Cathy Bennett
ICD.D
A former CEO, seasoned entrepreneur, current board director and consultant Cathy's focus is growth. With over 30 years of business leadership, her own company Bennett Group of Companies grew from a small group of service businesses to operations in commercial and industrial construction, industrial manufacturing, human resource support, service, retail, industrial supply, and real estate investments and operations.
She serves/ has served on dozens of privately, publicly held, crown & not for profit corporate boards over the last 3 decades including Bell Aliant and Tata Canada, and other companies with interests in real estate, natural resources, manufacturing, industrial construction, technology, and business services. She is currently an Independent Board Director with Vigilant Management, Kraken Robotics (PNG), Marathon Gold (MOZ.TO) and Business Development Bank of Canada.
Focused on supporting female founded start-ups Cathy is an awarding winning associate fellow with the Creative Destruction Lab, a director with PropelICT, Atlantic Canada’s Virtual Accelerator, and Board Director with SHEEO.
Cathy is one of the founders of Atlantic Women’s Venture Fund, and is General Partner with Sandpiper Ventures.
She has served as a Member of the Newfoundland & Labrador House of Assembly serving in Cabinet as Minister of Finance, President of Treasury Board, Minister Responsible for the Status of Women, and the Office of the Chief Information Officer, the first woman in Canada to hold both Finance and Status of Women portfolios simultaneously.
She is also the volunteer Board Chair of TaskForceNL, a group of senior volunteer business leaders whose goal was to offer parallel teams who can help protect front line workers during the COVID 19 pandemic, and now focused on supporting underrepresented entrepreneurs in Newfoundland & Labrador.
