Kathrine Gilmer

Kathrine Gilmer is a creative director, brand strategist, founder, and READY Framework–certified coach focused on helping founders build brands that are clear, compelling, and ready to scale.

Kathrine’s career has spanned nearly every side of brand-building. She began as an apparel designer at Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister, where she was promoted twice in four years, and later founded her own consumer product line, Kathrine Zeren, through a successful Kickstarter campaign.

In 2017, Kathrine co-founded pretti.cool, a small-batch homegoods brand where she has served as creative director, managing partner, and operator for nearly a decade. Under her leadership, pretti.cool has been featured in more than 100 outlets, including Architectural Digest, Forbes, NYT Wirecutter, Oprah Daily, The Strategist, Domino, HGTV, and Elle Decor. In 2024, Kathrine was personally interviewed by Forbes as a design expert.

Today, Kathrine also serves as a fractional creative director for ecommerce brands, helping founders clarify their identity, elevate their visual presence, improve their Shopify experience, and turn scattered creative assets into a cohesive brand system. In one recent engagement, her work on a brand refresh and channel pivot helped drive 3.6x revenue growth and a 2.5x lift in conversion over eight months.

As a READY Certified Coach, Kathrine brings a rare combination of design expertise, entrepreneurial experience, and strategic brand thinking to founders navigating growth, transition, and the messy middle of building a real brand.

Kathrine is based in Houston and works with brands across categories. She holds a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, a Master’s in Arts Leadership from the University of Houston, and additional training in identity design, branding, and graphic design.