Strategy | Leadership | Planning

Drawing on decades of experience as a high-level strategist, leadership advisor, and communicator,
I help individuals, teams, and organizations work more
constructively, effectively, and efficiently

For individuals

Career-transition strategy and coaching

Even the most experienced professionals struggle to distill their own value proposition. And certain transitions (a role misalignment, downsizing, or a long break) can make the process feel especially high-stakes.

I help senior executives and mid-career professionals clarify what they want, organize their thinking, and articulate a narrative that positions them to speak confidently and compellingly about their strengths. Over a typical engagement, we address the full range of thinking, planning, and communicating that supports smart career moves: career-transition strategy, one-on-one coaching, résumé development, and interview preparation:

> Clarify goals and define career criteria
> Map a strategic search plan
> Prioritize opportunities and shape process
> Activate and expand your network
> Articulate your personal positioning and value
> Develop a strong résumé
> Craft communications and cover letters
> Build an interview strategy
> Articulate compelling stories that manifest your skills
> Practice and prepare for interviews

You are your industry expert. I am your strategic partner—a senior advisor who helps you assess, refine, communicate, and act with purpose. 

Once you step into a new role, I can continue in my role as trusted coach while you establish your leadership presence and navigate new expectations and relationships.

Learn more about career transition Coaching

For teams and organizations:

Strategy workshops and leadership retreats

Organizations turn to me when navigating moments of change—stepping into new leadership, considering a pivot, exploring new opportunities, or just seeking a clearer sense of everyday direction. Is your team aligned around the right priorities? Do they understand and believe in the “why” behind the work?

Using a collaborative, customized approach, I design and facilitate business and strategic planning workshops and leadership retreats that combine real-time problem-solving, leadership development, and team alignment. My goal is to help teams work smarter, communicate better, and focus on what matters most. Areas of focus include:

  • > Business planning 
    > Strategic planning
    > Team alignment and dynamics
    > Process gap analysis
    > Communication skills and strategies
    > Decision-making
    > Difficult conversations
    > Leadership coaching & consulting
    > Change and growth management

The work begins with an in-depth discovery process that helps clients clarify desired outcomes and uncover team development opportunities. These insights inform how I design the curriculum, structure the work, and shape planning processes. Our partnership results in energizing, active sessions that focus teams on what matters, strengthen collaboration, and produce alignment around right-sized, actionable solutions and plans.

Learn more about a planning session or retreat for your team

What my clients have to say

  • When we started our engagement, I was really in a mental knot about next steps in my career and Catherine helped me frame my thoughts in such a way that I became hopeful and energized about the search itself and able to speak effectively about my credentials. I was thrilled with her coaching and the benefits will remain with me into the future.

    — S. Cawley, Chief Philanthropy Officer, The Chicago Community Trust

  • Catherine has high emotional intelligence and is direct in the best possible way. She listened, sifted through a ton of information, and helped me synthesize everything so I could clearly articulate and differentiate my value. My interview prep work with her was the tipping point. She pushed me to prepare differently—developing strong examples and learning to be agile in how I used them. Our role-playing and practice work made all the difference.

    — J. Tonkel, Global Growth and Change Management Executive

  • Catherine did an outstanding job designing and running our leadership retreat—and I have LOTS of experience attending facilitated meetings! Her ability to quickly understand our team and grasp our challenges was truly impressive. The agenda she crafted hit our priority issues with smart approaches and created a space for incredibly productive discussions—especially valuable for our new team members. We look forward to working with her again.

    – Tim Brown, CEO, Tradewater

  • Catherine facilitated a workshop for the communications team of our nonprofit, helping us with prioritization and strategy, defining organizational messaging, and other topics. She has a way of getting to the heart of the matter, simplifying complex topics, and then articulating these in ways that even a multicultural team like ours (for some of whom English is not their first language) could understand and then turn into actionable steps. We left with a clear, shared vision. We hope to work with Catherine again in the future.

    – Beth Duncan, Director of Communications, Rainforest Foundation

  • Catherine designed and facilitated an in-person workshop for my remote finance team and I highly recommend her. Her bespoke design—effective, time-efficient, and creative—fully delivered on our goals of co-creating a work plan and priorities, and developing the ‘collaboration muscles’ and seeding leadership skills that will help our managers build cohesion across a team of new and legacy employees. She listened acutely and then created an interactive experience that jump-started my team’s communication skills and connection to shared goals. They, and I, would welcome working with her again.

    — M. Chandler, Chief Financial Officer, Coalfire cybersecurity

  • A rapid, incisive thinker, Catherine brings focus, clarity and deep expertise to communications challenges and knows how to shape and deliver compelling client stories. (Bonus: she’s a delight to work with: warm, engaging, whip-smart.)

    — Janice Clark, Designer and Author

  • Catherine was instrumental in fostering articulation of my professional skill set and goals for the future and translating that into a clear, concise resume and CV that highlight my unique skills and talents and communicate the value I bring to the table for future roles. I loved working with Catherine - she is the perfect mix of the positive “push” to really highlight your superpowers and a master of business communication to articulate those with impact. I highly recommend working with Catherine.

    — Senior Pharmaceutical and Medical Affairs Professional

  • Having completed a year-long strategic planning engagement with Catherine Braendel and Alison Carnduff, I am already thinking of ways ISACS and some of our 250 member schools might work with them in the future. They helped us to think strategically, challenging and clarifying our thinking, bringing out angles we might not have anticipated or thought through. They are excellent thinkers who quickly caught on to our tone and represented us—both in writing and in person with our constituents—in a way that felt true. The arc of our work came together just as we had hoped—gold stars for project management and the kind and generous ownership they took, even when we flagged.

    – Mary Menacho, Executive Director, Independent School Association of the Central States (ISACS)

  • Organizational planning, leading, communicating—they ultimately boil down to advancing shared purpose and vision. When committed to that, the work should be fun, meaningful, and increasingly clear. Catherine brings all of these traits to the table! Her insights translate into straightforward actions (ask her about #3SmartThings) that your organization will not only understand but embrace in service of shared goals. Her coaching-based approach makes strategy and knotty problem-solving about more than Xs and Os—it's about your responsibilities, your mission, and your people.

    – G. Christopher Jones, Head of School, Cannon School

  • Working with Catherine (and Alison Carnduff) was heads and shoulders better than other strategic planning experiences. They do not try to slot an organization into “their process.” These two high level thinkers listen and are with you the whole way. They heard where we wanted to go and designed a customized process that delivered. Critical to our vision was giving our community a voice both in the beginning and at checkpoints along the way, their project design made sure that happened. It was also important for us to keep this project moving (any head of school knows how hard that can be.) At times I am sure it felt like herding cats, and yet they kept us on track with compassion and understanding. I highly recommend them as thought partners and problem solvers to any school or business leader.

    – Audrey Perrott, Head of School, Beacon Academy; Co-chair, Strategic Planning Task Force, Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS)

  • A lot of consultants don’t customize their work for our specific industry—this is what impressed me about Catherine! Her approach included personalized pre-work (with me and 20 managers) that clarified our needs and sharpened the goals. Then she designed a workshop to help us improve communication and leadership skills—this included highly collaborative exercises around specific business challenges and strategy. Our time together was more effective because she'd already established credibility with the entire team. I had better feedback from my managers about this session than any other facilitator. It was impressive—a really successful day and we have taken the work forward.

    – Julie Stevlingson, Senior Vice President | Director of Management Services, Draper and Kramer

  • I want to give a major shout out and recommendation—Catherine was incredible in helping me rebrand my decades of experience into a much improved LinkedIn profile and executive CV. She’s kind, patient, and a wonderful coach in terms of how I should describe my years of experience and diverse skill sets

    — Karen Raghavan, Chief Commercial Officer, Luna Daily

  • We hired Catherine Braendel and Alison Carnduff who, together, are Cain Barrett Strategies to help us develop a strategic business plan and become a more cohesive and customer service-oriented team. With insight and an operational focus, they quickly grasped our unique challenges. They connected well with the team and broke through people's preconceptions using fresh approaches and a light touch. They delivered above and beyond their contract and were a pleasure to work with. As a result, our team built more trust and learned how they each have a role in changing the culture.

    – Chief FInancial Officer, East Coast university