Catherine (Cate) Creede, PhD, CPCC, ACC

Partner

Cate is an experienced change and strategy consultant, a certified professional coactive coach, an educator and innovator in the sphere of generative leadership, and a hands-on not-for-profit leader. Cate identifies as a White queer cis female settler who uses the pronouns she/they, and has been involved in intersectional feminist, gender and queer advocacy since the 1980s.  She brings her constantly evolving learning to all of her work.  Cate views her mission as designing and leading conversations that mobilize groups toward socially accountable change.  She is deeply experienced at design, facilitation, capacity building, coaching and constructing effective conversations and processes that support systemic change and social innovation, primarily in healthcare, education and community agencies. As a partner in the consulting firm The Potential Group, Cate has designed, facilitated and supported more than 275 strategic planning and change initiatives in healthcare over the past 18 years.

Cate supports leadership and personal development through her coaching practice and as an educator. She is the Program Lead for the New and Evolving Academic Leaders program at the Centre for Faculty Development (Temerty Medicine at Unity Health) and is co-lead of the Leading Strategic Change and Innovation program run by The Potential Group. Cate’s PhD is in Human and Organizational Systems, and she holds an adjunct lecturer position in the Division of Psychotherapy, Humanities, and Psychosocial Interventions in the Department of Psychiatry at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto.  She holds a graduate certificate in Dialogue, Deliberation and Public Engagement, and has completed the San’yas Indigenous Cultural Safety training, and Diversity Coaching training. She is currently engaged in additional training for Trauma-informed coaching.  She writes for a popular feminist fitness blog that challenges dominant perspectives on body size, ability and gender in health, and for the past two years, has been actively engaged in creating inclusive, “brave” spaces for transforming existing power structures in the curriculum in the two leadership programs she teaches in as well as with all of our clients.

For the past twelve years, Cate has also been the volunteer Director of a children’s development project in Uganda called Nikibasika Learning and Development Program, which supports a group of 52 orphaned and vulnerable children and youth to become community oriented, globally aware, self-sustaining citizens. She co-leads all fundraising, strategic direction and hands-on management of the program. Through this project and time spent in Uganda, Cate has gained a deep understanding of global inequities and continually reflected on what it means to try to do this work as White Canadians without repeating post-colonial power dynamics.  Cate is currently writing a book about this work.