Creative Director

Katarina “Kat” Smiley is a native resident of the Collinwood neighborhood, located on Cleveland’s east side. At 24, Katarina has anchored her early career in youth advocacy, community building, and equity work. As a student at MC2 STEM High School, she interned with Cleveland Clinic in their Department of Diversity & Inclusion. Post graduation, Katarina went on to become a fellow with the organization as she ventured to Kent State University to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Public Health with a concentration in Health Promotion and Education. Katarina was able to gain real world experience in her career field by serving as an AmeriCorps Member in 20 urban and rural schools across Cuyahoga and Portage county. During her time in AmeriCorps, Katarina became a certified Community Health Worker and facilitated workshops to assist over 200 scholars in identifying and alleviating health disparities in their community through student-led grant funded projects. Katarina was also a member of the Cleveland Foundation’s 2017 Summer Internship Cohort where she continued to support student success initiatives at her site placement with College Now Greater Cleveland. After graduating from Kent State University in 2019, Katarina went on to become the Community Engagement Manager at DigitalC where she established the Brand Ambassador Program of college interns representative of the communities DigitalC served. The Team of Brand Ambassadors were instrumental in connecting nearly 1,000 Cleveland residents to affordable internet within their homes. Recently, she has taken a role within the Department of Commerce as a Telecommunications Policy Analyst for their National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) where she supports digital equity work on a national and state level. As a rising creative and organizer, Katarina also supports the work of creatives entrepreneurs by building relationships across lines of difference in pursuit of the common goal of liberation through her role as Program Curator at Sankofa Circle International and as Co-founder of the Cleveland based media production company So I Said Media. She continues to support the work of youth-led justice initiatives and workforce development efforts by serving as Strategic Advisor for CPF’s Summer Safety Careers Pipeline Program. Above all, Katarina incorporates her values of faith, culture, collaboration, authenticity, and justice into the foundation of all that she does.