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Meet the change leaders: Katie Hyten of Essential Partners

Katie Hyten
Essential Partners
David L. Nevins
By David L. NevinsMay 16, 2024
David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins serves as co-publisher of The Fulcrum. Additionally, Nevins serves as co-founder and Board Chairman of the Bridge Alliance. Nevins brings business acumen, vision and a tireless this-must-and-can-be-done zeal to the burgeoning movement to bridge divides to transform the political process. As a business leader, Nevins excels at building bridges between people and organizations from the right, left and center for civilized conversation and then action. He co-founded the Bridge Alliance because, as he says, “No matter how well managed and how well funded anyone organization is, significant political reform will not happen without an alliance to further collaborative interactions. Together we can and will raise the collective impact of all.” He is a member of the Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, with a focus on the Aspen Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership, he established and continues to work with The Nevins Democracy Leaders program at Penn State University. Nevins graduated with honors in economics from Penn State in 1969 and received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
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Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.

Katie Hyten is the co-executive director of Essential Partners.

She completed her master’s degree in international negotiation and conflict resolution at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, where her research addressed foreign policy in religious conflicts. Hyten has held appointments as a visiting fellow and lecturer at Tufts, where she developed and co-taught “Dialogue, Identity, and Civic Action,” and as a consultant for Harvard Medical School’s Scientific Citizenship Initiative to co-design a course on science communication for ethical community engagement.

During Hyten’s tenure at Essential Partners, she has served as the program lead on collaborations with local grassroots groups, churches, foundations and colleges, training stakeholders to design, convene and facilitate dialogues across differences. She has helped communities hold dialogue about topics such as the role of guns in American life, ethnic violence and civil society, racial and ethnic diversity, as well as campus inclusion and belonging.

Prior to joining Essential Partners, Hyten served as a mediator and independent consultant in conflict resolution processes and helped develop and manage the first university-wide interreligious institute at Pepperdine University. She was awarded Harvard’s Program on Negotiation summer fellowship to support her research and work with Search for Common Ground in Lebanon.

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Raised in a military family, Hyten lived in six states before entering college. She and her partner now live in Massachusetts when they’re not visiting family in Colorado, Alabama and Australia.

I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Hyten in April for the CityBiz “Meet the Change Leaders” series. Watch to learn the full extent of her democracy work:

The Fucrum interviews Katie Hyten, the Co-Executive Director of Essential Partnerswww.youtube.com

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‘Stories about the way the nation is organized are dividing us’: A conversation with Richard Slotkin

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