Testimonials
When researching career coaches, I found Kat’s site and was instantly intrigued: her expertise looked like the perfect combination of what I needed in my life. I was a motion designer, long burnt out from the industry that I was in. I was questioning whether I was even good at being a designer (did I want to be a lawyer instead? A nurse? A product manager?) and whether I was too deep into a career I had no passion in.
At the start of my coaching, I felt trapped in a toxic job that had destroyed much of my confidence. I came to coaching searching for answers. Kat gave me none. Instead, she gave me something greater – my voice back.
Kat spent most of our sessions listening. As I would talk through what I wanted, what I was searching for, or where I wanted to go, Kat was mostly silent. However, when Kat did speak, it was profoundly insightful – a way of looking at myself, my career, and the world, that I hadn’t seen. I was consistently shocked with how smart, and how individually personalized, her comments were.
“Kat had razor-sharp instincts and nuanced assessments that made every session worthwhile. While she didn’t give me answers or give me a checklist of things to do to get to where I wanted to go, she gave me the voice and tools to ask my own questions, find my own path, and develop my own plan forward. These skills have long outlasted my coaching sessions with her.”
Kat helped me determine that it wasn’t my career choice that I didn’t like, but that my values weren’t being met. I ended our coaching sessions early (which Kat was flexible, accommodating, and happy to do) because in just a few months I had three job offers. Not only did I take a raise and a title increase, but I found a workplace that matched my values, a place where I’m excited to get up every day and make a difference.
While I wasn’t sure what to expect from career coaching, I know that Kat was the right answer. I would recommend her ten times over.
—Ceci Freed, Sr. Motion and Video Designer at Earthjustice
“Working with Kat has probably been the best investment I made in 2023. Before, I struggled to balance my creative and professional life. Now, I’ve found clarity and purpose in blending the two seamlessly. This has led to some of my best musical output: playing my first live show and releasing the first project with my own vocals. Her empathetic style felt tailored to me. She helped reshape my creative confidence.”
—Neil Sehti / AIR APPARENT, Spotify’s Beats of Tomorrow Playlist Featured Artist & Producer
“Meeting with Kat is an immediate sigh of relief! Her coaching path is cheerful, compassionate, upfront and open-minded.
Without a doubt, when at crossroads I would advise looking for the Kat Koh sign. It is an especially lovely ride in autumn."
—Natalie Soper / Kiki La Pomme, Multimedia Artist & Lead Singer of Pigimichi
“Not only did I launch a new arm of my design business with Kat, we dove into the core of what I want to attract and be free from in my life. This work helped me make profound changes.”
—Leila Simon Hayes, Award-Winning, Design*Sponge Featured Graphic Designer & Artist
I originally began working with Kat to help me figure out where I wanted to go next with my career. I felt like I was stuck in the same three year cycle of working at an agency, becoming dissatisfied with it, and then leaving in the hopes that the next one would be better. On top of that, despite my years of experience and increased skills, it felt like the industry was only getting more competitive and more difficult to survive in.
I chose to work with Kat because her website showed that she so clearly understood both the challenges of being a working creative and the existential crisis one can face in this industry. I was afraid that going with a more generalist career coach would mean that my career would be treated the same as any other, and Kat was different. She innately understood that being a creative professional was about more than getting a promotion, or making a bigger paycheck, that instead it was about finding fulfillment in the work itself.
By pure luck I managed to land an offer for a creative director position relatively quickly through a personal connection of mine (something that was a huge step up for me professionally and that I had been dreaming of for years). I’d been fortunate to have had a number of both great and terrible creative directors over the course of my career that I could learn from, but the problem was I had no real management experience or a clear strategy for how to run a design team.
“This is where hiring Kat turned out to be a godsend. We pivoted from career coaching to leadership coaching, and for six months, Kat was my north star who helped me stay on course as I figured out how to be a creative director.”
My new role was more challenging than I had anticipated, and I was faced with a number of obstacles including ill-defined processes, department tribalism, and an inexperienced team. Had Kat not been there to guide me and work through these kinds of difficulties together, I can’t imagine how much more stressful that time would have been.
It’s now been a year since I started my position as a creative director, and while I learned much during Kat’s and my time together, her greatest lesson was reminding me throughout those six months that my instincts were consistently right. I no longer second guess myself the way I used to when I first started, and I’ve learned to lean into my instincts rather than question them which has made all the difference in my work and my career. I have Kat to thank for that. At my new company, I have now built a stronger team, made deeper, more productive connections with other department directors, and established my value as creative director with leadership. I feel like I’ve finally gotten to a place where I’m excited to see where my career will take me next, and that’s something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
—Matt Potter, Creative Director at Proven
“I have far greater control over my craft after working with Kat than I did 6 months ago.”
—Richert Schnorr, Cannes Lion and Webby Award Winning Creative Director & Producer
“Before working with Kat, I was completely lost, seeing my career as something to 'figure out' and obtain. She's a brilliant creative career coach who helped me realize what I truly needed. Her ability to ask thought-provoking questions consistently left me with something meaningful to reflect on. Her most profound advice: to simply rest until I felt genuinely restored. It led to a four-month journey of recovery and a complete shift in perspective.
I came into coaching with Kat wanting a high-paying job designing in tech that magically aligned with my skills, strengths, and interests. Instead, I'm now heading to RISD to explore physical products and spaces, filled with more focus and curiosity than I've ever had. If you're a creative feeling lost, Kat will show you that you've been holding the compass all along.”
—Whitmire Vo, Founder at Kale Thigh Studio; Industrial & UX Designer; Building Tall Presidential Fellow at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)
“My journey with Kat Koh as my coach has been nothing short of remarkable. She's helped me transform my relationship with anxiety, teaching me how to welcome the pressure of deadlines as an opportunity for growth rather than a source of dread. This newfound resilience, coupled with her guidance on embracing quiet moments for reflection and self-awareness, has been invaluable. Thanks to Kat, I approach challenges with renewed confidence and a deeper appreciation for the present moment. For anyone seeking genuine personal and professional growth, I can't recommend Kat's guidance enough.”
—Ajodeji Akintilo, Founder at Forge HQ; Sr. Visual Designer at AppOmni
“This is better than I was even thinking. Kat works with so many people who work outside the box in a great way.”
—Elizabeth Bowler, Founder at Hort | Culture; Program Director at UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
I had spent years feeling stuck in an engineering role, drawing and painting after work to satisfy my creative appetite. I would daydream about a career that perfectly blended both my technical & artistic sides. But the deeper I got into my engineering career, the more elusive that felt.
“Enter Kat. Kat helped me understand why I felt this way and what I really wanted. She pushed me to seek out opportunities immediately and test out my hypotheses. With Kat's guidance, I realized that my next step didn't have to be a specific role at a company or a flashy job title. There were a spectrum of options that I could pursue - a world where I could tailor my work and creative life. Kat gave me a new perspective and I now feel so much more confident in my search for that elusive balance.”
Working with Kat was the catalyst to take on new educational opportunities and showcase my skill set publicly. It ultimately gave me the courage to leave my job and pursue a career that balances the technical and creative.
—Bryan Macomber, Senior Product Design Engineer at Google
“At the cusp of a big career move, I knew I needed a profound transformation in my approach to work and creativity. From my very first call with Kat, her authentic and nurturing stance toward the creative spirit made me feel accepted, hopeful, and brave. My journey began to unfold with clarity. I’m deeply grateful to have worked with Kat, as it has set me on a path that genuinely excites me, and I’m optimistic about what’s to come!”
—Lydia Liu, poet and Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Princeton