Catherine Cuellar

Catherine Cuellar has two decades of communications, advocacy and advancement experience — leveraging global public, private and non-profit relationships to strategically develop leaders, strengthen communities and grow businesses. She has expertise in resilience, public transit, social entrepreneurship, crisis communications, media relations, public health, arts, urbanism, sustainability, and creative writing.

As a partner in CRM & Associates, Cuellar consults global clients including Grant Thornton, LLP on strategic initiatives. Cuellar also serves on the Dallas Mavericks Advisory Council, the executive board of Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University, the Carter Albrecht Music Foundation board of directors, and the Austin College Global Outreach Forum advisory board. Cuellar was a 2014 Next Generation Project Texas Fellow at The Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin. She has been recognized among the Dallas Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” and was a White House Fellows regional finalist, a Leadership Women graduate, and was one of the Dallas Junior Chamber of Commerce's Five Outstanding Young Dallasites.

Previously, Cuellar served on the board of Dallas Area Rapid Transit, and worked as director of partnerships for health social enterprise RefillWise and as a director on Communities Foundation of Texas’ relationships leadership team. From 2013 to 2015, she was CEO of the Dallas Arts District, balancing their budget; doubling annual revenues; securing new municipal, private, foundation and state funding; co-founding the Global Cultural Districts Network headquartered in Dallas; and hosting the 82nd U.S. Conference of Mayors and North American debut of the international New Cities Summit. For five years prior to that, Cuellar managed communications for the sixth largest electric power grid in the U.S., Oncor, supporting advocacy during three state legislative sessions and in hundreds of cities during the construction of 1,000 miles of new transmission lines and the installation of millions of advanced digital “smart” meters.

Cuellar is an award-winning multimedia journalist who co-founded GuideLive.com and contributes to National Public Radio stations KERA & KCRW, Sojourners magazine, and The Dallas Morning News — among others. She is a two-time TEDxWomen speaker. In 2013 Cuellar made her fiction debut in the anthology Dallas Noir from Akashic Books.