Kathryn Finney is the founder and Managing Director of DIDTECHNOLOGY/digitalundivided (DID), a groundbreaking social enterprise focused on helping Black and Latinx women own their work using innovation and technology as a tool. She is a White House Champion of Change, a past member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) appointed by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and a General Partner in the Harriet Fund, the first impact venture fund focused on investing in high potential Black and Latina women-led startups.
An Echoing Green Global Fellow, Young American Fellow and Eisenhower Fellow, Kathryn started digitalundivided after selling her company, The Budget Fashionista, one of the first lifestyle
online media companies. She later became Editor at Large at BlogHer, a global organization representing over 40 million social media influencers, where she built their fashion and beauty channels prior to the company’s purchase by SheKnows Media. She’s an active angel investor with over 10 investments, all with founders of color.
A graduate of Yale and Rutgers Universities, Kathryn has received numerous honors and awards including, Grace Hopper ABIE award, Marie Claire’s 10 Women to Watch in 2016, Entrepreneurs Magazine’s “Woman to Watch in 2016,”, Ebony Power 100, Black Enterprise “40 under 40” list, and was inducted into Spelman College’s “Game Changers Academy.” On February 26, 2015, Kathryn was honored by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer with the “Kathryn Finney Appreciation Day”.
Her pioneering research, “The #ProjectDiane Report: The Real Unicorns of Tech: Black Women”, drew widespread buzz for disrupting the dialogue around women of color and tech entrepreneurship. The 16-page report was widely shared and covered (Forbes, CNN, Fast Company, etc.) for quantifying the often-overlooked state of Black women in the tech entrepreneurship. Recently she was listed as #47 of the “GC4W Top 100 Women in the World” by The Global Connections for Women Foundation.
In 2017, Kathryn received an Honorary Doctorate from Mount Holyoke College. She currently serves on the board of Public Radio International.