Caitlin Pontrella

Caitlin is an impact-oriented, mission-driven leader and change agent with a decade of experience serving the nonprofit and public sector. Having served as an Executive Director, Interim Executive Director, Interim Development Director, and Board President for various organizations, Caitlin has guided teams through all organizational life cycle stages including startup, rapid growth, crisis, leadership transition, and transformation. Her expertise in board governance and development, budget creation and financial management, and community-centric fundraising have helped her lead successful strategic planning initiatives, build cross-sector partnerships, and drive cultural changes in the workplace.

Her leadership starts with intentional diplomatic coalition building. By creating inclusive, emotionally intelligent spaces, she works to empower her team members with the confidence and resources to make informed decisions and actively participate in organizational growth. Caitlin excels at managing competing priorities, building trust, distributing power, and diffusing conflict in order to align towards a common goal. She places emphasis on fostering an open-hearted team culture that encourages communication and compassion by holding space for the complexities of humanity and our shared experience.

Caitlin prioritizes disrupting and altering practices, structures, and politics that prevent inclusion and belonging. She has previously helped historically cis, het, white-led organizations move from performative cultural awareness and affirmations to operationalization of their values with day-to-day action. Her approach involves the questioning of routine procedures that demand urgency, perfection, individualism, and a bigger-is-better mentality in efforts to authentically return to an organizations’ prime directive.

With a background of education in architecture, and layered experiences in design, the arts, and recreation, she brings a playful approach to tackling challenges. Caitlin’s life work centers around a desire for all people to live into the fullest measure of humanity, which drives her professional and volunteer work in urban arts, recreation, parks, and human services. She lives with her partner in Seattle and uses her free time to practice parkour and create art. Caitlin uses they/she pronouns.