Kris Kurtenbach is a trusted strategic and communications adviser to nonprofit leaders, board members, philanthropists, government officials, education entrepreneurs, and educators. She has direct expertise in the intersection of strategic organizational design and developing communications strategy, branding, and positioning that help organizations achieve their missions.

Kris works with intermediary organizations that bridge education, business, and workforce development. A social entrepreneur, Kris has helped to create numerous national, statewide, and community-based education nonprofits. She has also helped to create networks of mayors working for education improvement in two states—California and Arizona—the only such existing networks in the country. She has written extensively on education and community engagement to support education and workforce improvement.

In 2000, Kris created Collaborative Communications, now the nation’s premier communications consulting firm focused on education and learning. The firm positions communications as the key tool to advance organizations’ strategic focus, convene stakeholders in enriched conversations, and build alliances that accelerate progress and sustain momentum.

Kris has a master’s degree in education policy and administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in magazine journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree in literature from the University of Kansas. She endowed a scholarship for editing and copyediting at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Kansas, named after influential mentor John B. Bremner.