Our Team

Catherine O’Brien

Dr. Catherine O’Brien is a leader in education for all levels, from pre-K through post-graduate education. During her 37-year career in the education field, she was a change agent for institutions to bring them to a standard of operating that matched their values. She is a public figure in the Houston area, higher education, and local school district communities due to her work.

Catherine has had great success in these areas of her expertise: K-12 Education; Higher Education; Leadership; Strategic Planning; Transformative Solutions; Higher Education Law; Accreditation; Certification; Grant Writing and Compliance; Conceptualized Cyber Security Advances; Professional Development Planning and Implementation; External Partnership Development and Collaboration; Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Development; and Conceptual, Operational, and Strategic Dimensions of Organizational Leadership.

She was selected as one of 40 leaders in the nation to attend The Aspen Institute’s advanced leadership fellowship for one year. This year-long experience enhanced her leadership skills and abilities and introduced her to key leaders across the nation.

Furthermore, Catherine has collaborated and developed MOUs with external community partners, including working with seven school districts and 22 other external organizations. She helped provide educational programming spread out across the city of Houston and to engage in collaborative decision making and innovative project development that would ensure serving even more of the population. One of the MOUs was a collaboration between all seven school districts and Houston Community College colleges to develop one common understanding of the dual credit programming policies and procedures.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, a Master of Science in English Education, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Cultural Studies. The Strategic Partnerships Inc. (SPI) team is thrilled to welcome her as a consultant.