Cathy Heeley is a Singapore-based associate with CS&A International. She has 15 years’ experience as a legal counsel working with a top tier Australian firm and 14 years’ experience working as an in-house legal counsel with Kraft Foods, Mondelez International, Croda and Syngenta covering Asia Pacific.
Cathy brings a wide range of skills in managing relationships with regulators. She has managed crises involving government regulators in law enforcement, tax, customs, food safety, corruption, religion, plant safety and labour relations in the food and chemicals industries. She has provided oversight on the management of government stakeholders in high intensity situations where fast, pragmatic responses consistent with the organization’s values were essential.
As an in-house counsel Cathy has been a lead member of teams responding to a wide variety of crises across Asia Pacific. She has played a leadership role in crisis situations involving melamine in milk powder in 2009, riots, kidnapping and terrorist incidents in China, Indonesia, India and Thailand, extortion threats in Vietnam and India, food scares in Malaysia, India and Japan.
Cathy is experienced in establishing and maintaining crisis management processes and applying those processes. Making sound decisions in a crisis situation is an area of expertise. She has led high profile investigations in Asia involving multiple regulators in multiple jurisdictions and is skilled in establishing the conditions necessary to get the best from a crisis management team. She has led complex cross-border teams responding to food safety concerns.
Cathy is an experienced trainer, having developed training programs for businesses in India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Korea, China, Australia and New Zealand. She has led initiatives to establish risk management systems in Asia Pacific and integrate them with business strategy as well as global perspectives. She worked as a tutor in company law and governance at the University of Melbourne.
During her career as an external legal counsel, Cathy worked with a wide variety of industries including mining, banking, financial services, construction, paper, infrastructure and food and has experience navigating a wide range of organizational cultures.
Cathy holds an Economics degree from the Australian National University and a Law degree from the University of Melbourne, Australia.