Kate Grant – Listen to Your Inner Voice: Leading a Life of Impact Without Apology
Release Date: 12/02/2025
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info_outlineWhat does it take to lead with both purpose and perseverance? In this episode of Legendary Leaders, host Cathleen O’Sullivan sits down with Kate Grant—CEO of the Fistula Foundation and author of No Woman Left Behind—whose remarkable journey from Madison Avenue to global health leadership reveals what can happen when compassion meets conviction.
Kate shares how walking away from a thriving advertising career became the first step toward transforming the lives of more than 100,000 women suffering from obstetric fistula—a preventable childbirth injury that still affects over a million women in the world’s most underserved regions. With honesty and humility, she opens up about redefining success, the courage it takes to stay focused on one mission, and how saying “no” to good ideas is often the price of real impact. Cathleen O'Sullivan (Merkel)
Together, Cathleen and Kate explore the intersection of leadership, purpose, and humanity—what it means to build something that lasts, lead with heart, and never look away from the people and problems that need us most. This conversation is for anyone who believes leadership is less about power and more about the lives we choose to touch.
Episode Timeline:
00:03:34 What is obstetric fistula and why it still exists
00:07:39 The devastating social cost: ostracism, shame, and isolation
00:16:21 A survivor's story: 30 years of suffering and the gift of a chicken
00:28:30 Building a global network: from one hospital to 35 countries
00:33:12 The fundraising approach: efficiency, focus, and saying no
00:38:25 Ensuring quality: working with expert surgeons and measuring outcomes
00:47:15 Leaving Madison Avenue: when success isn't enough
00:53:05 The earthquake and breakup that cracked everything open
01:03:11 Redefining success: career, motherhood, and the myth of having it all
01:10:00 What's next: stepping down and training as a therapist
01:19:16 Final wisdom: listen to your inner voice and own your choices
Key Takeaway:
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A Hidden Crisis with a Solution: Obstetric fistula—a childbirth injury from obstructed labor—affects at least one million women in Africa and Asia, leaving them incontinent and ostracized. Yet 90% of cases are fixable with surgery, making this needless suffering Kate refuses to accept.
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Relentless Focus Drives Impact: The Fistula Foundation does one thing exceptionally well—funding surgeries—and has helped over 100,000 women by resisting mission creep, measuring outcomes rigorously, and treating the nonprofit like a results-driven business.
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Listen to Your Inner Voice: Kate left a successful advertising career after travel exposed her to global poverty and an earthquake cracked her life open—proving that transformation requires quieting external voices and giving your own inner compass a microphone.
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Empowerment Through Accountability: When problems arise, assume you created them—not to blame yourself, but to empower yourself to learn and fix what's broken rather than playing victim to circumstances or other people.
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You Can't Have It All at Once: Success means making intentional choices about where to invest finite energy—Kate chose her son and the foundation over remarriage, showing that owning your trade-offs without apology is more honest than pretending you can do everything equally well.
About Kate Grant:
Kate Grant is a global health and social-impact leader with over 25 years of experience advancing maternal health and women’s rights worldwide. As President & CEO of Fistula Foundation, she has expanded access to life-changing surgeries for thousands of women across Africa and Asia while building high-performing teams and partnerships with governments and NGOs. She is also the author of No Woman Left Behind – A Journey of Hope to Heal Every Woman Injured in Childbirth, a memoir highlighting her journey from a corporate career to leading a global health movement. Known for her equity-focused, collaborative leadership, Kate’s mission is to ensure every woman has the opportunity to live a healthy, dignified life.
Connect with Kate Grant:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-grant-92110561/
Website: https://fistulafoundation.org/
No Woman Left Behind (Book): https://fistulafoundation.org/no-woman-left-behind/
Connect with Cathleen O’Sullivan:
Business: https://cathleenosullivan.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathleen-osullivan/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legendary_leaders_cathleenos/
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