Catherine McCarthy, Ph.D.

Catherine McCarthy's Key Accomplishments Include . . .
Catherine McCarthy is the COO of a company that helps individuals and organizations fuel energy, engagement, focus and productivity by harnessing the science of high performance.

Catherine McCarthy is also the co-author of Leading at the Edge, a book based on Ernest Shackleton's Antarctica expedition which outlines 10 key strategies for helping leaders and teams optimize performance in the face of adversity. In 2007, Catherine's article Manage Energy Not Time: The Science of Stamina, co-authored with Tony Schwartz, was published in the Harvard Business Review. The article describes the impact of her Energy Project curriculum on engagement and performance at three Fortune 100 companies. Catherine McCarthy also co-authored The Way We're Working Isn't Working:The Four Forgotten Needs that Energize Great Performance with Tony Schwartz and Jean Gomes.

Catherine McCarthy has delivered keynotes, facilitated training, coached executives and helped to develop core curriculum. She has worked with senior leaders and teams at companies including: Chubb Insurance, Credit Suisse, Johnson & Johnson, Google, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Kaiser Permanente, Kraft Foods, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Price Waterhouse Coopers, Starbucks, UBS and Wachovia as well as organizations ranging from the FBI to the Boys & Girls Club of America.

Catherine McCarthy received her BA in 1990 from Princeton University. She earned her PhD. in clinical psychology from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and went on to do a fellowship at Yale University's Consultation Center.

More About Catherine McCarthy…
Catherine McCarthy began her career as a leadership consultant to large family-owned businesses. She was a Senior Consultant at the Syncretics group, an organization devoted to helping leaders perform at their best in the face of difficult challenges. Before that, Catherine spent five years as a Consulting Psychologist for MICA Management Resources, a consulting firm based in Chicago.

As a competitive athlete, Catherine McCarthy was an All-American lacrosse player at Princeton University. She has completed eleven marathons and eight 141 mile long Ironman races.

• Women, Risk, and Leadership: Lessons from Great Women of the Past and Present
  

  Looking to extraordinary women such as May French Sheldon, a woman who led an expedition into African in 1891, Eleanor Roosevelt, Florence Nightengale, as well as more contemporary women such as Margaret Thatcher, Carly Fiorina, Hillary Clinton and Meg Whitman, this program uncovers the key behaviors and approaches to successful leadership and risk taking.

• Managing Energy to Maximize Performance
  

  Great performers and great leaders fire on all cylinders. They are energized, optimistic, focused and passionately committed to a mission beyond their immediate self-interest. Learn how to address your energy capacity, the fundamental ingredient that is critical to bringing any skill, talent or strategy fully to life. Because managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance.

• Cultivating Sustained Performance: Thriving in a World of Challenge and Change
  

  This program examines why some individuals thrive under difficult conditions and others become less effective. We take seven key behaviors demonstrated by high performers and adapt them to increase your team and individual productivity, collaboration, decision-making and leadership.

• Transforming the Way We Work: The New Rules of Engagement
  

  Demand in our lives is increasing relentlessly. Our capacity isn’t keeping pace. The way we’re working isn’t working. Far too many organizations expect their employees to operate in the same way that computers do: continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time, running multiple programs at the same time. It’s a prescription for failure. Human beings are designed to pulse. We’re at our best when we move between periods of expending energy and intermittently renewing our four energy needs: sustainability (physical); security (emotional); self-expression (mental); and significance (spiritual). The better those needs are met, the more value we’re capable of creating. Time is finite, but we can expand and renew our energy across all four dimensions of our lives. The primary value exchange between employees and employers today is time for money. Each seeks to get as much of the other’s resource as possible. It’s a thin, one-dimensional transaction that serves neither side well. Rather than trying to get more out of their employees, employers are better served by meeting people’s multi-dimensional needs, so they’re freed, fueled and motivated to bring the best of themselves to work every day.

"Many thanks for sharing your expertise at the 2005 Marriott International Golf Annual Meeting. Your presentation greatly contributed to this year's meeting success as the feedback from the attendees has been outstanding!"

---Marriott International

"Please accept my sincere praise for Catherine. She did an outstanding job of presenting. I was amazed that Catherine held the attention of 66 managers for four hours and I believe many wished like me that we had more time with her. Catherine led several dynamic discussions and provided us with much food for thought. In short, she exceeded my expectations and added great value to our Symposium."

--–Karen M. Wall,
Sr. VP of Corporate Infrastructure, Akibia, Inc.

"Superb! Left me hungry for more, but gave me a number of immediately applicable ideas for improving my leadership skills. Catherine is a great presenter!"

--–Chris Swanson, President, Flex Execs

"I thought Catherine McCarthy's presentation was very effective-her delivery was masterful and her story line and visual aids made her engaging and non-threatening. She could present her ideas to any composition of audience and not come across as preaching. She put her authority into her stories and pictures. Certainly impressive."

--- Mary V. Whaley, President, MVW Enterprises, Ltd