Katie McPherson is an accomplished resilience practitioner. She founded Resilience & Foresight Services with the knowledge that nearly every disaster is both predictable and preventable, if only we can break free of the systems and mindsets that reinforce vulnerabilities and limit creativity and collaboration. 

Her journey began in 2004, when she responded to the Indian Ocean Tsunami and witnessed, amidst billions of dollars of aid, and thousands of foreign responders, the  power of the arts and community relationships in fostering local recovery. Since then, she has responded on the ground and in leadership roles to floods, fires, oil spills, windstorms and the COVID 19 pandemic. She has led risk assessments, facilitated resilience and strategic planning initiatives at hyper-local and global scales, worked in the public and private sector, and convened artists, engineers, planners, youth, elders and politicians to redefine old challenges and foster resilience, empathy and wellbeing in the face of complexity, conflict and uncertainty.

Since founding Resilience & Foresight Services she has supported Indigenous partners to develop the award-winning, Indigenous Community Safety Partnership Program, integrated foresight into climate risk assessments, evaluated and coached public and private organizations to develop foresight and resilience capabilities. 

Katie is grateful to live in Whitehorse, Yukon, located on the traditional territory of the Ta’an Kwäch’än Council and the Kwanlin Dün First Nation (Whitehorse, Yukon). Here, she aims to live with a lighter footprint, and foster positive opportunities for her family, community and future generations. 

Katie is a Certified Futures Practitioner with an undergraduate degree in International Development Studies from Dalhousie University, and a Master’s in Disaster and Emergency Management from York University.