About Us

Katharine Hamilton’s business career began with assessing international portfolio management firms. At Allied Signal now Honeywell International, she evaluated foreign subsidiaries between $5MM and $400MM in multiple countries. She financed, recapitalized, and repatriated earnings for 11 subsidiaries and six joint ventures in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Singapore totaling $200MM in assets, implementing financial structures using bank loans, bonds, swaps, futures, options, commodities, and foreign exchange.  

For The Seagram Company, Ltd., Katharine wrote and implemented capital structure for the $25MM acquisition of a Venezuelan subsidiary. She implemented approximately $45MM in loans to subsidiaries during hyper-inflation, and administered workouts on defaults totaling $70MM. Katharine developed pre- and post-acquisition / divestiture cash management, investment, and risk mitigation strategies for units in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic, with assets totaling $321MM.  

As an elected official, leading Illinois’ second largest institution of higher learning, with a $280 million operating budget and a capital program of $500 million, Katharine instituted a comprehensive reform agenda comprised of more than 60 specific governance measures establishing college-wide transparency, accountability, internal controls, and greater public involvement. She cut its deficit by one-third, cut tuition by $5 per credit hour, cut property taxes by five percent, and funded three percent employee raises via the first budget enacted through an open and transparent process. She diversified and improved the investment strategy for the school’s $270MM fund balance. Katharine instituted oversight and related measures to bring compliance with the Illinois Public Funds Investment Act. She assisted the Illinois General Assembly enact bipartisan statewide measures modeled on her reforms.  

Katharine is a Certified Public Accountant (Illinois) and a Charter Global Management Accountant.  She received her M.B.A. from the Stern School of Business at New York University. She earned a Double B.A. from the University of Rochester in New York, in Economics and Political Science.