Katherine Chen

Good evening! I am Chichi Anyoku. I’m a first-gen Nigerian-British-American who recently Catalyst — a real estate-focused startup managing thousands of affordable housing units across a handful of buildings — as the CEO’s Chief of Staff. The Catalyst team developed a new public-private financing tool and shared-equity model for affordable housing development, which is undergoing legislation in California State. Meanwhile, the Catalyst team considers expanding this financing tool adoption to other states. We are also incubating a new property management product and deploy an early-stage proptech venture fund. I lead special projects across these various initiatives and seek support from the Chief of Staff Network in prioritizing my time and determining the strongest longer-term fit for me within the organization. I am also a Black woman who hopes to meet other women of color navigating their careers as women of color. Both Simon Rodrigues (close friend from Brown University) and Allison Lazarus (classmate at HBS) referred me to the Chief of Staff Network for this reason. I graduated from Brown University in 2014 and Harvard Business School/Harvard Kennedy School in 2021. Outside of work, I volunteer with various community development organizations in New York, served as a young alumni mater of Brown University, and am FINALLY learning how to swim. *Please note that I plan to update my LinkedIn title on Monday (August 15) when my GS garden leave non-compete is complete, but have full authorization to start working with my new team at Catalyst already.