Wia Profile Katie

Talking with XBIZ, she is soft-spoken but decisive, and quick to laugh.

The more connections and avenues I can create for them to provide their feedback, the better we can do our jobs.

“Oh my gosh, thank you so much for this incredible honor!” she gushes. “Little old me? I never expected to make the Women in Adult list so early in my career.”

Veteran Leadership, New Mission

Katie’s route to her current career has been anything but predictable. After earning an undergraduate degree in fisheries biology, she served eight years on active military duty working as an operational specialist driving ships and boats. When life at sea lost its luster, she pivoted.

“I gained a lot of leadership and interpersonal skills from living on board a ship,” she says. “I’ve been through some really tough situations, and a lot of those skills are applicable here.”

That’s half the story. The other half matters just as much, if not more: Katie spent more than a decade as an anonymous content creator, never revealing her identity or showing her face. Thanks to that perspective, she has long understood this industry from the inside.

When a friend asked her to give feedback to a startup in the adult space, she wrote them a document with some feedback.

“I was just being a helpful gal,” she laughs. “They were like, ‘This is pretty good. Do you want to consult for us?’”

Consulting turned into creator liaison work, which led to community management.

Despite the global scale of that community, Katie keeps the day-to-day granular. What she’s focusing on at any given moment can vary widely.

“What tabs do I even have open today?” she laughs. “Any given day, if you hit me up, I will tell you something different. I work on educational resources, create surveys, look at different feedback and turn it into solution-oriented recommendations for the product team. Or I’m figuring out how we are going to connect with our community at events like XBIZ, where we host dinners and the model lounge — our team knocks it out of the park there, I’m always floored.”

Listening as a Practice

Today, much of Katie’s job centers on listening — deeply, consistently and with purpose.

“I try to make myself very accessible,” she says. “If someone wants to hop on a call, then we hop on a call. Some of the most rewarding discussions I’ve had with creators is when I do a one-on-one feedback interview and say, ‘Hey, this is a safe space and the floor is yours.’ Then I kind of just sit there and take it all in.

“I want them to be heard,” she adds simply.

From there, Katie systematically turns pain points into an action plan. Her flagship initiative is designed to formalize that loop.

“The most important thing I’m doing right now is a new program called the CB Insider,” she says. “Basically, we’re doing a long-term focus group, a select group of 10 to 12 creators where we meet with them monthly over a period of several months. We give them sneak previews of features, making sure we’re hearing from them first before we put something out in the real world.”

In many ways, this sums up her driving philosophy: The people who use a platform should be partners in building and shaping it.

“That is the best tool in our toolbox: the words straight from the creators’ mouths,” she affirms. “The more connections and avenues I can create for them to provide their feedback, the better we can do our jobs.”

Cats, Beaches and Breakfast

Katie’s personal life hums with the same gentle, generous spirit. She’s a cat person — enthusiastically so.

“I have two,” she says, lighting up as she recounts how she rescued a whole family of cats in her native New England.

“We’ve helped trap so many cats up there, making sure they weren’t breeding out of control in the neighborhood,” she says. “We call my grandma ‘Dr. Doolittle’ for feeding every critter that wanders by.”

She also wears her “nerd” badge with pride.

“I love nerd culture, video games and all that stuff,” she confesses. “I’m a total closet gamer!”

Summer in New England also means going to the beach with friends.

“Anything I can do that gets me out and about,” she says. “My time away from the desk is so limited.”

Katie also describes herself as “a bit of a foodie,” with weekend priorities to match.

“Breakfast is my favorite,” she attests. “I get eggs Benedict a lot because I would never poach an egg and make Hollandaise sauce at home!”

Passion and Purpose

The long runway of “industry season,” as she calls it, excites Katie.

“We’re working on so many new creative resources and ways to help make life easier,” she says of the months ahead. “It’s going to be a stretch and it’s going to be fun.”

In the meantime, she’s savoring the core of her work: building community one conversation at a time.

“I think more and more people are learning to ping me,” she grins.

As central as her own role has become, however, Katie repeatedly expresses gratitude for her teammates, including Chaturbate COO Shirley Lara.

“Shirley has done such an incredible job with the community,” she enthuses. “I give her so much credit for paving the way and having such a good rapport with creators. I give all my people their flowers because they are everything to me.”

When up-and-comers — especially women eyeing the business side of the industry — ask for advice, Katie keeps it simple.

“Be nice, and keep being your authentic

self,” she advises. “Just be unapologetically kind and help somebody if you can. This job really did kind of fall into my lap because I was being a nice person and volunteered to help.”

For adult creators seeking to level up, Katie shares one final piece of advice, which has not-so-coincidentally served as her personal strategic plan.

“Work your network, find what you’re passionate about,” she says. “Align your passion with purpose.”

Each month, XBIZ spotlights the career accomplishments and outstanding contributions of Women in Adult. WIA profiles offer an intimate look at the professional lives of the industry’s most influential businesswomen.