Choose consultants that best suit your needs.
Our team
STRATEGY, FINANCE, OPERATIONS,
Kate Washington, MBA
Kate’s experience in business includes working with small to mid-sized enterprises, Fortune 500 Companies and the highest levels of state and municipal government leadership to provide economic technical assistance for growth in these sectors. Rooted in a strong economic and analytical methodology, Kate counts the multiple, successful business turnarounds, strategic operations and financial growth and economic policy contributions that provide solvency and futures for employees and families as her strongest and most fulfilling achievements. In countries in the Caribbean and South America, she created opportunities and solutions to reduce the cost of energy and to build sustainable energy resources that increased the quality of life in these emerging markets. ESI’s work has delivered results in North America, South America, Asia and Africa.
As former Deputy Commissioner of Neighborhood and Business Development for the City of Rochester NY, Kate lead Housing, Real Estate, Business Development and Project Development and activities that helped launch the economic transformation of the City of Rochester. Kate’s financial acuity, entrepreneurial skills and experience across many business sectors provides a strong platform upon which she serves her customers. Delivering excellent service and results are the driving forces behind her work.
Kate’s civic engagement includes leadership in women’s economic parity and racial equity issues; the arts; and business development. She is a founding member of the Women’s Coalition of St. Croix, the first Rape Crisis Center and Domestic Violence program in the Caribbean. As President of the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault, she helped craft the Sexual Assault Reform Act signed into law by Governor Pataki in 2001 and secured the required funding for the seventy-six Rape Crisis Centers throughout New York State.
Kate earned her Bachelor of Music from Syracuse University, studied jazz arranging at Berklee College of Music and earned her Master of Business Administration from Simon School of Business at the University of Rochester.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT, COMPLIANCE, FINANCE
Mark Fitzstevens, MRP
Mark is detail-oriented, analytical, trained in regulatory compliance, laser-focused, relationship-centered, and interested in facilitating collaboration amongst a diverse team - all in the service of being effective in advancing the public good. His approach has been to recognize that there is no problem that can’t be solved through tenacity and attention to details and taking care of relationships.
30-years of Mark’s career was spent with the City of Rochester (NY) as an urban planner. He honed his organizational and technical skills and learned how to be effective while strictly complying with bureaucratic and federal, state, and local regulatory limits. His most recent job with the City of Rochester was as the Manager of Downtown Development - a rewarding post that allowed him to work on development projects from inception to completion. These projects totaled over $460MM in public and private investment through which construction and permanent jobs were created and mixed-use, mixed-income developments were brought online. On one project alone, Midtown Rising, over $188MM in private and public funding was used to demolish and adaptively re-use a former downtown mall into mixed-use, mixed-income space that created 1,934 construction jobs and created/retained 561 full-time equivalent jobs.
Mark administered the City of Rochester’s Home Expo Program which offered homeownership opportunities to income-eligible households and replaced vacant lots with new homes, restored the urban fabric, and grew the City’s tax base.
His early life experience was spent in Vietnam, Hong Kong, and Malaysia. He has a Master of Regional Planning from Cornell University.