This year’s YWCA Greater Cincinnati Career Women of Achievement honorees have been announced, including Executive Director of the Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission Catrena Bowman.
The Career Women of Achievement award honors role models for their leadership, vision and professional success.
Bowman has worked with Community Action Commission for 22 years. In her role, she develops strategic priorities for the agency’s 20 programs located in 25 counties covering Northern and Central Kentucky. A $26 million budget serves at least 30,000 families annually.
Bowman is committed to ending the cycle of poverty and injustice. In 2020 when a variety of national events erupted around the issues of racial injustice and equality, she facilitated numerous Northern Kentucky conversations about diversity and inclusion to promote sustainable change. She also held sessions to empower women at the agency’s Lincoln Grant Scholar House in Covington.
Along with her duties with Community Action Commission, she still found time to personally establish Inspired Fashion, a boutique committed to addressing the inner beauty of all women who walk through the doors. As the first downtown Covington boutique owned by a Black woman, Bowman wants all women to “feel beautiful and special.”
She is also the first Black woman to be appointed to the following achievements:
- Board President, Southeastern Association of Community Action Agencies, 2021-present
- Board Chair, Community Action Kentucky, 2021-present
- Chair, Diversity Equity Inclusion Committee, Workforce Investment Board of Northern Kentucky, 2021-present
- Chair, Northern Kentucky Chamber Women’s Initiative Annual Breakfast, 2021, to present
- Executive Committee member, Workforce Investment Board of Northern Kentucky, 2021-present