Kate Windnagel: Delightfully Driven and Changing the World

Meet Kate Windnagel. She’s a second-year from Strongsville, Ohio majoring in Economics and International Studies with a minor in Arabic. Somehow with this hefty workload Kate still manages to get involved through an organization called APTE and hold the office of Budget and Funding Director, while also maintaing a fun and fabulous social life. Her Campus got the opportunity to sit down with Kate and learn the secrets behind her success!

HC: What is APTE and how did you get involved in it?

KW: APTE stands for Alleviating Poverty through Entrepreneurship. We are an organization that hosts the premiere social entrepreneurship summit in the Midwest. At the summit, we educate attendees about social entrepreneurship- businesses devoted to wealth creation and sustainability in order to eliminate poverty in our world. We are completely student run, and we offer a  business competition for social enterprise start ups among our peers. APTE is all about education, coalition building, and action within the growing social entrepreneurship field in Columbus, and across the country. I actually got involved from hearing about APTE through my brother. He was a dedicated Fisher student and extremely passionate about what businesses can do to promote sustainable development. He was a senior looking to recruit new members, so I signed up before even attending a summit. I was hooked immediately.

HC: What is the best/worst part of having a leadership position in this organization?

KW: I would argue that every team member of APTE has a leadership position. Most, if not all of us, are responsible for a unique part of making sure APTE is successful. I just happen to have a leadership position that requires a lot of my team members to respond and work with me. The best part of that is being involved in every aspect of APTE… having a say in marketing, the business competition, and our design studio. The worst part is probably that it takes a lot of coordination! I’m constantly e-mailing and meeting with people to make sure everything is going well!

HC: What has being Budget and Funding Director taught you?

KW: Being in charge of the budget has taught me to value efficiency! I’m in charge of both allocating and raising our funds, so it has taught me to really value where every one of our dollars is going!

HC: How else do you like to spend your time and how do you balance those things with school and ATPE?

KW: I enjoy being lazy over anything else. Honestly, I love watching Netflix and hanging out with my friends. I also love reading in my spare time… currently I’m into anything by John Green and Kurt Vonnegut. Sometimes it’s overwhelming to try to balance school, APTE, and relaxing, but somehow it always gets done.

HC: How has your involvement in APTE helped you?

KW: My involvement with APTE has opened up so many new doors for me. I have been introduced to CEOs of some of the newest and best social enterprises in the world. I’ve learned more than I ever could have imagined… about eliminating poverty, working hard, fundraising, building business relationships, and running a successful event. 

HC: What drives you?

KW: I don’t think I could pinpoint just one factor that drives me. My inspiration draws from a lot of things. Generally, I’d say I’m driven by my desire to make some sort of impact on our planet in any way I can; and also my simple desire for achievement and accomplishment. But I’d also say my drive and determination towards APTE come from my whole hearted feelings towards poverty. I don’t really consider myself a compassionate person. I am neither soft nor soft-hearted. But, I am angry. I would say I’m driven mostly by my anger towards poverty. I am angry that it exists and I am angry that it is sometimes forgotten in our day-to-day lives. When I see that there are so many people out there who are actively working to create wealth and create sustainable working environments for impoverished peoples, some of my anger goes away. Someday I want that anger to be completely gone, but that will only happen if we fix what I truly perceive as a global crisis. So, my biggest drive is the elimination of my anger… which in turn would be the elimination of poverty.