Our Chair

Katie Pat­ter­son found­ed Hap­py Medi­um with two guid­ing prin­ci­ples: hon­esty and trans­paren­cy. With a strong back­ground in media buy­ing and account man­age­ment, Katie launched and boot­strapped Hap­py Medi­um after see­ing a need for an authen­tic approach in the mar­ket. Since Hap­py Medium’s incep­tion in 2011, the com­pa­ny has expand­ed to accom­mo­date an ever-grow­ing list of clients, ser­vices and employ­ees, but the guid­ing prin­ci­ples have stayed at the cen­ter of all that Katie and Hap­py Medi­um do, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly achiev­ing more than 1,000 per­cent rev­enue growth in just four years. Katie also found­ed The Maia Group in 2021 to cre­ate a sup­port sys­tem for fel­low entre­pre­neurs and lead­ers on their jour­neys as well as to sup­port her many oth­er busi­ness ventures.

Katie has been award­ed the Iowa Women of Innovation’s Ris­ing Star, Busi­ness Record’s Best Up & Com­ing Busi­ness Leader, and includ­ed in the annu­al Forty Under 40 class. Under her lead­er­ship, Hap­py Medi­um has been named Best Work­place for Young Pro­fes­sion­als, Best Social Media Com­pa­ny mul­ti­ple years run­ning, and made back-to-back appear­ances on the Inc. 5000 list. Katie has also been fea­tured in Adweek, Inc., The Huff­in­g­ton Post, Des Moines Reg­is­ter, Busi­ness Record and more.