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About Kasia Kalstad
On communication, and why most of it doesn't work.
People can tell when they're being managed. They may not say it out loud, but they feel it — the language that's been hedged into meaninglessness, the all-hands that felt like a performance, the message that was clearly written by committee. They disengage. They stop trusting. And no amount of polish fixes that, because the problem was never the polish.
I started as a journalist, and I was good at it. In two years at The Oregonian I earned a first-place award from the Oregon Newspaper Association — the kind of recognition that makes you think you've found your thing. I had. I just eventually needed better hours.
So I moved into communications and followed the work wherever it was most interesting. That turned out to cover a lot of ground. PR agency work, running campaigns for technology and consumer brands. External communications and media relations — shaping launch narratives for products like Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot, earning coverage in The New York Times, Fortune, and TechCrunch. Executive communications, advising senior leaders on how to show up in high-stakes moments, including a first-of-its-kind address to the UN General Assembly. Internal communications, building employee engagement programs for a 4,000-person global organization from the ground up. And creative production — scripted broadcasts, live events, and original formats that earned three Telly Awards and the highest employee engagement rates across Microsoft.
Most communicators plant a flag in one discipline and stay there. I never did, and I think that's made me a better strategist in every one of them. When you've worked across journalism, PR, external, executive, internal, and production — you stop seeing them as separate functions and start seeing them as one conversation, happening on different stages at the same time.
What also set my career apart is that I never just managed the message. I understood the business behind it. Five years embedded in Microsoft's Office Product Group, working directly alongside senior leadership, gave me a genuine fluency in business strategy. I wasn't just translating decisions into communications — I was in the room when the decisions were being made, helping shape organizational priorities alongside the leaders responsible for them. That context changes everything about how you communicate.
I left corporate life to do this work independently, for clients who care as much about getting it right as I do. I'm also completing a Master's in Communication and Leadership at Gonzaga University, and beginning fall 2026 I'll be teaching at Seattle University's Department of Communication and Media — work that keeps me honest about why any of this matters in the first place.
I live in the Seattle area with my partner and our dogs. The Pacific Northwest suits me.
A FEW CREDENTIALS, FOR THE RECORD:
Three Telly Awards · Microsoft Leadership Team · TEDx Portland PR Director · MA Communication & Leadership, Gonzaga University · Adjunct Faculty, Seattle University · BA Journalism & Political Science, CSU Long Beach, Magna Cum Laude
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