Katherine McGuire, M.A.
Chief Advocacy Officer
APA
Katherine B. McGuire is APA’s first Chief Advocacy Officer, responsible for leading a seasoned team of policy and government relations experts with responsibility for the association’s public policy agenda and regulatory engagement on a range of priorities. With a sophisticated integrated advocacy approach that is multipronged and includes local, federal and state strategies, she directs cross-functional teams driving evidence-based solutions addressing health equity, increasing access to mental and behavioral health services, strengthening the psychology workforce, and building federal investments in behavioral research. McGuire is a dynamic strategist with 30+ years’ experience in advocacy, lobbying, policy development and strategic communications leading to high impact results.
She received the 2021 Top 100 Lobbyists distinction from the National Institute for Lobbying and Ethics, and was named to the The Hill’s 2021 annual list of top lobbyists. She previously served as assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental affairs at the U.S. Department of Labor – a Senate confirmed position. She was responsible for all external communications to Congress, governors, and interdepartmental stakeholders on regulatory matters, and actively engaged in federal policy solutions for workforce development and the opioid epidemic. Before joining the Department of Labor, McGuire served as a Chief of Staff in the House of Representatives advising on health policy, and promoting broad-based congressional support for federal funding science funding. Prior to that, she spent five years as global vice president for government affairs at the Business Software Alliance, a technology trade group representing the interests of the world’s leading software companies, including Apple and Microsoft. She served almost 18 years in the U.S. Senate where she held numerous senior leadership roles, including staff director of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions where she spearheaded strategy and tactics for driving the overall legislative agenda. She contributed to landmark legislative wins, including the Mental Health Parity Act and Addiction Equity Act of 1996 and the Global HIV-AIDS and Tuberculosis Relief Act of 2000.
McGuire holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in economics from the University of Wyoming. She also received a certificate in executive leadership from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. During Covid-19 quarantine, she earned her Master Gardener certification from Cornell University’s Cooperative Extension
