Katrina Smith

I've spent the last 7+ years building and running the operational backbone of organizations that can't afford to get it wrong — managing $15M+ annually in federal, state, nonprofit, and private funding while maintaining a consistent, multi-year record of zero-finding audits. My career started in accounting (bookkeeping, AR, grant administration at CSU Chico and CSU Fullerton) before moving into sponsored programs administration, where I managed $20M+ in post-award funding across multiple colleges. From there I moved into operations leadership, where I now oversee finance, compliance, data, and organizational operations for a 100+ person business consulting firm with a $15M operating budget.

What I actually do, day to day: build strategic plans that organizations follow (not ones that sit in a drawer), design policies and procedures that hold up under audit scrutiny, and lead people — I've supervised teams of 180+ across directors, managers, consultants, and interns. I wrote a Policies & Procedures manual that was recognized as a best practice in a national program accreditation review, and I've delivered webinars to peer organizations nationally on operational best practices.

I'm drawn to organizations facing real complexity — multiple funding sources, compliance requirements, scaling pains, or operations that have outgrown ad-hoc systems — where someone with finance, compliance, and operational fluency can make an immediate, measurable difference. I'm looking for fractional, part-time, or project-based work where I can apply that experience without a full-time commitment.

Outside of work, I'm a single mother of two, which has sharpened exactly the skills that make me effective professionally: relentless prioritization, calm execution under pressure, and getting things done efficiently with no wasted motion. I also train for Hyrox competitions, which mirrors how I approach my work — disciplined, methodical, and focused on continuous improvement.