• Columnists

Catherine Keightley, Executive Director, Girls on the Run of NOVA

COLUMN = GIRLS ON THE RUN

With more than 17 years experience in marketing strategy, branding, membership, and customer programs, writer and PR expert Catherine Keightley excels at developing marketing strategies that meet and exceed revenue goals on challenging budgets and timelines.

She is currently the executive director of Girls on the Run of Northern Virginia, a position she began in June 2010 after spending nearly a decade working as an independent marketing consultant.

In that capacity, she worked as a pro bono partner with The Women’s Center to clarify its evolving mission and quantify revenue opportunities, as well as developed the year-end board of directors’ presentation.

She also co-wrote the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments brochure to increase the number of foster parents enrolled in the Respite Foster Care program. The brochure was used to develop a radio script that resulted in a nearly 30 percent enrollment increase.

And Catherine developed new corporate positioning for InforMax, Inc., an international bioinformatics company, where she managed the roll-out of the new positioning in a variety of sales vehicles and branding initiatives.

Catherine also developed the brand platform for Leverage Computing and implemented the brand through traditional and online marketing programs. And she designed and wrote the content for the Metropolitan Institute for Plastic Surgery website (www.metplasticsurgery.com) in order to better align the website with new corporate positioning.

Previously, Catherine worked for ObjectVideo in Reston, VA, as its director of marketing. In that position, she helped develop, write, and present to the board of directors the business plan that outlined target markets, revenue potential, and areas of future growth in the security and surveillance market sector.

She also designed and implemented the marketing strategy and communications program for new corporate partnerships, premium client relationships, and public relations initiatives. The company subsequently received $4.5 million in additional venture capital funding and met first-year revenue goals.

From 2000 to 2001, she was the vice president of US marketing for Categoric Software, Surrey, a United Kingdom company. She created new corporate branding and implemented the new brand in international marketing programs and promotional events.

For Surrey, Catherine managed a $1 million annual US marketing budget and a four-person staff and established a Premium Client Program that resulted in a 150 percent increase in revenue earned from top-tier clients, and she developed and managed a US-based revenue-generation program and closed-loop prospect-tracking system, resulting in a 32 percent increase in qualified prospects generated per quarter.

A graduate of the George Mason University with a BA in English (Professional Writing/Editing), and eight graduate level courses in English, Catherine believes in civic involvement.

She is active in the Friends of the Orphans Regional Advisory Committee, and is a fundraising board member. She also works with the Frank Foundation Child Assistance International, GRACE Arts “Art in the Schools” Program, the Children’s Science Center of Northern Virginia, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Last spring, Catherine was instrumental in helping to organize and promote an incredibly successful fundraising benefit for Kidsave International, called Kismet for Kidsave, which raised nearly $140,000 for the program that helps connect kids in foster care with loving families.

For more information, visit www.girlsontherunofnova.org or send Catherine an email at ckeightley@gotrnova.org.

Things don’t change. You change your way of looking, that’s all.”

– Carlos Castaneda

As each woman realizes her power, she transforms the world.”

– Patrice Wynne, WomanSpirit Sourcebook

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”

– Bruce Lee

My job is my hobby. I come to work to play.”

– Uli Becker, president, Reebok International

My task is really not to change myself but to become familiar with who I am.”

– Maureen Cook

Ripeness is all.”

– William Shakespeare

Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

– Basil King

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”

– Robert Fritz

There are children playing in the street who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”

– Woodrow Wilson

It is possible to fail in many ways…while to succeed is possible only in one way.”

– Aristotle

The person who makes a success of living is the one who see his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication.”

– Cecil B. DeMille

It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”

– William Shakespeare

It is only when the mind is free from the old that it meets everything anew, and in that there is joy.”

– J. Kristnhamurti, The First and Last Freedom

With ordinary talents and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable.”

– Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

Death is to lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.”

– Thomas Wolfe

I’ve come to confirm that one’s title, even that of president, says little about how well one’s life has been led. No matter how much you’ve done, or how successful you’ve been, there’s always more to do, to learn, and to achieve.”

– Barack Obama

We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.”

– General Omar Bradley

As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

– Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now.”

– Jack Kerouac

Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leo Jozef Suenens

If you do work that you love, and the work fulfills you, the rest will come.”

– Oprah Winfrey

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.”

– Steve Jobs, Apple, Inc.

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?”

– Eve Ensler

When I was younger I thought success was being a star, driving nice cars, having groupies. But today I think the most important thing is to live your life with integrity.

– Ellen DeGeneres

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.”

– Goldie Hawn

Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

– Steve Jobs

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”

– Thomas Edison

You must have chaos within you, to create a dancing star.”

– Frederic Nietzsche

The awakening to the mystery of life is a revolutionary event; in it an old world is destroyed so that a new and better one may take its place.”

– J.J. Van Der Leeuw, The Conquest of Illusion

Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!”

– Madam C.J. Walker

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

– Mark Twain

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

– Nelson Mandela

Don’t follow, lead. Don’t copy, create. Don’t start, finish. Don’t sit still, move. Don’t fit in, stand out. Don’t sit quietly, speak up. (Not all the time, sure, but more often.)”

– Seth Godin

No longer talk at all about the kind of man a good man ought to be, but be such.”

– Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Entrepreneurs willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture and are answerable for all its facets.”

– Victor Kiam

We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”

– Winston Churchill

Speaking more than one language is no longer just an asset in today’s job market; it is a requirement.”

– Tom Adams, CEO, Rosetta Stone

Find somebody to be successful for. Raise their hopes. Think of their needs.”

– Barack Obama

I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent.”

– Thomas Edison

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes.”

– Marcel Proust

That which grows fast withers as rapidly; that which grows slowly endures.”

– J.G. Holland, novelist

Your own words are the bricks and mortar
of the dreams you want to realize.
 The words you choose and their use establish the life you experience.”

– Sonia Croquette

The fixity of a habit is generally in direct proportion to its absurdity.”

– Marcel Proust

Are you willing to help other people succeed even when it’s not a requirement of your job to be of assistance?”

– Steven Schussler

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go, life is a barren field frozen with snow.”

– Langston Hughes