Meet Katharine

Katharine Cornfield is Owner and President of Change Group Limited, advising senior leaders in public and non‑profit real property, asset, and infrastructure organizations. Her work focuses on how governance, organizational capability, and decision‑making systems shape the quality of decisions about public assets - and how those decisions, in turn, build trust and create public value.

She brings experience across public policy, organizational strategy, and social purpose real estate, with a career spanning senior roles in government and a decade advising executive teams responsible for asset‑intensive portfolios.

Experience

Katharine’s advisory work supports executive teams responsible for complex, asset‑intensive portfolios -strengthening decision systems, operating models, integrated financial and workforce management, and executive alignment where institutions need to move from analysis to action.

Her consulting experience includes work with organizations such as the Department of National Defence, Parks Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Library and Archives Canada, the National Research Council, and the Treasury Board Secretariat, with exposure to portfolios ranging from $1M to $32B in public assets under management.

She also brings direct experience in social purpose real estate and non‑profit environments, providing a practical understanding of how assets, funding, and partnerships shape community outcomes under real constraints. Through work in both non-profit and public sectors, she developed the PACE™ lens - a practical way of assessing how purpose, alignment, capability, and engagement shape decision quality and execution in complex asset and infrastructure management systems.

Katharine holds an MBA and a BA in Canadian Studies, is currently a candidate in the MFA in Creative Nonfiction at the University of King’s College, and is a certified Change Management Practitioner (APMG International) and Prosci® practitioner. Her speaking and writing extend this work through contributions to national forums and publications in real property and public sector practice.

Research

As a candidate in the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at the University of King’s College, Katharine is currently exploring the parallels between Canada's physical and democratic infrastructure and, through original interview-based research, asking senior leaders and practitioners across jurisdictions how public assets might better serve the common good. The work will be developed into a book-length manuscript.

This research builds on her ongoing thought leadership, including contributions to the Corporate Real Estate Journal and presentations at national forums such as the National Executive Forum on Public Property and Real Proprerty Institute of Canada.