Kathryn Bader blends tech leadership with community service

BJC HealthCare Senior Project Manager Kathryn Bader has built a decade-long career leading complex technology programs across healthcare, telecom, finance, and technology. Her profile also highlights nearly 17 years of volunteer work in St. Louis and a focus on mentoring women in technical fields.

Why it matters: - Kathryn Bader represents the growing overlap between technical leadership and community leadership. - Her career spans healthcare, telecommunications, finance, and technology, showing how project management skills transfer across industries. - Her long-running volunteer work in St. Louis underscores the role senior professionals can play beyond the workplace.

What happened: - Kathryn Bader is a Senior Project Manager at BJC HealthCare in St. Louis. - She has about a decade of experience leading complex, cross-functional technology programs. - Her work has covered large-scale IT projects, global resource coordination, stakeholder alignment, risk management, Agile delivery, business requirements, process improvement, and executive communication. - Her projects have run from initial planning and development through implementation and post-production support.

The details: - Bader has also held leadership roles at Mastercard, Spectrum, and iBridge Solutions. - She managed technical teams, improved operational processes, and worked with stakeholders across levels in those roles. - One major accomplishment was helping build the Spectrum Mobile platform, including its infrastructure, functionality, billing processes, and overall framework. - Bader earned a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education and Teaching from the University of Missouri-Columbia. - She completed a master’s degree in Project Management at Georgetown University in 2020. - Her credentials include Certified SAFe Scrum Master status and a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt. - Her training also covers executive leadership, influencing others, leadership communication, managing technical debt, advanced Excel formulas, lookup functions, PivotTables, dashboards, presentation skills, and executive presence.

Between the lines: - Bader credits her growth to strong mentorship and a support system that encouraged her career development. - She says the best advice she received was to make mistakes, learn from them, and avoid repeating them. - That outlook frames accountability and resilience as core parts of her leadership style. - Her focus on women in technology and project management signals an emphasis on access and professional advancement, not just personal achievement.

What's next: - Bader plans to keep building her leadership through organizations including Women in Cable Telecommunications and the Project Management Institute. - Her volunteer work with Celebrate Saint Louis, Fair Saint Louis, and Sign of the Arrow suggests continued involvement in community-based service. - Her Influential Women profile offers more background on her work and perspective.

The bottom line: - Kathryn Bader has built a career around delivering complex programs and a parallel track record of service, mentorship, and civic involvement.