Cathy Harris is founder and President of C. Harris Companies, Inc., a management and staff development firm focused on the strategic planning and implementation of strategies in leadership development, diversity, generational differences, conflict resolution, cross-cultural communication, and team building.

 

She is a professional keynote speaker, skilled facilitator, trainer and consultant for businesses, corporations, universities and government organizations.  Cathy explores their challenges and assists in improving their corporate culture, morale, productivity, team and personal effectiveness. She’s known for her ability to move people beyond their personal biases and assumptions toward one another and engage in dialogues that build healthy, working relationships.  She specializes in fostering diversity, communication and dialogue skills, team building and conflict resolution.

Through experiential, highly interactive, engaging and humorous presentations, Cathy personally connects with her varied audience members and encourages unity, harmony and cohesiveness with a friendly, natural and fun style. Her impact is positive and long-lasting. Cathy deals easily with sensitive issues and encourages others to do the same.

Cathy has more than 24 years’ experience as a small business owner. As such, she led major change initiatives for Chevron Chemical Company and the USDA’s National Finance Center. John Ortego, the center’s Director, said Cathy’s work "… has been a factor in creating a unified, productive, and positive workforce and atmosphere." He also said that it was the "best diversity training he ever attended." After major improvements in equity, performance and morale at the National Finance Center, officials in Washington, DC took notice and commissioned Cathy to train USDA managers and supervisors in the DC area. Cathy is also a volunteer with the Global Facilitators Service Corps, www.globalfacilitators.org, which sponsors workshops in disaster and crisis intervention, resiliency and trauma debriefing.

Cathy has received the New Orleans Peace Foundation’s 1996 Peacemaker Award. She also was given the George Washington Medal of Honor from the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge along with Dr. Stephen Ambrose, creator of Saving Private Ryan and the hit HBO mini-series Band of Brothers. Cathy is featured as one of 10 Top Female Achievers in the July 2008 issue of New Orleans Magazine and was recognized in Ebony Magazine in the October 2008 for outstanding community service.

Cathy is co-founder (along with local news anchor, Sally-Ann Roberts) past president and current board member of Each One Save One, a mentoring organization for New Orleans’ schools. She serves on the Boards of Directors for the Advocates for Science and Math, Knowledgeworks, a resource organization for non-profits and the executive committee of the Horizon Initiative, an organization committed to bring new business to New Orleans and retain and grow existing businesses. She further authored a column for El Vocero, a bi-monthly Latino newspaper in New Orleans. Cathy is past president of the National Speakers Association/New Orleans Chapter and an active member of the American Society for Training and Development and the Society for Human Resource Management. She is a six-year member of the Diversity Professional Experts Group of the National Speakers Association.

Chevron, ConEdison, Shell, Crescent Bank & Trust, Omni Bank, Regional Transit Authority, Monsanto, nine agencies in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, The Department of the Interior, The Environmental Protection Agency, The U.S. Small Business Administration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Postal Service, LSU, Tulane, Loyola and Xavier Universities, among others.