Rev. Kathleen McShane is an ordained Elder in the California-Nevada Conference of the United Methodist Church, where she led four congregations and served for eight years as Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Pacific School of Religion. Before attending seminary, she was a civil litigator, practicing law for fifteen years in the San Francisco Bay Area.

It was while leading a church in Silicon Valley, filled with tech entrepreneurs and people longing for their faith to make a difference in the world, that Kathi co-founded The Changemaker Initiative. TCI is now a small national movement of churches committed to becoming risk-taking organizations and empowering lay people to become compassion-driven changemakers like Jesus. That work has led her toward multiple projects that are re-imagining leadership for faith and values-driven organizations. She is the co-author, with Rabbi Elan Babchuck, of Picking Up the Pieces: Leadership after Empire (Fortress Press, January 2024).

Kathi is Director of Learning and Innovation for Wesleyan Impact Partners and part-time Pastor of First United Methodist Church of Paso Robles. She lives on a lovely vineyard on the Central Coast of California.