With two decades of experience in environmental leadership, conservation policy, climate change solutions, and with a love of connecting people to nature and community, Katie is leading The Trustees into its next five-year strategic plan, For Everyone, Forever. Since joining The Trustees in the summer of 2023, she has led a significant organizational evolution and worked to increase the Trustees’ impact as the organization accelerates land conservation, elevates stewardship and care of conserved landscapes, inspires climate hope, and welcomes and connects people to nature. Under the new plan, The Trustees has conserved more than 3,000 acres in 2025 alone—a major increase in its pace of conservation.
Prior to joining the Trustees, Katie served as Head of US Offshore (East) for RWE where she worked to build sustainable offshore wind, and from 2016-2022 Katie served at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) and was appointed cabinet secretary to Governor Baker in 2019. In this role she oversaw more than 3,000 staff, a budget of $600 million, and six energy and environmental agencies—one of the largest and most diverse such portfolios in the country—during a period marked by a global pandemic.
As Secretary, Katie advanced critical climate, energy, and environmental priorities for the Commonwealth that protected open space, advanced municipal preparedness in the face of climate change, set aggressive goals for reducing carbon emissions and achieving net zero emissions by 2050, shaped and supported the deployment of clean-energy strategies, promoted equity, and helped enshrine environmental justice protections in state law.
Trained as a field biologist, Katie began her policy career working in Washington, D.C. at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and Defenders of Wildlife. During her time in D.C., she worked on the federal farm bill and conservation policy and helped establish a national program that partnered with federal and state agencies to incorporate climate change adaptation into policy, budgets, and planning. After returning to Massachusetts, Katie served as the Executive Director of the Hilltown Land Trust and founded Theoharides Consulting, which provided climate and environmental policy analysis, strategic planning, and facilitation to universities, government agencies, and nonprofits.
Katie received a BA in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Dartmouth College and an MS in Ecology and Environmental Biology from the University of Massachusetts-Boston.
