Vice President, Public Programs and Executive Director, Aspen Ideas Festival, Kitty is responsible for oversight of a broad array of public facing programs and events at the Aspen Institute. She is the primary executive in charge of the Aspen Ideas Festival, a week-long conference that is hosted by the Institute and The Atlantic magazine each summer in Aspen. She also supports and works with colleagues on numerous additional programs which the Institute partners in or manages, including Aspen Ideas Health, Aspen Abu Dhabi Ideas Forum, City Lab, and various smaller initiatives. Kitty has worked at the Aspen Institute since 2003.
Prior to joining The Aspen Institute, Kitty served as Vice President, Marketing and Sales at Aspen Skiing Company, where she worked for 11 years.
A native of San Francisco and a graduate of Stanford University, Kitty began her career in Washington DC as an intern for a national environmental group, ultimately coming to Aspen in 1989, after stints in the public and private sector and earning her Master’s in Public and Private Management at Yale School of Management. She is a proud mom of twins—one of whom is a junior in college and the other a Navy Seal recruit. Kitty sits on two boards in Aspen, and is passionate to learn why some people are so curious.