Meet Katie

Katie Reginato Cascamo, M.A. is a leadership scholar-practitioner, social systems strategist, and community advocate who believes social change begins where everyday people gather—with courage, clarity, and a shared commitment to justice.

Founder of Courageous Steps, Katie partners with grassroots leaders, parent advocates, educators, and community-based organizations to guide and transform systems that no longer serve us. Her work centers on equipping those most impacted by systemic inequity with the tools and confidence to lead transformative change from where they stand. She weaves servant leadership, trauma-informed practice, and community-driven strategy into practical frameworks that move both people and policies.

Her journey into leadership was forged through lived experience. After her son Gio’s premature birth in 2009 and a transformative 56-day NICU stay, Katie became a global advocate for parent leadership in healthcare and systems change. Now a teenager, Gio’s neurodiversity is an evolving journey that deepens Katie’s understanding of inclusion, broadens her lens on accessibility, and roots her leadership in the quiet, persistent rhythm of lifelong advocacy.

Katie holds a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University, where her studies in servant leadership and systems thinking shaped her belief that lasting change is driven by community-rooted action, not positional power. She is currently completing her Ph.D. in Leadership Studies at Gonzaga, with a research focus on the role of underrepresented voices in community leadership. Her dissertation explores how those most impacted by systemic inequities—particularly parents, caregivers, and local organizers—emerge as transformative leaders in spaces often shaped without them.

As both a scholar and practitioner, Katie bridges theory and lived experience to reimagine leadership education. She teaches Organizational Leadership & Management at Golden Gate University, where her classroom is known for centering justice-informed frameworks, real-world application, and deep human connection. In 2024, she was honored with the university’s Outstanding Adjunct Award, recognizing her ability to cultivate inclusive learning environments that challenge and inspire.

Her academic work is inseparable from her advocacy—each reinforces the other. Whether developing leadership curriculum, mentoring adult learners, or presenting on national and global stages, Katie brings a relational, community-centered lens to all she does. Her research is more than academic inquiry; it is a call to action to honor the wisdom of lived experience as a legitimate source of knowledge, strategy, and power.

Katie brings both heart and strategy to her work, believing that movements begin in the middle of unexpected real life—not in polished plans, but in moments marked by uncertainty, grief, grit, and hope. She sees leadership not as a destination, but as a daily practice—a way of showing up with integrity when the path forward is unclear. To her, it isn’t about titles or credentials, but about presence, consistency, and the quiet courage it takes to keep choosing community over control.

Her leadership philosophy is deeply relational. She honors the wisdom that lives in the margins—in lived experience, in intergenerational care, and in the stories we often overlook. Whether guiding organizations through complexity or sitting with community leaders, Katie holds space for transformation that is slow, collective, and rooted in justice.

Above all, she believes in the possibility of collective care: the kind of leadership that doesn’t extract, but restores; that doesn’t command, but convenes; and that recognizes healing as both a personal and systemic imperative. In her work, care is not a soft skill—it’s a structural strategy.