Kate is the cutting-edge big thinker behind big deal making.
Kate Vitasek is an international authority for her award-winning research and Vested® business model for highly collaborative relationships. Vitasek, a Faculty member at the University of Tennessee, is the 2025 Thinkers50 Breakthrough Idea Award Recipient, and lauded by World Trade Magazine as one of the “Fabulous 50+1” most influential people impacting global commerce. Her work has led to 8 books, including: Vested: How P&G, McDonald’s and Microsoft Are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships, Getting to We: Negotiating Agreements for Highly Collaborative Relationships, Contracting in the New Economy, and Preventing the Dispute Before it Begins.
Vitasek is known for her practical and research-based advice for driving transformation and innovation through highly-collaborative and strategic partnerships. She has appeared on CNN International, Bloomberg, NPR, and on Fox Business News. Her work has been featured in over 400 articles in publications including Harvard Business Review, Chief Executive Magazine, The Economist, FAST Company, Information Week, CIO Magazine and World Financial Review.
“Nothing personal—it’s just business.”
This outdated attitude is the foundation that most business relationships are built on—a zero-sum game where one party wins at the expense of the other. Organizations say things like “valued employee,” “strategic partnership,” and “healthcare system,” but the reality is they are stuck on a transactional treadmill focusing on this task, this time, this deal, and under these terms. The relationships they create are static and the results are status quo.
Author, educator, and business consultant Kate Vitasek has cracked the code on how to truly create successful win-win relationships. Kate’s evocative and edutaining Vested Way® keynote unpacks Five Rules that turn transactional relationships into transformational relationships. Her keynote takes attendees beyond the theory of “win-win” and is packed with real stories from real organizations getting real results by applying the Five Rules.
Kate Delivers -
Kate Vitasek is an international authority on how to build better business relationships. Her award-winning research is the subject of seven books and she has been featured as an international authority on how to build better business relationships on CNN International, NPR, Bloomberg, and Fox Business News. Kate regularly shares her insights as a Forbes contributor in her column on the art, science, and practice of highly collaborative relationships.
Outcomes - Attendees walk away:
* Challenging the game they are playing in their existing relationships
* Armed with the Vested Five Rules to help them transform their relationships
* Inspired by real-world examples of how the Vested Way has worked in practice, creating value far beyond traditional us-vs-them transactional approaches
Overview
The vast majority of business relationships operate with an “us vs. them” mindset: management vs. union, buyer vs. supplier, health care providers vs. payers, boss vs. employee and functional silo vs. functional silo. Organizations say things like “valued employee,” “strategic partnership,” and “Healthcare System,” but the reality is they are often stuck with policies and practices and functional metrics that pit organizations, departments, and even team members against each other. The result is a culture that feels like a virtual tug-of-war with team members pulling against each other rather than collaborating for mutual success.
Kate’s Getting to We® keynote shares five proven steps for creating an engaged, collaborative culture. Her keynote inspires audiences with behind-the-scenes stories of how organizations such as Island Health and their hospitalists transformed their culture from a tense, troubled, and toxic relationship to one team members proudly call trusting, collaborative, and innovative. Kate will leave you with tangible advice, tips, and tools for making the shift from a What’s-in-it-for-Me culture to a What’s-in-it-for-We culture.
Kate Delivers -
Kate Vitasek is an international authority for her award-winning work on how to build better business relationships. She has been featured on CNN International, NPR, Bloomberg, and Fox Business News. She is the author of seven books. Kate regularly shares her insights as a Forbes contributor in her column on the art, science, and practice of highly collaborative relationships.
Outcomes - Attendees walk away:
* Understanding why “getting to yes” is no longer enough
* Learning a proven five-step approach for creating a highly engaged and collaborative culture
* Inspired by real-world examples of how the organizations such as Island Health and their hospitalists transformed their culture
* Gaining access to proven tools to facilitate teams in transitioning from a “Me” to “We” mindset
Overview
In our fast-paced and interconnected world, the success of any organization hinges on the strength and productivity of its teams. High-performing teams are not merely a result of chance or luck; they are cultivated by fostering an environment built on transparency and trust. But all too often individuals and organizations have a mantra that trust must be earned. What if we shifted our mindset and chose to lead by trusting?
Join Kate in her evocative and edutaining Power of T keynote speech as she shares profound insights from her groundbreaking research. Kate’s inspiring and interactive presentation will help you challenge traditional notions of how to build trust and demonstrate how viewing transparency and trust through a new lens can unleash the full potential of teams.
Kate Delivers -
University of Tennessee supply chain professor Kate Vitasek has been researching the power of choosing to lead with transparency and trust for over 20 years. Her work has led to seven books and she has been featured as an international authority on how to build better business relationships on CNN International, NPR, Bloomberg, and Fox Business News.
Outcomes - Attendees walk away with:
* Valuable insights that will empower their organization to thrive in today’s competitive landscape
* Five pillars for building trust and transparency in teams
* Real-world examples of from real organizations getting real results by choosing to lead with transparency and trust
* Tangible tips and tools to foster a culture of trust and boost team performance
Reveals how traditional outsourcing models fall short and shows how to use five key rules to build aligned, collaborative, and innovative partnerships.
Audience Takeaways:
Understand what Vested Outsourcing is—and why outsourcing doesn’t have to mean losing control.
Learn the Five Rules of Vested Outsourcing to move from transactional to transformational relationships.
Be inspired by real stories of companies achieving breakthrough results.
Be motivated to rethink and redesign how they work with outsourcing partners.
In this must-have guide for creating and implementing successful outsourcing processes and partnerships, Vitasek drives the principles of Vested Outsourcing beyond theory into practice. From shared vision, desired outcomes to win-win and long-term success the manual will help managers build an agreement vested in each other's success.
Drawing on best practices and real examples from companies who are achieving record results, Getting to We flips conventional negotiation on its head, shifting the perspective from a tug of war between parties to a collaborative partnership where both sides effectively pull against a business problem.
Today’s business environment is constantly evolving, filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity and driven by digital transformation, globalization, and the need to creating value through innovation. These shifts demand that organizations view contracting through a different lens. Since it is impossible to predict every what-if scenario in a transactional contract, organizations in strategic and complex partnerships must shift to a mindset of shared goals and objectives built upon a strong foundation of transparency and trust, working together to mitigate risk much better than merely shifting risk to the weaker party.
Contracting in the New Economy helps you to not only develop this mindset – but also offers the practical tools needed to embrace the social side of contracting, enabling your organization to harness the value creating potential of formal relational contracts. Briefly sharing the theoretical foundations that prove relationalcontracting works, it goes well beyond theory by providing powerful examples of relational contracting principles in practice.
In addition, the authors provide a practical and proven approach for helping you to put relational contracting theory into practice for your own relationships. First by providing a framework for approaching any contracting situation and helping organizations finding the best contract model for each situation. And then by sharing five proven steps you can take to create an effective relational contract for you own strategic and complex business relationships.
For anyone involved in developing contracts ―lawyers, in-house counsels, contract managers, C-level managers, procurement officers, and so on ― this book will empower you to create powerful cooperative alliances that will help you reach ―and surpass ― your business goals in today’s dynamic new environment.