The president and CEO of Hockey Canada talks about her start in sports management, the importance and ‘promise’ of a company’s brand and the rise of women’s hockey. The Hockey News' Money and Power 2025 hockey business annual is available at THN.com/free [https://thehockeynews.store/products/print-subscription], featuring the annual 100 people of power and influence list. W. Graeme Roustan, owner and publisher of The Hockey News, sat down with special guests for peer-to-peer conversations also featured in the issue, including Hockey Canada's president and CEO, Katherine Henderson. Here's their full conversation in The Graeme Roustan Show: The president and CEO of Hockey Canada talks about her start in sports management, the importance and ‘promise’ of a company’s brand and the rise of women’s hockey. (Don't see the video? Click here [https://thehockeynews.com/video/graeme-roustan-show-katherine-henderson].) Read along with an excerpt from their discussion: W. GRAEME ROUSTAN: You’ve been involved in sports for decades. What got you all excited about getting into sports years ago? KATHERINE HENDERSON: It was an interesting one. I started my career as a packaged goods marketer, and I ended up on the sponsorship end of things. I was working on some of the very first Olympic sponsorships with General Mills. I worked for Colgate-Palmolive for a number of years, and we had sponsorships related to the NHL, the NBA, Major League Baseball, women’s professional golf, as well as a lot of amateur sport. And so, coming through that, I was quite interested. As my career started to really flourish, I was in Toronto when they were bidding for the Pan Am Games. And because I had seen what games, major games, can do for a city, I put my name out there and said, “I really want to go over onto the sports side of things.” And that’s kind of where it took off from there. WGR: Why is it that so many people start off with the big companies like Colgate-Palmolive and then they end up in the CEO’s office? KH: I think one of the things that’s really important in packaged goods is a recognition that your brand, which is the promise that you give the people that you interact with, your public, is the most critical asset that you own. And what you learn in a packaged-goods company is how to make sure that you protect that brand at all times and that you leverage it to grow it. Well, the segue is incredible because Hockey Canada had a brand problem. WGR: How much of your corporate business career has helped you with Hockey Canada? KH: Well, I think it helps tremendously. It’s a real hodge-podge of experiences in there. So it’s a neat cocktail to be able to walk in and take on this role. But I would say when people think about brands, they tend to think about logos. And what I’m really talking about is the kind of a values foundation of a promise that you give to your public that you must protect. And you must be able to deliver on that over and over and over again consistently. And so when I’m talking about brand, that’s what I’m talking about right now. Coming into Hockey Canada, yes, there are and were a number of issues. Although I do think that standing behind the values of what it is that you’re attempting to deliver to Canadians is critically important, being open and transparent about what it is that you are trying to do and then bringing the public along with it is going to be really important. You know, it has been important over the past year, and it will continue to be important in the future. W. Graeme Roustan and Katherine Henderson [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjExODk2MTMzNjU5MDEwNTk1/publishersnote_roustanhenderson1.jpg] W. Graeme Roustan and Katherine Henderson WGR: Let’s talk a little bit about women’s hockey and how important it is to Hockey Canada. KH: So, it’s incredibly important. I just flew back from Saint John, N.B., and I was in Quispamsis watching the women’s U-18 national championship. Ontario Red won it. And it was mind-blowing how good the hockey is. WGR: Years ago, women’s hockey just didn’t have the visibility that it does right now. KH: There were a lot of assumptions made by people about whether it was competitive or not. I think once you spend the time getting people to actually watch, and I think the PWHL and its forerunners, the CWHL, have really accelerated that pathway so people can see how good the hockey is. Canadians love hockey. That’s what they love. And I think, at the end of the day, watching really good hockey players performing at the top of their game is what Canadians really like. So, that visibility is really important. Recently, Hockey Canada released a discussion paper, and we released it to Canadians. And it basically outlines the obstacles that we believe still exist in the women’s game. And what we’re asking Canadians and a number of stakeholders to do is to help us solve those problems and help us figure out the pathway that’s going to make women’s hockey grow to the level that we would like to see it grow, to the level that Canadians have asked us to see it grow. For this, more interviews and a deep look into the world of the hockey business, check out The Hockey News' Money and Power 2025 issue, available at THN.com/free [https://thehockeynews.store/products/print-subscription].
