Ep29. Anne Smith, Leadership & Talent Development Lead at Kerry Group

This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Cathy Port – Head of Food for Costa Coffee.

With a Masters in Creative Talents & Solutions in Business and an early career in product development, over the past 20 years Cathy has successfully worked for the likes of Compass Group, Sainsbury’s, McDonald’s, Leon and since 2017 she’s been the Head of Food for Costa Coffee and is responsible for the Food growth agenda across the UK & Ireland.

This episode is full of brilliant wisdom and insight from Cathy. We discuss how her love of cooking first attracted her to this industry, along with why she has stuck with it through the years. Cathy tells us about the traits and attributes that have helped her along the way, citing a positive mental attitude and resilience being strong factors in her success.

We delve into the characteristics of good leadership, why Cathy believes coaching and mentoring can truly tap into or refine an individual’s potential and the importance of recruiting diverse teams to find new solutions to problems. We even discuss a little bit about Gareth Southgate’s management style!

Join us as we discuss Cathy’s ‘why’, the positives to come out of the pandemic, shifts in leadership and the importance of thinking big.

We think you’ll feel truly inspired after listening to this one.

Here are some key topics we discussed through the episode:

05.07 Key traits and attributes that have contributed to Cathy’s success

08:00 The Importance of Coaching

11:00 Unconscious Bias and Recruitment

18:04 The Impact of Covid on Cathy, the business and her team

24:18 Having a Growth Mindset Post-Pandemic

30:44 What Motivates Cathy

30:45 Prioritising Workflow to Get The Best Return

32:56 Empowering People To Have More Balance

39:20 Tips and Career Advice

As ever, if you’d like to get in touch for any reason you can reach me at Jonathan.ohagan@leaderexecutivesearch.com

Enjoy Listening!