We help leaders find the path that pressure reveals.

Kate Abegg

Founder

Kate's steadiness under pressure was forged in environments where lives were at stake and split-second decisions had to be made with the knowledge and resources at hand. She began her career as a critical-care trauma nurse before moving into emergency medical transport, first by ambulance, then by helicopter and fixed-wing aircraft in remote and austere environments. That work spanned real operations like COVID and Ebola response, as well as contract work with government agencies to repatriate American citizens from abroad, and even then she was leading clinical teams under pressure, an early mark of what's become one of her defining strengths. Those years sharpened the judgment she relies on today: how to read a complex situation quickly and act when it counts.

She carried that same instinct into business. At a defense-contracting firm she advanced through increasingly senior roles, ending her tenure as chief executive. She put in place the operations, strategy, and program management behind engineering and tactical-communications work for the U.S. Department of Defense, and delivered large, complex programs on schedule and on budget. She managed the company's sales pipeline and built out its recruiting and talent function, growing the team as the business scaled.

At Coritas, Kate draws on all of it. She also leads our executive education, bringing a resilience lens to how leaders prepare for and decide under pressure. She holds a Master of Science in Emergency and Disaster Health Systems with a concentration in Epidemiology, and a Certificate in Emergency Management, and is pursuing a Master of Science in Cybersecurity at UMBC's College of Engineering and Information Technology, where her work increasingly focuses on the intersection of cybersecurity, AI and its human impact, and public policy. Outside the firm, she gives time to civic and community causes and to nonprofits, helping them fundraise, get organized, and build the foundations to grow. She works with leaders through hard seasons who want to come out of them with clearer purpose.

Dr. Adam Howard

Senior Advisor, Applied History and Leadership

Dr. Adam Howard brings applied history to our executive education and leadership advisory, drawing on a career spent at the intersection of history and government decision-making. He served as The Historian of the U.S. Department of State and Director of its Office of the Historian, and earlier as General Editor of the Foreign Relations of the United States, the official documentary record of American foreign policy. In those roles he led the historians who preserve and interpret the diplomatic record, and prepared analyses that informed decisions at the highest levels of government.

He is now Executive Director of the International Churchill Society and an adjunct professor of history and international affairs at George Washington University. He holds a Ph.D. in U.S. history from the University of Florida and a graduate certificate in Organizational Learning and Change, pairing the long view of history with how leaders and institutions actually change. He is the author of Sewing the Fabric of Statehood (University of Illinois Press, 2017) and editor of several volumes on twentieth-century diplomacy and the Arab–Israeli dispute.

At Coritas, he puts history to practical use. The long record of how institutions and leaders have come through crisis helps sharpen judgment and widen the options a leader can see when the path ahead is uncertain.

Ryan Elizabeth Clevenger

Social Media Strategist

Ryan founded a South Jersey–based public relations and social media firm, where she advises businesses, nonprofits, political campaigns, and community organizations on how to reach the people they serve. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Marketing and Social Media, and she brings to every engagement a current, hands-on command of the platforms where audiences actually spend their attention.

Her work spans social media strategy, content creation, event promotion, and public engagement, and what ties it together is judgment: knowing what an organization should say, when to say it, and where. Because she understands the communities her clients operate in, the work sounds like them.

That instinct has made her a trusted resource in local politics, where she serves as an advisor to political clubs on their social media strategy. She has helped run communications for a local political campaign, navigating the pace and scrutiny of local political messaging. Across campaigns and community events alike, the method is consistent: a clear message, delivered to the right audience at the right time.

At Coritas, Ryan leads our social media practice, setting the strategy and running it day to day so a client's voice stays clear, consistent, and tied to real goals.