CAT WENDT

Empathy is one of my core values and I tend to subscribe to a servant leadership style. I’m immensely grateful for the knowledge and talents of my teams and believe in supporting their work and well-being to the best of my ability.

I’m known for building processes that outlast any single project — vision, playbooks, documentation, analytics — making future work better, faster, and more impactful. I love stopping preventable problems in their tracks and freeing my team up to unleash their expertise.

My passion for inclusion, equity, accessibility, and justice has led to a mention in Venture Beat, an MVP award from the International Game Developers Association, and a five year run as chair of the Women in Games Special Interest Group. 

I direct editorial strategy on culturally-driven campaigns for the US App Store at Apple — one of the highest-traffic retail platforms *anywhere*, with 600M+ weekly users and $1.3T in annual developer ecosystem impact.

I’ve lived at the intersection of marketing, editorial, and product for the better part of my career. As a result, I look at the gap between how users feel now and the impact we want to have instead.

My speaking history includes talks at GDC, UC Berkeley, and Indiecade on inclusive design, brand leadership, and the business case for representation.

• • “Cat Wendt is a superstar! If that’s the only sentence you read, let me be clear upfront: she’s amazing. I’m a producer in my thirties, and by now, I’ve worked with plenty of creatives. Believe me when I say that Cat is rare.

    She’s a champion for the reader, the small business finding its footing, and those whose voices often go unheard. Her writing is beautiful, intelligent, and sprinkled with a much-needed dash of whimsy.

    Cat doesn’t just stop at doing great work—she’s always looking ahead. She’s proactive, constantly striving to make every project better than the last. While many claim to do this, Cat genuinely follows through. She’s even gone out of her way to set up private meetings with me to discuss what we can improve, showing up with a full document of thoughtful, actionable ideas.

    She’s whip-smart, kind, and unwaveringly cheerful—even when morale dips. Dedicated to problem-solving and people-first solutions, Cat leads with an energy that’s both rare and invaluable. Cat always has a thoughtful strategy behind her decisions which inspires trust and produces great results. I wish we could work together forever. But if I can’t have her, I hope someone wonderful out there can.”

    — Nikki Richter, Senior Producer @ Apple

• • “Cat is hands down the best manager I’ve ever had. She’s a brilliant creative problem-solver who handles everything with patience, compassion, and understanding. I always felt valued, cared about, and knew someone on the team was going to listen to my concerns. She’s an excellent asset to have in your treat and is also just a great person!”

    — Julie Morley, Former Social Media Coordinator @ Novy Unlimited

• • “Cat is the perfect balance of “Get it done” and “Get it done right.” Her network and ability to create quality content is unsurpassed. Cat is an experienced, “full-stack” marketer. She brings brand awareness, organizational skills, design prowess, and technical know-how to each project. Cat was asked to create the IGDA Foundation’s Intel initiative from the ground up. She used the IGDA Scholars Program and resources as a template, but instead of cloning it, she re-defined it and created a program that was tailored to the 29 women developers she sent to GDC. She changed their lives by creating the most memorable event of 2015. With less than two months to prepare, she defined the vision for the program and executed it – building a team, a project identity, an itinerary of events, the messaging, and the visuals that gave the Intel Scholarships their unique identity. She owned it.”

    — Molly Sheets, Director of Engineering at Kubernetes @ Zynga & Former IGDA Foundation Scholars Director

• • “Extraordinary. Dedicated. Talented. Intelligent. Cheerful. Cat. Cat exemplifies what it means to succeed in one of the most demanding industries on the planet. Not only does Cat consistently shatter expectations, she gives every project the attention and care it needs to truly shine. Cat will go to the ends of the earth to ensure that deadlines are met and that the client is pleased with the final product. She is exceptionally knowledgeable about the games industry and is skilled at applying her knowledge to her projects. Cat’s hands-on experience in leading campaigns, managing diverse teams, and directly working on projects makes her incredibly adaptive. She’s a talented writer, critical thinker, and inspiring leader who is pleasant to be around. I would gladly leap at any opportunity to work with Cat in the future — I cannot recommend her enough.”

    — Blane Humphries, Director @ Triplepoint & former Account Manager @ Novy Unlimited

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