Turn technical talent into enterprise momentum
Built by MKE Tech Hub with Milwaukee employers, Catalyze strengthens the region’s mid-career technologists so critical initiatives can be led and delivered from here.
How Catalyze Works
Catalyze offers the best way to develop an enterprise leader: let them lead something real. Every element of the program reinforces that.
8-Week Cohort Journey
A focused, time-bounded commitment to move a real project from ambiguity to a clear recommendation.
Weekly Executive Guest Speakers
Each session features an executive leader from Milwaukee’s tech community to lead working conversations anchored to what participants are navigating in their own projects.
Small, Intentional Cohort
15 to 20 participants per cohort. That’s a deliberate choice. Small groups build the kind of trust that makes people share what’s actually hard.
Project-Based Learning
Each participant brings a live project from their organization’s technical roadmap. The work they do during the program produces a deliverable their leadership can actually use.
Hybrid Format
Sessions combine live, in-person cohort time with asynchronous project work, roughly four hours per week and flexible enough to fit a mid-career technologist’s schedule.
Cross-Organization Peer Learning
Participants come from different regional companies, which means they hear how peers at other organizations are tackling similar problems.
What Your Organization Gains
Catalyze is built around real work, shaped with input from employers like Rockwell Automation, Advocate Aurora Health, WEC Energy Group, and ManpowerGroup.
Participants develop into enterprise leaders by advancing a live project from their technical roadmap, so the learning translates directly into business results.
Retain high-value talent
🔒
Give ambitious technologists a clear path to enterprise leadership — inside your organization, not elsewhere.
Sharper decisions, faster
📊
Leaders receive structured recommendations — clear options, tradeoffs, and next steps they can act on immediately.
Accelerate stalled initiatives
⚡
Participants advance a real project from their technical roadmap and deliver a decision-ready briefing to leadership in 8 weeks.
Build internal bench strength
🏗️
Develop technologists who can think and communicate at the enterprise level, reducing dependency on outside consultants.
Regional Impact
Keep your best people here.
Milwaukee loses enterprise-ready technologists to larger markets. Catalyze gives them a reason to stay and grow.
Move critical work forward.
Technologists across Milwaukee’s top employers will advance real initiatives simultaneously, compounding the region’s capacity to execute on complex, high-stakes work.
Build a network that lasts
Cohort members forge cross-company relationships that grow into a thriving, MKE Tech-supported Catalyze alumni network.
Select the Right Participant for Catalyze
Ideal nominees are mid-career technologists with 10-15 years of experience, strong technical skills, readiness to take on greater responsibility, and desire to be more connected in the larger tech ecosystem.
Discounted Rates for Pilot Cohort
Pricing reflects MKE Tech Hub membership level and discounted rate for pilot cohort.
$2,000
SILVER+ MEMBER
per seat
$3,500
BRONZE MEMBER
per seat
$5,000
COMMUNITY MEMBER
per seat
Interested in MKE Tech Hub membership? Learn more →
Common Questions
What is Catalyze, in a sentence?
Catalyze is an 8-week, cohort-based program that builds enterprise leadership capacity among mid-career technologists while they advance a real project from their organization’s roadmap. Sponsoring organizations develop future leaders and move live initiatives forward at the same time.
Who is the ideal participant?
Mid-career technologists with roughly 10 to 15 years of experience who have strong technical skills, are ready for greater responsibility and want to be more connected across the regional tech ecosystem. The best candidates are people you already see as future leaders and want to retain.
What makes a good project?
The best projects share three traits: they inform a real decision leadership cares about; they are scoped to reach a clear recommendation within eight weeks (analysis and decision-framing, not a full build); and they carry genuine ambiguity with real stakeholders and tradeoffs.
Examples that work well include an AI use-case evaluation (build versus buy versus hybrid), a cybersecurity risk-reduction roadmap, a cloud cost optimization review, a legacy modernization decision (modernize, replace, or retire), tool or vendor consolidation, and an automation opportunity assessment.
What does not fit: a full implementation that cannot land in eight weeks, pure execution work with no real decision, or a project that needs data and stakeholders the participant cannot access. When in doubt, we help you right-size the scope during the fit conversation.
What is the time commitment?
Participants should commit about four hours per week for eight weeks in a hybrid format. Because the participant works on a project already on their organization’s roadmap, most of that time advances work the company would be resourcing anyway.
How is confidentiality handled?
Participants keep the specifics of their projects to themselves. Within their cohort groups, the conversation centers on process and experience, what they are learning and how they are approaching the work, not the substance of their assignments. Participants do not present their assignments or final projects to the MKE Tech Hub team or to other participants. All deliverables and presentations are for your organization’s internal use only. Your proprietary information stays inside your walls.
How do we get started, and what happens after we nominate someone?
Submit a nomination and we will schedule a short fit conversation to confirm the participant and the project are a strong match for the pilot cohort. From there, we help you scope the project so it is set up to produce a clear result within eight weeks.
Still have Questions?
Book a quick call with Casey O’Brien, Director of Workforce.
Ready to Nominate?
Seats for the pilot cohort are limited. Submit your nomination to reserve your spot and schedule a short fit conversation with MKE Tech Hub.
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