Katherine Williams Phillips (March 4, 1972 – January 15, 2020)^[1] was an American business theorist and the Reuben Mark Professor of Organizational Character at Columbia University's Business School. She headed the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia, and was Senior Vice Dean.^[2][3][4]

Born Katherine Y. Williams to Adolph Williams and Amelia (Rogers), Phillips was the youngest of six siblings. She grew up in a black Chicago neighborhood, and in the third grade, was chosen to attend a nearly all-white magnet school where she was one of the few black students.^[5] She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned a PhD from Stanford. Phillips was known for her research into diversity in the workplace, demonstrating that diversity on teams leads to greater innovation and creativity.^[6] She was a Senior Vice dean at Columbia and had published collaborations with other faculty on Diversity and other topics. She was its Reuben Mark professor of organizational character.^[7] Her latest position was as the director of its Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics.^[8]

She married fellow Stanford graduate and Columbia Business School professor Damon Phillips, the Lambert Family Professor of Social Enterprise at Columbia.^[9][10][11] Phillips was a three-time All American in Track and Field at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign where she competed in the 400 m dash, long jump and relays.^[4]

Named one of the "Top 40 Business School Professors Under the Age of 40" by Poets and Quants in 2011, Phillips was also an Academy of Management Fellow.^[12][13][14]

• When surface and deep-level diversity collide: The effects on dissenting group members - Authors: Katherine W Phillips, Denise Lewin Loyd -Publication date:2006/3/1, Journal -Organizational behavior and human decision processes-Volume 99/Issue2
• Social category diversity promotes premeeting elaboration: The role of relationship focus - Authors:DL Loyd, CS Wang, KW Phillips, RB Lount Jr., Organization Science 24 (3), 757-772, 2013
• Expertise in your midst: How congruence between status and speech style affects reactions to unique knowledge - Authors:D Lewin Loyd, KW Phillips, J Whitson, MC Thomas-Hunt, Group processes & intergroup relations 13 (3), 379–395,2010
• Duo status: Disentangling the complex interactions within a minority of two - Authors: DL Loyd, J White, M Kern, KW Phillips, E Mannix, MA Neale, Research on Managing Groups and Teams, JAI Press, Amsterdam, 75–92,2008
• Managing perceptions of ethical behavior in evaluative groups: The implications for diversity in organizations - Authors: DL Loyd, KW Phillips, Research on Managing in Groups and Teams 8, 225–45,2006
• Social Similarity and Opinion Conflict: The Impact of Relationship Concerns - Authors: C Wang, K Williams Phillips, D Loyd, R Lount, IACM. 2006
• Reactions to Disagreement from an In-group Member: The Impact of Out-group Member Status - Authors: D Loyd, K Williams Phillips, SY Kim-Jun, SH Shim, MIT Sloan Research Paper, 2010
• Group Processes & Intergroup - Authors: DL Loyd, KW Phillips, J Whitson, MC Thomas-Hunt, Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 13 (3), 379–395, 2010.^[15]
• Negational categorization and intergroup behavior - Authors: CB Zhong, KW Phillips, GJ Leonardelli, AD Galinsky, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34 (6), 793–806, 56 2008

Phillips died of breast cancer on January 15, 2020, at age 47.^[16]

• Margaret Ann Neale
• Adam Galinsky^[17]
• Charles A. O'Reilly III^[18]