Booking Cathy
A dynamic speaker, Cathy can address any of these topics, tailored to your organization, club or other audience:
- Generations Within Family Businesses: The complex relationships it involves and the dangers of favoritism, incompetency, nepotism, backstabbing, and more. Very timely with the spotlight on the Trump family in which generations work together on the family business. Her talks involve many more examples from some of the most iconic families and brands in all industries.
- Grandma and Me: People’s grandmothers have a special place in their hearts, and this unique relationship is especially interesting! Growing up, Cathy’s grandmother was a gorgeous icon to her. For years she was both hot and cold: glamorous and distant. Cathy loved her signature perfume, her red lipstick—and her brisket! She longed for her acceptance and love. It took a family scandal where she became her grandmother’s savior, fighting other members of the family who victimized her elderly grandmother—now 94—and in the process found the acceptance that had alluded her for so long.
- The Human Cost of Inherited Wealth: Here Cathy gives her audiences a look at how the family has turned out, the factors involved, and some thoughts on how these fissures can be healed. This talk includes examples of wealthy families that were successful from generation to generation and why they did not suffer the same fate as hers and many others.
- Elder Abuse: A big topic, since those who take advantage of the weak and mentally unstable are sadly all too often not paid help or strangers but close family members. Here again Cathy will tell her specific story and bring in current stories that illuminate this tragic trend.
- Growing Up Poor on the Periphery of Huge Wealth: Cathy lived with her mother in modest circumstances in a working-class neighborhood. On weekends her father would take her to the family mansion where she experienced an entirely different culture and worldview. It’s a tale of not fully fitting in—in either world. As Cathy reports, “In high school people would always ask me if I was related to the ‘rich Schottensteins,’ and I would say ‘No-I’m not connected to that part of the family in any way.’ I was embarrassed. My dad never talked about money growing up, and I never asked. I had no sense of this part of my identity. It was a very nebulous concept to me. My connection to the wealth of the family has only recently evolved and largely because of my grandmother’s lawsuit. I had no idea about her net worth or my father’s until the curtain was pulled back and the internal crimes committed against my grandmother were exposed for all the world to see.”