Katie Walthall Mehnert is the Founder and CEO of Pink Petro, the first and only global social community for women in energy and their diversity advocates. Pink Petro is aimed specifically at closing the gender gap. A daughter to an engineer in the 1980s, Mehnert was acutely aware of the impact the bust in the energy industry had on her family and community. Years later, after struggling in math and science, Mehnert took a non-technical route and graduated from Louisiana State University with a degree in communications. This degree enabled her to later become a ‘People Engineer’ in health and safety.
Determined to cut into an industry in which she could be a force for good, her desire to learn the business and to connect with experts helped her navigate the leadership lattices at Enron, Duke Energy, Waste Management, Shell and BP. With every new organization, she noticed a recurring theme: a major contributor to her success was being in the right room at the right time and having the right people at her side. Mehnert had advocates, male and female, who taught her, pushed her and positioned her for success.
Pink Petro was birthed on three cocktail napkins aboard a 777 from London to Houston. Pink Petro is today’s solution to bringing that “right room” globally, locally and 24/7. Pink Petro brings together the right people and the right resources at the right time, to help women in energy succeed. Recently featured by Fortune magazine, the company is supported by Halliburton, Shell and Jive Software. After 6 months, members of the Pink Petro platform now span 20 countries and 175 unique companies.
Mehnert believes women bring a unique perspective to the world, and she wants to harness their voices to pursue gender parity and help the industry tell its story.
She believes in diversity not just in gender, but in generations, ethnicities and cultures. She believes by connecting females to high quality resources and learning, she can create an energy workforce that is engaged, empowered and inspired for this generation and beyond. She aspires to put a human face on an industry that has quietly powered some of the most amazing technologies and innovations of our time.
Mehnert has 18 years of delivering change, learning and culture transformations. Mehnert is also the President of Cognovi Communications, which provides strategic change management solutions to the energy and utilities industry. Through Cognovi Communications, Mehnert enables energy companies to cut through waste, deliver value and produce focused solutions to operational and talent challenges.
Prior to founding Pink Petro and owning her own consulting business, Mehnert served in significant safety leadership roles at British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell worldwide. Mehnert serves on the Offshore Energy Center Board and the Executive Council of Ellevate, a global professional women’s network. She was selected as a Who’s Who in Energy leader by the Houston Business Journal in 2014, named one of the 5 Houstonians to Know in 2015 and awarded the Vanguard Award in STEM by Girls Inc.
Mehnert is also a graduate of the Center for Houston’s Future and Rice University’s Executive Energy Program. Mehnert is a contributing writer for The Singapore Times, and she has completed four World Marathon Majors in London, Chicago, New York and Berlin. She and her husband, Mark have a 4-year old daughter, Ally.
Katie Mehnert
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Pink Petro
P.O. Box 19913, Houston, Texas 77024
281-741-5482
