in Silicon Couloir space.
By Sophia Boyd-Fliegel
If you ever hear about corporate human resources, you probably hear about the problems. In the wake of crypto trading platform FTX’s 2022 collapse, it was revealed that the only organizational chart had been from the former CEO’s psychiatrist. The company’s scaffolding was intentionally abnormal, which turned out to be entirely unsustainable. “When employees don’t know what’s going on, there’s anxiety,” said Kathleen Brown, who became an expert in diagnosing and attempting to heal corporate mistrust. She said employees can have feelings of “I don’t know where we’re growing. I don’t know why we’re here. I don’t know why that decision was made. I was just told that it’s being done.” Trust is hard to build and easy to lose, whether in a Fortune 500 company or an entrepreneurial startup. Through her career, Brown has been in the thick of companies of all sizes, even a literal momand-pop shop. Her first job was as a teen working for her parents, who owned a music store in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.
“Businesses always interested me,” she said, “probably because of those roots.”
Brown, 63, recently stepped away from an intense career in corporate human resources and, before that, management consulting. After living in the resort community of Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia she moved full time to Jackson in 2021.
Brown has been in intense corporate atmospheres since college. Management consulting has a reputation for people aiming for high-earning, hardworking environments. But Brown spoke fondly of the slog, the 50- to 80-hour weeks, even the all-nighters.
Downsides? Not much personal life, she said.
“But everybody around me was young,” she said. “Many of them are still my good friends after all these years.”
After 11 years Brown took time off work to downshift. She volunteered for many boards, becoming “Miss Community” and had her son, Trey Speer. She thought she’d go back to a similar position at a health care company, but in interviews she was pressed to take a bigger role for the 800-employee CareCore National as vice president of HR. In that role she immediately knew something had to change.
“It was a kind of command-and-control culture. A lot of shoot first, ask questions later,” she said, “I later learned that the HR team had left crying and in tears.”
Even with the smell of smoke, Brown wanted to run into the fire.
“I love to get in there and problemsolve,” she said. “I love a challenge.”
The company grew from 800 to 5,000 and rebranded to eviCore healthcare. Then it sold to pharmacy benefit management organization Express Scripts, with 42,000 employees, which was bought by Cigna Group, currently ranked No. 15 on the Forbes Fortune 500.
Brown is now advising others in Jackson Hole, serving on the Community Safety Network and Coombs Outdoors boards of directors. She advises startups in the Silicon Couloir space, like Jordan Rich, director of Voices JH, a nonprofit that trains immigrant leaders in the Teton region and Keely Kelleher, founder of Keely’s Camp for Girls.
“Listening is a huge part of it,” she said.“What is the entrepreneur struggling with? What’s the problem?”
Then she corrected herself. “Not the problem, what’s the opportunity?”
For her next challenge and opportunity, Brown is co-founder with Sharon Felzer of the inaugural Jackson Hole Book Festival, a free ticketed event set for Oct. 26 at Snow King Resort. Thirty national and international bestselling authors will be speaking about their work.