Cathy Wilkinson

Dr Cathy Wilkinson is CEO of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation and is a sustainability and resilience transformations leader with over 25 years experience in Australia, Sweden and globally. She enables system change as a CEO, advisor, academic, senior public servant and now as a NFP leader. In the Victorian public sector, she has led long term integrated land use-transport and water planning to guide multi-billion dollars of infrastructure investment and was CEO of the Environment Protection Authority through the design and implementation of world leading preventative duty-based environmental legislation.

Between 2006-2013 she was based in Luleå, Sweden, on the Arctic Circle and experienced first hand many wondrous outdoor adventures across Scandinavia. Based at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, I consulted to governments across Europe, and co-led projects with the UN Habitat program (first global assessment of effects of urbanisation on biodiversity and ecosystem services), Arctic Council (first Resilience Assessment), African Centre for Cities, Rockefeller Foundation (global fellows program on resilience and social innovation) and completed a PhD on urban resilience.

She is an internationally recognised expert on sustainability, resilience, strategic planning and community engagement. Her approach to leading people to sustain high performance has been significantly influenced by her experience playing ice hockey for the Australian Women’s Ice Hockey team, including two world championships.