Kate Horvath shares her journey from corporate leadership to founding PeopleSense and her passion for supporting working moms through her new initiative, Corporate Mom Sense. Hear how she navigated her career transition, built her consultancy, and advocates for mom-friendly policies.

Transcript

Rachel Mandell (00:00)

Today, we're so happy to have Kate Horvath with us. Welcome, Kate. Kate is the founder and CEO of PeopleSense. She partners directly with companies to accelerate growth and build cultures where people thrive.

She's also the former EBP managing director of Omni-com agency. And prior to that spent 10 years in digital sales and marketing roles across to Hearst, the Hollywood reporter and billboard magazine. She also recently launched corporate mom sense, which we'll talk a little bit more about. And she is the proud mom of two boys. Welcome again.

Kate Horvath (00:32)

Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Rachel Mandell (00:35)

Likewise. So you recently started PeopleSense. Can you tell us a little bit about the moment where you started to seriously consider venturing out on your own? What was going on in your life and career that pushed you there?

Kate Horvath (00:50)

Yes, so at that moment, it was July 2024, where I went to my former boss, DEO, and said, I think I need to go do my own thing.

and we aligned on kind of like a six to eight month exit strategy. And with the intention that I would, help train and develop a succession plan on what my former responsibilities were. But it was really a moment where I just said I wanted to try to go and do something myself and just try it.

It was definitely scary when I formally sent my resignation letter on actually Valentine's Day in 2025. But I just wanted to try to build something the Kate way.

I was working in healthcare marketing and my background as you introduced so lovely was actually in fashion and luxury marketing. And I felt like in my time in healthcare marketing while it was so rewarding and I loved my role helping shape and build the organization, I was still like missing something that was filling up my cup. And it was really going back to like the work that I was doing.

So it was that and then just wanting to get to a point where I was making decisions on my own. And sometimes they were going to be wrong, but being able to have that autonomy and that independence to build something my very own way.

Rachel Mandell (02:05)

Okay. So you go to your boss, you give them a ton of advanced notice. Can you tell us what that period was before you officially transitioned out? What were you doing behind the scenes to prepare yourself and also prepare your team for this transition? like, sounds like it was a pretty cool boss to be supportive and give you that runway.

Kate Horvath (02:27)

Yes, it's a really great question. What we actually aligned on was keeping my new organization, PeopleSense, on and supporting the agency, but I was the consultant. And so now they are a client of mine.

So the exit strategy, the transition planning was more about how can I offset and delegate half of my responsibilities while taking on and retaining the half that was really unique to what like Kate.

broad in the values and the skills that I had that could still support the agency. So that's actually what we've been doing the past year is that like I'm still supporting the my former agency and just taking on a small a much smaller percentage of my old remit.

Rachel Mandell (03:18)

So how did that conversation go? Like how did you get to that point? Because that seems like a positive outcome.

Kate Horvath (03:25)

It was a very positive outcome. mean, it goes back to the leader that I was working with and the amount of change that we always went through and experienced together was kind of like the practice to enable us to be able to navigate this transition really, really well.

And what I mean by that is I was employee number 33 when I joined my former agency and we experienced incredible growth. We navigated an acquisition with Omnicom. We navigated going completely virtual during the pandemic and having to still grow three times our size and hire talent and retain culture and continue to drive forward Omnicom's revenue goals

for the agency. So I think because we just had to navigate so much like change and ambiguity and still like operate through those moments, it was just another moment. This was just another chapter where.

my role was going to change, but we are going to be able to like pivot and figure it out together. And I'm a really strong believer in building the plane as you're flying it. And I practice that in my own business today and that like no two days look the same. I don't know what my future is going to be. Like I started my business a year ago thinking I was really just going to be a consultancy. And then earlier this past year, I started building content and I'm starting to explore like what

a media component of culture could look like in supporting ambitious working moms. I had that amazing like six, seven years where I learned how to work through change and that ambiguity. And that's how we got through that change as well.

Rachel Mandell (05:05)

I think it's a really interesting way of framing our work experience during the pandemic because it did test a lot of us and it strengthened a lot of our relationships too. And to use that as a way to branch out on your own is really, it makes a lot of sense. It's also really smart. okay, so you have revenue.

starting when you're officially out of the agency full-time and you're in consultancy capacity. Can you talk to us a little bit about building up your business in addition to the work you were getting from your agency and how you went about doing that?

Kate Horvath (05:43)

Yes, it's a really good question. I had to have the stability and the security to be able to make the decision. And so I recognize that that's a privilege and that that's not normal for most founders that are starting their own thing, but like where I was in my, financial situation with my, kids and my husband, like I needed to bring in a certain salary. And so that is why there was so much focus and attention on what that like transition planning really needed to

be and so having my first client be my former agency was really important and then leveraging the Omnicom relationship to then scale what I was doing and bring the practice and the expertise to then other agencies within Omnicom. So I had the like and it was incredible opportunity to be able to

have my first client be Omnicom, which is, of course, a massive ecosystem of tons of different businesses and filled with agencies that are all navigating very similar challenges and how they grow from the inside out and nurture talent and retain talent and continue to evolve and grow and modernize at the pace of innovation.

So I was fortunate again to have kind of like the sea of all these different agencies and to build upon the relationships that I had. So that was like strategy one. And then secondly to that, it was going back to the basics of my relationships.

and the network that I had built over my career and going back to those people and pitching them and talking to them about what I've been doing, what I've been able to accomplish. And those were additional incremental wins that I was able to unlock. And then I was able to also bring on someone to support me in August of last year, so about six months in, to help me with operationalizing business development and

nurturing capabilities, how I show up in the marketplace. That I really needed because while I would have actually probably preferred to work on those types of projects, I needed that in parallel so that I could be completely dedicated and focused to one, growth, but also to actually servicing my clients.

Rachel Mandell (07:55)

Can you tell us a little bit about how you service your clients? know you said your take, what you're, the work you like doing, the Kate part. Tell us like what that is and what your pitch is, if you don't mind.

Kate Horvath (08:07)

Yeah, definitely. So ultimately, it goes back to workplace transformation. And how can I support different organizations and leaders drive forward their vision and their mission and their goals? And I know that it's not a one size fits all. So for one client, could be.

supporting with internal comms and crisis management and how do you get people to support and understand the long-term vision and get through times of ambiguity. And for another client, it could be like reimagining how they go to market and talk about themselves and what is their value proposition, what is their differentiators and bringing on people that can help level up the organization.

So ultimately it is really transformation of an organization, but no two businesses look the same. corporate is usually like my target client, like larger corporations, they're navigating similar like moments of change and transition right now with AI and five generations of talent working together for the first time. But the way that they are able to,

enact their respective change has to be very personalized and very tailored to their values and what they're trying to accomplish each day with their people.

Rachel Mandell (09:21)

do you have a session where you're asking a ton of questions to try to really identify the specific use cases or areas where you can be of help to different clients? Or do they come to you with the issue?

Kate Horvath (09:33)

Um, so it's a, it's a really great question. I don't find success with that approach. I did that for one of my clients and it did not go well. And I learned through that and why I didn't go well is because I was perceived as the consultant that is trying to come in, figure out the problem and people feel uncomfortable sharing what's going on with someone they don't know.

So on paper, in theory, while that sounds really great, like, you need to get the data first, you have to do it in a very strategic and thoughtful way. And so another example that happened very recently when I was meeting with a brand new client that I just got, I went in, met with them. It was for a comms job. And I was hearing.

what they were asking me to do, like responsibility-wise. But I left the meeting saying, you have a culture problem. The reason you need someone to be able to do internal comms is because people don't understand what you're asking them. People don't understand what your goals are, what your business objectives are, why they should stay and work for you, why they should stay and work here. we all landed on it was a culture problem.

But it wasn't like a session where I was like, tell me your problems. So to me, goes back to, I guess the strategy is how to really listen. When you meet with people, what are they actually saying? Like you will find that sometimes it's a leader just being super insecure or really not knowing how to navigate a specific situation or

maybe like their pitch is wrong and so they're not growing because they don't have the right story but there's always like a feeling like a more deeper reason as to why they're asking me to come in so that's what i really try to figure out when i'm talking to someone for the first time

Rachel Mandell (11:26)

Hmm. That makes a ton of sense and I think it is a very real reminder of what it's like to be a consultant coming into an organization and how you're perceived at first and how you sort of have to develop the trust to not only listen and handle their data but also make suggestions on how to solve certain things that they may or may not see.

Kate Horvath (11:55)

I actually really do not like the word consultant. So for all the consultants out there, I'm very sorry.

Rachel Mandell (12:00)

Okay, what do you prefer? Okay, strategic partners.

Kate Horvath (12:05)

And this is new, but I do really prefer strategic partner. I'm someone that I'm obsessed with words because I lean so much on the comms side and how communications is such an important part of how you drive culture forward.

I just think consultant, one, it sounds expensive. So if you're trying to talk to a client for the first time and get their business, that's already something of an uphill battle. And then second, I do think there's negativity around it being short-term. You're there for a project to fix something. So again, when my job is to be an extension of culture, no culture, I can't do that without getting personal with people.

I don't know, right now I'm in this, I'm using strategic partner and it's working. I'll let you know if it changes. Maybe I need another cooler word.

Rachel Mandell (12:47)

Nice. No, think that does work. What I was alluding to is exactly what you're saying, which is consultant can be perceived negatively for all the reasons you just listed. And you're solving it with strategic partner.

tell us a little bit about Corporate Mom Sense why you started it what it's about?

Kate Horvath (13:12)

It's my biggest passion. I've always over-indexed in supporting working moms. I have an almost eight-year-old and a 10-year-old. And like every other mom, like our kids are our whole lives. And a lot of times we make career decisions because of where our kids are in their lives and the milestones that they are navigating and how much we need to be there for them and the mental load and...

Etc, etc, etc. And being a working mom has always been a big part of my identity that I bring to work with me. And then I want to support other working moms and retaining them and making them feel like they have safety and drive and can realize their ambitions.

while also being a mom and that both can coexist. I grew up with

not having that like as a role model, like my mom was a stay at home mom and really everyone that I knew was like from all my friends moms were stay at home moms. So I didn't have like clarity or like a role model to look up to on like what good looks like. So like when I first had my when I had my son, I really didn't know how to ask for help boundaries. I spent more time at the office to compensate for

the fact that I was a mom, I missed his first year of his life. And I'll never get that time back and it's devastating. And I was in the city commuting and he would be asleep by the time I'd get home and then I'd be off before he'd be like getting up. It was really brutal. And I just had this moment in my career where I said I was a very young mom and I have a responsibility to be a part of changing that.

instead of being resentful of people that do get that now. And that's an interesting, another conversation we can have because I will.

tell you that I have presented the corporate mom sense, mom sense idea of how we can make organizations make more sense for moms to very senior HR people thinking that they are like an ally in supporting working moms and because they didn't get some of the privileges that I'm pushing for, they're like, why would I invest in it? Like I had to figure it out and they can figure it out too.

but with that said, I just felt like I needed to realize my personal mission, which is to help working moms, but also like it's okay to be ambitious. And here I am starting my business for the first time with my kids at an age where I'm actually learning. They probably need me more than ever. And I never thought that when I first started my business,

just they're in a chapter where they need me more with homework. We're entering just a new phase, homework, sports, like feelings, a Valentine's Day crush, like all the things that I'm learning for the first time in this new chapter. anyway, going back to your question, like why corporate moms sense I wanted to write content to help other working moms. And my background is in media. I really know how to.

build media brands and how to create revenue models when it comes to partnership and advertisers. And it's something that I want to build in parallel to PeopleSense. It makes sense as an overarching goal of being a workplace authority. And I just kind of want to nurture it, see where it goes. It's a side project or like a side vertical of PeopleSense. It's not bringing in revenue right now.

I never thought I would be in a content creator era or having to post so much or build up the Kate personal brand. That's all very, very new to me. But it's just something where I can have fun. I do need to have fun too. I'm a strategic partner to all these clients working on their challenges. I'm very fulfilled and rewarded in helping them drive impact and change. But it's not like the personal Kate.

what am I doing to write and be creative and have fun supporting moms in a more authentic way.

Rachel Mandell (17:16)

So where can people find more about corporate mom sense and people sense?

Kate Horvath (17:21)

I guess on my website. They can start there on itspeopleSense.com and then there's a vertical for Corporate Momsense. I did build the platform on Beehive right now. That was really great advice from a former head of influencer marketing at Hearst that I've stayed close with. And just I'm going like ad week, social media week and two weeks and

hopefully gonna learn a lot more about content creation as well. And maybe they'll say, hey, you need to change your substack strategy or change the way that you're posting on Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. But all of those different channels will be really helpful, I believe, in boosting the content and driving engagements. yeah, my goal is just to keep, when you meet really interesting, cool people to feature on it and yeah, see where it can go.

Rachel Mandell (18:07)

Awesome. Well, I encourage everyone to check out your website, both verticals, and thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate you sharing your story with us.

Kate Horvath (18:16)

Thanks for having me.

Rachel Mandell (18:18)

My pleasure.