Cathy Loblaw
President and CEO, Ronald McDonald House Charities Canada
Cathy is a passionate champion and advocate of Canadian families and children. Throughout her career Cathy has established herself as a leader, children’s champion, partnership innovator and revenue generator. A true collaborator, Cathy is a pioneer of cross sector partnerships creating innovative solutions to business and social issues. A leader with heart, Cathy is known to drive successful change through co-creation and collaboration, and has successfully led many programs that have had, and continue to have, a direct impact on leading social issues affecting Canadian families.
With a reputation for leading with integrity and leveraging resources in non-traditional ways, Cathy is recognized internationally as a leader in social marketing, social issue advancement and highly regarded in all sectors – industry, government, not-for-profit, academia and media.
As President & Chief Executive Officer of Ronald McDonald House Charities Canada, Cathy leads her organization to raise awareness, understanding and funding for Canada’s Ronald McDonald Houses, across all channels and stakeholder groups.
Recognizing the role Ronald McDonald Houses play in completing the circle of health care for a sick child, Cathy is a passionate advocate for giving sick children what the need most, their families. With Ronald McDonald Houses more than doubling the number of families they serve from 10,000 families a year to 20,000 families, Cathy is determined to take an innovative approach to raising the funds and creating the ‘social profit’ to meet this critical need in our society. Through the extraordinary founding and everlasting commitment of McDonald’s Canada, Cathy is leading an organization that promises to make a difference in the lives of Canadian families of sick children for years to come.
Prior to joining Ronald McDonald House Charities Canada in October 2010, Cathy was President of Concerned Children’s Advertisers (CCA) for 15 years. Under Cathy’s leadership CCA grew to become a household presence addressing children’s social issues including self-esteem, substance abuse prevention and media literacy. Today, CCA is replicated in 17 countries worldwide.
Cathy is a founding and current member of the Board of Directors of PREVNet – a collaborative global network that works to promote healthy relationships and prevent bullying through excellence in research and knowledge mobilization. Led by Drs. Craig (Queen’s University) and Peplar (York University), PREVNet is a network of 67 researchers from 21 Universities working with over 50 leading non-government organizations and charitable groups.
Without a doubt Cathy’s most passionate commitment is to her own family. As the mother of two children, Cathy lives first hand the gift of family and the importance of the social issues that impact our children.