Meet Katie Kristofic

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katie Kristofic a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katie, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

Growing up, I wanted to be a doctor. In high school, it became clear my skillset wasn’t in math and science, but I still wanted to help people. I played to my strengths and received a degree in communications and journalism. The first five years of my career were spent in the bookstores and libraries of college campuses with medical and nursing programs throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the US. If I couldn’t be a student in that field, I could ensure the students had the text and reference books they needed to learn.

When I was tired of the travel, I settled into a marketing communications position with a pharmaceutical ingredients company. This was my first introduction to the patient-centric mindset. The company specializes in drug delivery systems. If you’ve ever taken an orally disintegrating tablet (ODT), the kind that disintegrates in your mouth, that was us. As it turns out, 60% of the population has dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing pills.

I loved that, not only were we helping people get better, we were making the process of taking medication easier for patients and for those who were responsible for ensuring the medication was taken properly. The central focus was always the positive experience of the patient. My career started there with managing a handful of tradeshows and updating literature but soon morphed into launching their social channels, managing PR, and eventually, crisis communications.

When the Covid-19 pandemic started, I was fully focused on a major product launch. We had to quickly pivot when everything shut down. As a global company, we needed to have plans and react quickly as covid spread. We had to ensure our operations kept running to provide people with the medicine they counted on, but we also had a responsibility to keep our employees and their families safe.

My role went from promotional marketing to crisis and internal communications in the blink of an eye. I created a virtual community to keep people informed and engaged. In addition to sharing the latest guidance from local governments where we had operations, I shared activities to keep things interesting for everyone at home. We were towns, states, oceans, and continents apart, and yet, we had a community together.

In 2022, I left that role to join a startup in the cutting-edge cell and gene therapy space. Precision medicine is the new frontier and I had a front-row seat in a marketing communications director role. Unfortunately, the startup didn’t survive and I found myself laid off for the first time ever in early 2023. I learned a ton in the year I spent there, though. I assembled my dream team, experienced what it’s like to try to get a company off the ground, and learned some important lessons through observation.

It’s important to note that my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2015 and had exhibited symptoms for several years prior. I was a long-distance caregiver while my dad and sister were her primaries. Over the years, I’d figured out how I could still support and participate in her care but it was difficult. The internet is a vast place with lots of information…if you can find what you need, when you need it.

At any rate, the idea I had rattling around in my brain for a few years settled on a nerve when I was laid off. Maybe this is the time to dip a toe in the water and see if it’s viable. I did some research and a lot of thinking while applying for other full-time positions. I landed one with an agency and began work. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to work on my idea while I had this job, so it took a backseat.

I call 2023 the year of two pushes and a shove. I already mentioned my startup layoff- that was push number one. Push number two came with my mom’s passing in early September of 2023. The shove happened three weeks later when I was laid off again, this time from the agency. That was a bad month. I wallowed for a while. I binge-watched a show. And then I came back to my idea.

It was clear that corporate America was done with me, at least for now. I really didn’t want to go through the whole job search process again where no one actually looks at your resume or bothers to follow up with you. Ok, so I have this idea. How do I get it out of my head and into action? I’ve managed many projects but that’s nothing like starting a business…or is it?

I called my childhood best friend, Janeen Ritson, who runs a program called Unstuck. She’s a creative director turned coach and is brilliant at helping people develop a plan and move forward. My cohorts in the incubator were constructive forces of nature in their own right and we had compelling conversations and assignments each week that helped me to unravel the knots that kept me from moving forward.

What is my life’s purpose? To make life a little easier for those who are providing care to others. Honestly, I think it’s just getting started. The seeds were planted a long time ago. They’ve been watered over time and have finally started to grow with the establishment of my company, The Carefullist. It is an online resource and community for caregivers.

The average caregiver spends at least 13 hours every month on research for their person. Time is the one thing all caregivers lack. I spent tons of time looking for products, resources, information, and general help, and I didn’t even have the day-to-day care of my mom. I took the research and networking piece on as something I could do from afar. If The Carefullist can give time back to caregivers to spend with their loved one or take better care of themselves, then I will call that a success.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I created The Carefullist after being a long-distance caregiver for my mom who had Alzheimer’s disease. One of the biggest challenges during my caregiving experience was finding good information and the time it took to get it, in addition to the loneliness and isolation of being a sandwich-generation caregiver.

Originally a support community on social media, The Carefullist now has a website with caregiving resources and a podcast with guests who have been or are currently caregivers.

Everyone who finds themselves in the role of caregiver, as someone else’s “person”, deserves to have somewhere to turn that makes the journey go just a little bit smoother, feel a little less daunting and, hopefully, a lot less lonely.

I imagine a time when the resources and support family caregivers need are not only at their fingertips but also found easily and come strongly recommended by trusted Carefullists who have walked this path before.

We are currently recording Season 2 of Carefullist, The Podcast. You can catch new episodes in February. We are constantly adding to our library of resources, so check our website often! There are a few other tricks up our sleeve for 2025- stay tuned.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1. Be Open to Change
Open to new ideas, new opportunities, new ways of doing things. We don’t move forward if everything stays the same. If you’re comfortable, you’re not growing.

2. You Can’t Know Everything
One of the biggest myths is that you have to do everything yourself. You have to know everything and be a hero. No, you don’t. The smartest people I know surround themselves with people who are smarter than they are. By nature, people like to help other people. You should let them. Winston Churchill filled his war cabinet with people he knew opposed and would challenge him. Consider oppositional voices. They see something you don’t and help you to clarify your own position and goals.

3. Laugh
You won’t get very far in this world without a sense of humor. Find someone you can laugh with- a sibling, friend, partner. Life can get rough. You have to be able to find the funny in order to keep going. Having someone to laugh with is the key because you can’t always find something funny on your own. Sometimes they need to point it out. Sometimes you need to show them. And in any case, laughing with someone else is always more fun.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

My biggest challenge is gaining visibility for my business and getting people to join the membership. The goal is to keep it affordable for all, so a lot of the information is free. The membership portion gives people access to The Carefullist Toolbox as a thank you for supporting our work. I do not currently have sponsors because the secondary goal is to keep the information objective rather than sponsored content.

I have been testing various tactics and channels to see what drives people to the site and where they go upon arrival. Originally, the plan was to apply for grants to fund the website but unfortunately, those did not come through. All of this is to say that 2024 was a big learning year and sometimes you just have to keep trying things to see what works. Here’s to continuous learning and refining in 2025!

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Katie Kristofic

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