Kate Shaw is helping women claim their seat at the tech table—while raising three boys and uplifting her hometown
KookkaiFoto / Twenty20
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There’s a version of the “working mom” story that gets told a lot—the one where a woman has to choose. Career or family. Big-city ambition or small-town roots. Climbing the corporate ladder or investing in her community. Kate Shaw has never been interested in choosing.
As VP of Media & Technology at Relevance, an award-winning agency specializing in PR, SEO, and AI visibility, Shaw spends her days helping companies navigate one of the most dramatic shifts in modern marketing: how search is being reshaped by artificial intelligence. As a wife and mom of three boys, she spends her evenings in the beautiful chaos of homework, PTO meetings, sports, and bedtime negotiations. And as the Founder and Board President of Uplift Mid-MO, a Christian non-profit based in Mexico, Missouri, she’s building something that matters far beyond any quarterly report.
She’s doing all of it. And she wants other women to know they can, too.
The numbers tell a story—and it’s not a good one
If you’re a woman working in technology, you’ve probably felt it: the sense that you’re operating in a space that wasn’t designed with you in mind. The data confirms what so many women experience daily. According to WomenTech Network, women hold only about 28% of tech leadership roles globally, and just 16% of CTO positions. For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 87 women make that same leap—a gap researchers call the “broken rung.”
Perhaps most striking: more than half of all women who enter the tech industry leave before age 35. Not because they can’t do the work. Because the environment makes staying feel impossible.
Shaw knows these statistics aren’t abstract. They represent real women—women with talent, ideas, and drive—who were pushed out or never let in. And she’s made it her mission to change the trajectory, one company and one woman at a time.
Kate talking to account team at Relevance:
Leading through the AI revolution in search
At Relevance, Shaw works at the intersection of technology, media strategy, and business growth—helping companies not just keep up with the rapid evolution of search, but get ahead of it. If you’ve ever Googled something and noticed the results look different than they did a year ago—AI-generated answers, shifting algorithms, entirely new ways of surfacing information—that’s the landscape she’s navigating for her clients every single day.
Relevance’s approach combines search intelligence with strategic PR and media to help brands become recognized industry leaders. As AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews continue reshaping how people find and trust information online, Shaw’s work is about ensuring businesses don’t just survive the shift—they thrive in it. It’s technical, high-stakes work. And she brings something to it that matters: the perspective of a woman who has built her career in a field where women are dramatically underrepresented in leadership.
As Motherly has explored in our feature on why moms make exceptional leaders, the skills that come with motherhood—adaptability, empathy, relentless prioritization—translate directly into the kind of leadership that teams and clients respond to. Shaw’s career is a case study in that truth.
Pulling up a chair for the women behind her
For Shaw, holding a leadership position in tech isn’t just about what she can accomplish from that seat—it’s about who she can bring with her. She’s passionate about elevating women in technology, whether that means mentoring younger professionals, advocating for how to live out faith in the workplace, or simply being visible as a woman leading strategy for an award-winning agency in a male-dominated space.
The impact of that visibility can’t be overstated. Research from the WomenTech Barriers to Leadership Report found that 86% of women say they’re more likely to pursue leadership roles when they see other women in those positions. Representation isn’t symbolic—it’s a catalyst.
As we’ve written about before at Motherly, working moms have to look out for one another—because the systems in place often aren’t doing it for us. Shaw embodies that ethos. She leads with the belief that helping the women around her rise doesn’t diminish her own success; it amplifies it.
Closer to home: uplifting a community
Then there’s the work that doesn’t show up on a LinkedIn profile headline—but might be the thing Shaw is most proud of (other than her three boys).
Uplift Mid-MO is a non-profit rooted in Audrain County, Missouri—the kind of place where neighbors still know each other’s names and community means something tangible. Founded in 2019, just before the pandemic turned everything upside down, Uplift serves as what the organization calls a “gap ministry,” stepping in to cover needs that other local organizations can’t—whether due to funding limitations, income restrictions, or gaps in available services.
Since its founding, Uplift Mid-MO has distributed thousands of dollars in direct assistance to residents of Audrain County, backed by a coalition of local churches, businesses, and individuals committed to caring for their neighbors. Shaw has built a dedicated team of women — from the Uplift board to its staff — each playing an influential role within the community. It’s true grassroots work: hands-on, deeply rooted, and quietly transformative, strengthening not only the lives it touches but also the women leading the charge.
For a mom balancing a demanding career in tech, raising three boys, and running a non-profit, the question isn’t really “how does she do it all?” It’s that she doesn’t see these things as separate. The same heart that drives her to uplift women in the workplace drives her to uplift anyone that she comes into contact with. The same strategic mind that helps companies grow their visibility helps her stretch a non-profit’s resources further. It’s all connected.
What her boys are watching
There’s something worth saying about the fact that Kate Shaw is raising three boys while doing this work. Every day, her sons see a woman who leads in a male-dominated industry, who serves her community, and who doesn’t shrink herself to fit someone else’s idea of what a mom’s life should look like. They’re growing up with a front-row seat to what female leadership actually looks like—not in a textbook, but at the dinner table.
Kate, twins, and husband John:
Involving her children in serving others and encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit has become commonplace in the Shaw household. Whether it’s taking her youngest along to deliver space heaters in bitter cold weather, remodeling flip houses, or giving business advice to her teenage twins as they build their online trading card business, she’s giving her boys a front row seat to real life.
That matters. As Motherly has shared, being an ambitious career woman and a devoted mama aren’t competing identities—they’re complementary ones. And when our children see us living that truth, we’re shaping more than our own careers. We’re shaping how the next generation thinks about what women can do.
Kate’s youngest son helping deliver space heaters:
Staying ahead of what’s next
Search is changing faster than most people realize. The way consumers find businesses, the way brands build trust, the way information itself is organized and delivered—all of it is being reshaped by artificial intelligence. For the companies Shaw works with at Relevance, she isn’t just helping them react to these changes. She’s helping them anticipate what’s coming and position themselves as leaders before the rest of their industry catches up.
It’s the kind of forward-thinking work that benefits from diverse perspectives—from voices that challenge assumptions and see opportunities others miss. Which is exactly why Shaw’s commitment to elevating women in the field isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s a competitive advantage for every organization that listens.
The throughline
What makes Kate Shaw’s story worth telling isn’t that she’s doing extraordinary things—though she is. It’s that she refuses to accept the premise that any one of those things should come at the expense of the others. She leads in tech. She raises her boys with intention and rooted in faith. She serves her community. She advocates for other women. And she does it from Mexico, Missouri—proving that you don’t need a Silicon Valley zip code to make an impact in technology.
For the moms out there who are navigating their own version of this—juggling ambition and bedtime stories, boardrooms and school pickup lines—Shaw’s path is a reminder: you don’t have to choose. The world needs what you bring to every single one of those spaces.
And sometimes, the most powerful thing a woman in leadership can do is simply stay visible—so the women and the boys watching know exactly what’s possible.
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