Gerry Flake and Kathryn Downing

Kathryn is an executive and life transition coach, and strategic planning consultant. As a business executive her focus was on leading the financial turnaround and cultural transformation of professional publishing companies including the Los Angeles Times as its Publisher, President and CEO. Her specialty was in leading organizations through profound change and transformation. Kathryn’s love of creating new businesses resulted in her involvement as an entrepreneur in the start-up of two publishing endeavors, the start-up of a consulting business addressing large-scale reform in education and the start up of an educational company in the beauty industry.

She currently serves as Chair of the Board of The Women’s Foundation of California, and as the chair of the executive and finance committees, as well as on the board of The Trusteeship, the Southern California chapter of the International Women’s Forum.

Her educational background is a J.D. from Stanford University School of Law and a B.A. in economics from Lewis & Clark College in Portland Oregon.

Gerry is an executive and management coach and co-founder of Executive to Executive, Inc. He has a BS in mathematics from the University of Cincinnati and a MBA in Quantitative Analysis from Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio. His business experience includes senior and executive positions in consumer products, commercial software, electronic publishing, Yellow Pages publishing and newspapers. Gerry’s focus was on the exploitation of technology, organization and system change to improve organizational and financial effectiveness and efficiency.

Gerry has served as a resource for the United Way’s Management Assistance program and was active in parish and school organizations as his sons advanced through their education.