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Alumna Spotlight: Katie Burke ’99
RUNNING HER OWN RACE
– Katie Burke ’99
by Elaine Fazekas, Director of Marketing and Communications
Whether on a conference call in Cambridge with members of her 300-person team at HubSpot, a leading marketing software firm, or speaking to a room full of Ursuline seniors and their parents, Katie Burke ’99 is a force for change – or as she describes it “making good trouble.” As the Chief People Officer at HubSpot, Burke is responsible for the company’s recruitment, people operations, learning and development, culture, and employee experience. Five years ago, she started a diversity and inclusion initiative at the firm, resulting in a measurable increase in workforce diversity. “Making sure our talent pool is diverse, being able to scale our global talent reach in places like Bogota and Tokyo, and then ensuring that my team scales to meet the needs of the business – those are the things that keep me up at night,” she commented recently in an interview with Serviam Magazine.
After graduating from Ursuline in 1999, Burke attended Bates College and the MIT Sloan School of Management, and spent several years in leadership roles in public relations and marketing. In recent years, she was selected by the Boston Business Journal as one of Boston’s 40 under 40, and also serves on the board of Paycor, as a columnist at Inc., and as an advisor at 826 Boston.
Behind such a stellar resume, one might expect to find someone who takes herself very seriously. Yet when invited to Ursuline this spring to speak to the senior class at the annual Senior Parent Brunch, Burke advised the students “Don’t cut your own bangs,” and told of her arrival as a transfer student wearing the wrong uniform skirt due to recent changes in the dress code. Her selfdeprecating manner, though, is an effective delivery mechanism for a serious message about the importance of diversity and inclusion. As Burke advised the soon-to-be college freshwomen, “Use your voices to create good trouble, to create change, and to advocate for what’s right and just. I started the diversity and inclusion initiative at HubSpot five years ago, but I still use my voice to say, ‘Why aren’t there women in this room? Why are we not doing more?’” When asked how she became so passionate about inclusion, Burke credits her upbringing. “My mom had very few hard and fast rules, but one in our house was ‘no one eats lunch alone.’ From a very young age, it set the tone that inclusion is something highly valued in our household, and inspired me to learn and read more about how I can be an upstander on behalf of others.” Burke elaborates, “With HubSpot’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, I’ve had to be willing to both challenge others and have my own assumptions challenged as well. So I’ve pushed very hard on things like releasing our diversity data and innovating around fertility benefits, and I’ve also been pushed hard by our employees when we aren’t doing enough.”
Citing Michael Lewis, author of The Blind Side, Burke advised Ursuline’s seniors “Don’t be good, be great. Set lofty goals and set out to achieve them.” She recounted setting an intentional goal for HubSpot to become known as the best place to work. During Burke’s tenure there, the company has been named the #1 Best Place to Work by Glassdoor, the Boston Globe’s Best Place to Work, and a Best Place to Work for Women and Parents by Fortune. The company is known for its family-friendly policies, which encourage employees to use their judgment in determining how to balance work and family responsibilities.
When asked to look back at her Ursuline experience, Burke reflects, “I think one thing Ursuline does really well is teach great writing skills. People underestimate how important those are regardless of which career path you choose. Being able to communicate effectively is such a gift. The other is just the importance of helping new people feel welcome. My experience being new at Ursuline was made meaningfully better by the generosity and selflessness of Martha Tierney giving me her uniform. I now try to emulate her kindness in how I welcome others to school, work, or social events.”
When asked what would be her advice to her teenage self, Burke responds “Run your own race. I spent so much time worrying that I wasn’t as (fill in the blank) as other people, and I wish I could tell my 16-year-old self to focus more on running my own race and to spend a lot less time comparing myself to others. It’s especially challenging for today’s teenagers, because what people present on the internet isn’t real. Spend your life optimizing your reality, not your Instagram or TikTok image, which I know is easier said than done.”
Whether pushing herself or others to do better or serving as a model for inclusion, Katie Burke is running a race of her own choosing – and running it to win.
