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Catherine Day FAIM

Professional experience

With over 30 years' experience in strategic roles, Catherine Day has successfully led teams through significant organisational change to achieve exceptional business outcomes.

Catherine had a long career at one of Australia's premier retailers, Myer Grace Bros. Her appointments included being General Manager Head Office Services with a budget of over $400 million to manage in the areas of fleet, printing, supplies and external contract management. While at the department store group she became one of Australia's first women to manage a complex state distribution hub ($300 million), and was also chosen as manager for Australia's biggest department store, Myer Melbourne. There were more than 3000 staff turning over $400 million in this operation.


Her career also took her to remote Arnhem Land as GM Strategy Implementation and GM Strategic HR for Nabalco, a Swiss-Australian bauxite and alumina company. Her major focus was getting buy-in from the executive management team to implement the strategic plans of the company, as well as successfully managing complex and sensitive industrial issues at a time when the company was being courted for sale by outside interests.

More recently she was GM Strategic Corporate Development for the Colorado Group, a specialty store retailer with over 150 outlets, selling clothing, footwear and accessories. This was also a sensitive time as the company was transforming from a public entity to a privately owned one. Again she handled many potentially damaging issues effectively so that the sale price was not affected.


Catherine has always had a strong sense of her own personal social responsibility. During her five years in the Northern Territory she was a non-executive director at the Gove Hospital and was an advisor to Indigenous businesses in Arnhem Land. More recently, she chaired the Board of the Red Cross and been a member of the board of Karuna Hospice.

Today Catherine heads up CDA. CDA is a company committed to inspired executive development though training, mentoring and coaching.

Recent relevant assignments

  • Mentoring and coaching members of the executive management team of one of Australia's largest hospitality and gaming organizations. This involved improving interpersonal communication, developing relationships and preparing for promotion. Results included expanding the portfolio of one GM, preparing another for successful promotion and ensuring ongoing employment of another.
  • Successfully preparing a senior divisional manager in a federal government department to transition to an expanded role through improved communication strategies and leadership development.
  • Mentoring a lecturer (PhD) at a regional university to apply for a business rather than academic role in the organisation, through analysing the skills required for a leadership role, developing strategic relationships and improving communication skills. The candidate is now head of the business school.Leading a strategic planning process with the CEO of a construction company to enable the expansion of an existing business into a new regional centre. The business is running successfully after implementation of the strategic plan.
  • Preparing a regional marketing manager for promotion to the executive team in another country through coaching in planning processes, team leadership and developing a strong relationship with the CEO. She is now the Vice President Marketing for this international company.
  • Mentoring a newly appointed adviser to the Commonwealth Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research in communication skills, developing strategic relationships and act as the public representative of her department. She has raised the profile of the department, being able to assemble over 100 small business representatives regularly to explore mutual opportunities.

Professional capabilities

Catherine is an experienced project and change manager having successfully completed complex assignments. Two notable projects at Myer Grace Bros included:

  • Installation of one of the world's largest scale point-of-sale systems in a single store. This involved over 360 terminals, two control rooms and training over 3000 store staff. The project was brought in on time, on budget with a successful go-live.
  • Merging the head office staff and systems of Myer and Grace Bros, including organisation structure, building fit out, rationalising inventory reporting, and advising and briefing senior executives during the transition.

Recently Catherine's first book, Find the Magic in Mentoring, the Get Naked Approach, was published by Management Press and she is in great demand as a public speaker. Topics she has spoken on include: business development for professional service providers, strategy development for small to medium sized businesses, and HR and succession planning.

Qualifications, accreditations and professional affiliations

Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management
Accredited practitioner for Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Testing (MSCEIT) through Evidence Based Psychology, 2005