Cate Costa, Founding Principal of GSImpact

Cate Costa is the Founding Principal of GSImpact, a consulting practice helping foundations, corporate philanthropies, and business support organizations build measurement frameworks and theories of change that are coherent, honest, and aligned with what they are actually trying to accomplish. She brings nearly two decades of experience at the intersection of entrepreneurship, philanthropy, and economic development — and a doctoral researcher’s eye for the hard questions the field too often avoids.

Her track record is substantial. As Vice President of Global Philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase, she designed the firm’s $350 million small business commitment, deploying nearly $100 million in philanthropic capital across 37 countries and supporting more than 200,000 entrepreneurs per year. Before that, she led Illinois’ $600 million supplier diversity program — managing a 19-person team across 65 state agencies and driving a 23% increase in contract value to diverse-owned businesses — and directed entrepreneurship programming at the Chicago Urban League, where she turned a budget deficit into a surplus

Cate is currently a Global Executive PhD candidate at ESCP Business School in Paris, where her doctoral research examines metric misalignment in philanthropic support for entrepreneurship, and a Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute. She holds a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and an M.B.A. from Howard University School of Business, with executive education from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. She was named to Crain’s Chicago’s 40 Under 40 in 2021 and the Porsche Power 30 Under 30 in 2017; she has been appointed to two gubernatorial and mayoral advisory bodies in Illinois and Chicago, and is a lifetime member of Prospanica.

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