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 Our Team
Debra B. Natenshon
Chief Executive Officer
Since 2004, Debra has successfully re-designed the organization’s strategy and infrastructure. By focusing The Center for What Works on conducting and sharing sector-wide research, she ensures successful outcomes for nonprofits and funders.
Debra is an influential thought leader in the field of outcome measurement. As a Principal Investigator with the Urban Institute, she completed ground-breaking research to develop outcome frameworks that are currently used by a wide spectrum of nonprofit organizations.
She also designed and developed the Performance Measurement Toolkit and the Foundation Effectiveness Toolkit, inspiring hundreds of nonprofits and funders across the country to approach outcome measurement more easily and effectively.
Debra’s expertise in assisting nonprofits to improve their results has made her a highly sought after advisor and speaker. She makes essential connections between strategy and actionable outcomes leading to improved internal management, increased external funding, and continuous improvement. She presents highly regarded workshops at state association conferences for nonprofits and funders as well as other conferences including: the Grant Manager's Network, Net Impact, NYU’s Social Entrepreneur Conference, Social Solutions, the League of American Orchestras, and the Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference. She also frequently presents web-based seminars and training programs.
She is a member of the Alliance for Effective Social Investing and has advised many leading organizations including: GuideStar, FSG Social Impact Advisors, and McKinsey and Co.
In 2004, Debra founded the Chicago professional chapter of Net Impact, a global network of leaders changing the world through business. She continues to chair the chapter. Under her leadership, the Chicago chapter was awarded Professional Chapter of the Year for 2007. Debra also serves on Net Impact’s national membership committee to help determine global strategy.
Prior to her current role at The Center for What Works, Debra worked for IOR Global Services, a cross-cultural training and consulting firm, where she designed and streamlined business processes for several Fortune 100 corporate clients. She also helped launch a technology company, where she successfully implemented the first client in over 20 countries.
Debra holds a Masters degree in Organizational Management from the SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont. Her Masters thesis explored social entrepreneurship and the effective use of performance measurement strategies to improve organizational results. Debra has studied, lived and worked in England, Japan, India, Israel, and Argentina; she integrates and uses her evolving knowledge of the world to learn, leverage and contribute on a daily basis. Debra lives in Chicago with her husband and two sons.
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Kathy Brennan 
Board Member
Kathy Brennan has over ten years of experience helping nonprofits and government manage and evaluate their programs to enhance their results. Currently, she is an independent consultant in Washington DC helping nonprofits including the American Red Cross, and the Latin American Youth Center, learn and grow through measuring performance. Prior to starting her business Kathy was at DTI, a government contractor where she led the evaluation technical assistance team for the Department of Education’s Smaller Learning Community Project. She has conducted research on TANF and WIA and managed and evaluated workforce development, community building and poverty reduction initiatives. She is an experienced technical assistance provider having worked with numerous nonprofit organizations to align community workforce development needs with programming and conduct in-house program evaluation.
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Rem Hoffmann 
Board Member
Rem Hoffmann is a creative and analytical innovator working at the intersection of technology and the civil sector to foster exponential change. He brings more than 15 years experience in building, operating, and consulting to both information technology organizations and to the nonprofit, government, and commercial sectors. He brings deep skills in business planning, venture conceptualization and launch, service delivery, project management, and business development.
Rem is currently President of Exponent Partners, a social venture focused on building the information technology capacity of civil society. Before founding this organization, Rem consulted independently to leading nonprofit sector organizations such as CompuMentor and CompassPoint in addition to commercial technology firms such as Intuit, Qwest, Wang Global, and Exodus Communications.
Previously he designed, marketed, and operated large-scale IT outsourcing programs for clients including the United States Postal Service and Time Warner. Before turning to consulting work, Rem built and headed a 150-staff IT services organization supporting government and commercial clients in the Washington, DC area.
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Susan Hudson 
Board Member
With 20 years of industry experience, Susan Hudson, Executive Director and Business Manager for UBS Global Asset Management Fixed Income Team, brings much to The Center for What Works. Her responsibilities at UBS lie in business management and support for Fixed Income globally, with a particular focus on the Americas.
Susan joined UBS Global Asset Management in 2006. Prior to this she was Senior Vice President at ABN AMRO Asset Management directing North America Legal, Risk and Compliance and Program Management. Susan brings additional experience in pricing, data, and systems from her role as Vice President and Manager of Investment Operations for Nuveen Investments.
Susan is the current President of Central City Housing Ventures, a non-profit organization that developed and oversees a 170 unit single room occupancy building for single men and women in the South Loop.
Susan holds a masters degree in business from the University of Chicago. She received her B.A. in Economics and Business from Wheaton College.
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Catherine Katona 
Board Member
Catherine Katona is the Senior Program Manager, Economic Development, of O-H Community Partners (OHcp), a consulting firm involved with building the strength and capacity of high-growth non profit organizations. OHcp focuses on strategic planning and designing high impact programs for its clients, incorporating fundraising and project management into its services to ensure that organizations have the funds and infrastructure to implement their strategic plans.
Prior to working with OHcp, Ms. Katona was the President of Katona and Associates, a consulting organization for community and economic development. The focus of the organization is on bridging the gap between planning and implementation of strategic goals. Katona and Associates worked with communities and organizations to activate planned strategies offering services that bridge the gap between planning and implementation to accelerate economic development. Ms. Katona has has expertise in the areas of economic development, community development, workforce development and affordable housing.
Before founding Katona and Associates, Cathy Katona was the Vice President of Training and Certification at the International Economic Development Council (IEDC). There she created and managed IEDC’s professional development training program as well as the CEcD certification program to recognize professionals in the field. She has been active in economic development for over 12 years and has worked with hundreds of economic developers both nationally and internationally.
Ms. Katona understands that economic developers come from a variety of backgrounds. Ms. Katona has a BA from Smith College in Music and an MA from Michigan State University in Neuroscience
Melissa Waid 
Marketing Consultant
Melissa Waid is a client-focused marketing and strategy consultant with a diverse and dynamic professional and educational background. With eight years of professional experience, over the last 5 years, Melissa has executed traditional and online marketing and sale campaigns that have successfully built brands and generated profit. She had a demonstrated ability in: identifying and developing new business opportunities, growing strategic relationships, and meeting the challenges associated with a changing economy through innovative business practices. In addition to her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Chicago, Melissa graduated with her MBA in 2008 from San Diego State University.
Jason Radford
Research and Development Consultant
Jason Radford is a research and development consultant specializing in data management, research design, and impact assessment. Over the past four years, he has been performing and managing a number of nonprofit and academic research projects. As a student at Appalachian State University, he collaborated with the campus volunteer office to design, implement, and analyze survey-research on how men become involved in volunteer programs. More recently, he worked with the University of Chicago Survey Lab and National Opinion Research Center to carry out a national survey of teaching artists. Currently, he is volunteering with the Southside Arts and Humanities Network to construct interview and survey-based outcome measures.
Jason graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Studies from Appalachian State University in 2007 and M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago in 2009. His undergraduate theses investigated the institutionalization of the gang-form of civic organizing and the redistribution and recognition theories of justice. His master’s thesis compared models of how social movements influence non-state organizations. Currently, he is designing a research project on what forms of civic engagement lead to oppression, violence, and authoritarianism. .
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