Kat Rowan - Founder, CEO, and Creative Director
A graduate of Wellesley College with degrees in both mathematics and psychology, I have worked as an educator, editor, administrator and consultant and have held positions in major corporations as well as taught classes, led departments, and founded programs in high schools and at the university level both in the United States and Singapore. I have specific interests in children’s understanding of mental health and, in the case of TiffinTalk, of not only helping children develop and maintain critical and creative thinking skills, but also in helping people talk to one another directly without, whenever possible, technology as the intermediary.
I am the mother of 2 daughters who continually remind me that I am as much teacher and role model as I am student. TiffinTalk is the product of 16 years and several thousand cards that I wrote daily for my girls. The end result was closets of shoeboxes of saved cards. But the best gift ever were the tens of thousands of conversations that we've had and continue to have. We've laughed together. We've cried. We've talked through weeks and months of separation. I am, I often tell them, a lucky mama.
In my determined-to-have spare time, I run marathons so I can think (and talk), listen to audio books, appreciate music, and care for 4 cats while learning to love dogs.
Currently Director of Operations and Technology with TiffinTalk Inc and Assistant Professor at the University of Western Ontario, I am also a project manager and technology designer as well as a teacher, editor, graphic designer, and educational technology consultant. I was Project Manager for the UK "Jamie's 15-Minute Meals" app, which saw 800,000 downloads and #1 status, and I have been nationally broadcast as a musical satirist. I have lived and worked internationally for twenty years and find that I am most comfortable working with multicultural and neurodiverse colleagues. A firm believer in finding the balance between technology and ‘touchology’, I created several platforms for TiffinTalk's thousands of cards – truly a worthy challenge!