Kathy Martinez

Kathy Martinezis senior vice president of Disability Market Segment & Strategy for Wells Fargo where she works to expand the company’s capabilities and programs dedicated to serving customers with disabilities and their families.

Martinez is the former assistant secretary of the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) for the U.S. Department of Labor. She led ODEP in putting policy priorities into practice through several innovative grant programs. These include Add Us In, through which a nationwide consortia worked to increase the capacity of small businesses to employ people with disabilities. The grant program also included the Employment First State Leadership Mentor Program, through which several states received support to promote community-based, integrated employment as the primary outcome for people with significant disabilities.

A graduate of San Francisco State University, Martinez speaks and publishes on a wide array of topics related to disability employment, including the emergence of disability as an essential component of workplace diversity and inclusion and the importance of expectation in ensuring youth with disabilities grow up with an assumption of worka topic on which Martinez, who herself was born blind, offers compelling and personal perspective.