FOUNDER
Kate Emery
Some people build companies. Kate Emery built a movement.
When Kate Emery founded The Walker Group in 1986, the business world was just beginning to reckon with a strange new reality: small, desk-sized computers were showing up in offices, and nobody quite knew what to do with them. The word "microcomputer" hadn't yet given way to "PC." The internet was a decade away from public consciousness. And yet Kate saw, with unusual clarity, that these machines weren't a passing curiosity; they were the future of how businesses would operate, and someone would need to manage that future with rigor and purpose.
That someone was her.
Four Decades of Technology Leadership
What began as a technology management consultancy has grown, over nearly four decades, into one of Connecticut's most respected and mission-driven IT services firms. The Walker Group has guided hundreds of organizations through every major wave of technological change, from the desktop computing revolution to cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, and beyond.
But the real story of The Walker Group isn't the technology. It's the philosophy underneath it.
From early in her career, Kate held a conviction that ran counter to the prevailing business culture of her era: that profit and purpose are not opposites. That a company can, and should, measure its success not only by what it earns, but by what it contributes. That belief has shaped every major decision she has made as a founder and leader.
Pioneering the B Corp Movement in Connecticut
Kate didn't just talk about values-driven business. She helped write the rules for it.
From formalizing The Walker Group as a Social Enterprise in 2007 to becoming an early and vocal advocate for the B Corporations movement in CT, Kate has always been pushing to do business differently. She worked to advance B Corp status through legislation in Connecticut, helping establish a legal and cultural framework that would allow purpose-driven companies to formalize their commitments. Her advocacy helped lay the groundwork for a new generation of businesses in the state that measure against a double or triple bottom line, weighing social and environmental impact alongside financial performance.
When The Walker Group became one of the first registered B Corporations in the state of CT, they joined a global community of businesses that commit to standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. For Kate, this designation wasn't a marketing strategy. It was a public commitment to a way of operating she had already been practicing for years.
"Business is a powerful force in our world today and it can be a great force for good when we make it so."
Founding reSET: Building an Ecosystem for Social Enterprise
In parallel with leading The Walker Group, Kate founded reSET, Social Enterprise Trust, a Hartford-based nonprofit whose mission is to advance the social enterprise sector across Connecticut and beyond.
reSET operates as both an incubator and a community anchor. It offers co-working space for entrepreneurs at every stage, a robust accelerator program designed to help impact-driven ventures grow and scale, and mentoring services that connect emerging founders with experienced guides. The organization serves all entrepreneurs but specializes in supporting those who are building businesses with measurable social or environmental outcomes at their core.
Under Kate's leadership and vision, reSET has become a vital part of Hartford's entrepreneurial ecosystem, a place where the question isn't just can this business survive? But what problem is this business solving, and for whom?
Kate believes that Hartford, and Connecticut broadly, has an opportunity to become a national model for how communities can harness the power of entrepreneurship in the service of social good. reSET is now an incubator for social enterprises making that happen and their recent merge with COLLAB of New Haven only furthers their reach.
The Perpetual Purpose Trust:
Locking In the Mission Forever
In June 2023, Kate took what may be her most consequential step yet, one that ensured her life's work would not be undone by the pressures of conventional sale and acquisition.
She transitioned The Walker Group into a Perpetual Purpose Trust (PPT), a legal ownership structure specifically designed to protect a company's mission in perpetuity. Unlike a traditional sale or succession plan, a Perpetual Purpose Trust removes the company from the conventional market for ownership, making it structurally impossible for future stakeholders to prioritize profit over purpose. The mission is not a policy that can be voted out. It is baked into the company's legal architecture.
It is a rare and radical act of institutional commitment, and it is entirely consistent with who Kate Emery has always been.
Photo: Steven Laschever for Hartford Business Journal
A Legacy Still Being Written
Kate Emery has spent nearly 40 years proving that the most durable businesses are the ones built on something more than the bottom line. She has been a technologist, an entrepreneur, a legislator of conscience, a community builder, and a steward. The Walker Group exists today, and will exist long after, because Kate decided that doing business differently was her north star.
