A different way through.
Who I am, how I work, and answers to the questions leaders ask before we begin.
Hi, I’m Katherine Lambert.
My background is non-traditional, and I take pride in being different from what you may have encountered with traditional HR.
Much of my early career was in account management for the Corporate Executive Board (aka CEB), selling to and consulting with CIOs and CHROs from Fortune 1000 companies. I learned how businesses are structured and run, best practices in corporate IT and corporate HR, how to sell, how to consult, and how to manage others.
From CEB I relocated from DC to LA to attend a full-time MBA program and pivot from consulting to HR leaders to becoming a corporate HR leader myself. My corporate HR experiences have ranged from
Recruiting and Sales Training roles for small to medium sized tech companies in Austin
Employee Engagement, Employee Relations, & HR Business Partner (HRBP) roles with Sony Pictures Entertainment in Los Angeles
HRBP and Learning & Development roles with LinkedIn in the SF Bay Area, including leadership of a small HR team for the CMO- growing and developing the Marketing organization from <200 to more than 700 globally
HRBP "in residence" roles with Electronic Arts
Now I run KVL People Consulting (based in Long Beach, CA but supporting clients globally), which you can read all about on this lovely website.
Education-wise, I have a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication (major in Advertising) from the University of Oklahoma, and an MBA from the University of Southern California (Management & Organization emphasis).
Creatively and artistically, I am a classically trained dancer with a love for the arts and music. I also teach dance fitness classes, identify as both an aspiring novelist and Enneagram nerd, am passionate about racial equity and social justice, volunteer at my church, and love travel, my husband (a fellow native Houstonian I met in LA!), and all dogs - especially our golden retriever, Walter.
Bottom line: I’m a business person with a passion for solving people problems, delivering results with impact, and making people feel good about themselves. Others have described me as creative, inquisitive and positive. No matter your previous experience with HR or with consultants, I hope I surprise you in the best of ways.
Every good partnership starts with a good question.
FAQs: Clarity backed by expertise.
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Many traditional HR consultants focus on operational activities, employment processes, compliance with the law, etc. As a “People Consultant,” I instead focus on what larger organizations often call strategic HR Business Partner work - solving a people or organization issue with business impact as the priority, and the employee experience top of mind. So while I’m not going to write or revise your employee handbook or implement Workday for you, I can help you re-organize a team, support you with hiring or termination decisions, train and/or coach managers, and build out practices to make promotion and compensation decisions easier and more fair. You may not realize you need me if you have never worked with a true HR Business Partner, or not had a great experience with HR in the past.
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AI analyzes data and text, but it cannot read a room, sense underlying tensions, or decipher corporate culture. I possess the ability to understand unwritten power dynamics and how personalities will actually react to a reorg or leadership change. Rather than giving a cookie-cutter playbook, I tailor best practices to a company’s stage, scale, and context. In addition, AI models trained on standard HR documentation often default to compliance rules, risk-averse policies, or generic corporate fluff. I evaluate people decisions through a business enablement lens rather than a compliance-first lens. I seek to cut through the noise and ask the business questions AI won't know to ask.
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I’m glad you have resources for HR administration (policies, payroll, benefits, compliance, etc.) because that is not what I do. I help with management decisions and people-related problem solving - be it a single sticky issue or building out a people development solution to make things easier for the future. If you see growth or change on the horizon for your team or company, I can help “see around the corner” and get ahead of issues.
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The job of a Co-Active Coach® is to ask powerful questions, listen, and activate the skills and creativity a client already possesses, rather than to instruct or advise. In contrast, as a consultant helping businesses with management and organizational challenges, I do instruct and advise while using coaching skills.
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If I take on communication of your decisions, I take away some of your power and credibility. Part of my job is to empower you with the language and approach to mitigate the painfulness of difficult conversations. Currently, the only activity companies can “outsource” to me would be certain types of training, which I can custom design and facilitate for you.