Hockey Canada CEO Katherine Henderson takes theScore's leadership Q&A

When Hockey Canada announced the appointment of Katherine Henderson as its new CEO in September 2023, the organization was having a leadership crisis. Its image had been tarnished by its handling of a sexual assault scandal stemming from the 2018 World Junior Championship team and by multiple assault allegations dating back to 2003.

Henderson, who had led Curling Canada for seven years prior, inherited the complexities of the aftermath of those scandals as well as the responsibility of restoring the reputation of Canada's national sport.

It was a job she was prepared for.

"When it comes to curling or hockey, Canadians have high expectations," says Nolan Thiessen, who replaced Henderson as CEO of Curling Canada and had worked with her since 2016. "Canadians expect us to compete. They expect us to win. Those sports where there are high expectations - there is a big responsibility. Some people run away from that because it may scare them. Kathy is somebody who runs towards that and wants that mantle."

Thiessen won three Brier golds in four finals appearances at Canada's men's curling championship. It was during his last trip to the Brier in 2016 with skip Pat Simmons that he first experienced Henderson's leadership style.

"I introduced myself and we went out for breakfast and talked about some of my goals and aspirations. She told me to give her a call when I was done curling," Thiessen says.

A few months later, he decided he was ready.

"She became my mentor," he says. "She's not the type of leader who sits there and is protectionist about her job. She said to me, 'I think you could do my job one day, so I need to teach you some things.'"

Thiessen believes that same approach is what will make Henderson a success with Hockey Canada.

"She treats people with respect," he says. "Building those personal relationships is what helps you come to greater outcomes later on, when you're working on hard things."

After about 20 years working for consumer brands like Whirlpool and Colgate Palmolive, Henderson moved into sports management in 2010 as senior vice president of marketing and revenue for Toronto's 2015 Pan Am Games organizing committee. She then served as CEO at Curling Canada for more than seven years before joining Hockey Canada in September 2023.

Because of her extensive experience in growing both grassroots and high-performance sporting programs, we selected Henderson for our Leaders Survey - a selection of questions posed to the men and women who are impacting today's sporting landscape.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

theScore: When were you most fulfilled?

Henderson: I'm always fulfilled when there's stuff going on. I really do mean that. I'm unfulfilled when things are working too well. It's time to take on the next challenge at that point. Throughout my whole career, I have often wanted to peel back onions and look at complicated issues and try to help along the way.

I have glimmers of fulfillment. I had a really interesting one - I was one of the execs at the Para Pan Am Games in 2015 and we were at the very end of the closing ceremony, and the fireworks are going on. And one of my colleagues said, "You know it's all over, right?" And I had one of those glimmers. I was super fulfilled at that moment. But then I immediately went, OK, now what am I going to do?

Usually, those glimmers come in a situation where I see the athletes are enjoying themselves, and they're in a great place. There's a lot of community, celebration, there's a lot of knowledge about what sport brings to communities and to country. At that point, I feel moments of extreme fulfillment, and then I move on.

Describe your mindset currently.

I'm trying not to use trendy language to make myself sound like a management textbook, but it's a real growth mindset. It's a curiosity mindset. Hockey is a type of sport that is beloved and almost part of our national identity. I'm really understanding it at a whole different level than just what happens on the field of play. What happens off the field of play? What do people perceive and believe about hockey? How does it make their lives better? And how can it make their life worse? These are questions that I need to be asking. Every minute and every decision has so many other effects. Part of what I'm doing is trying to really understand what makes hockey tick. It makes it also a really exciting time for me in my career because I'm learning a ton.

What strategies are you using to understand what makes hockey tick?

There are probably three things. The first - I was with the steering committee for our women and girls paper, and we had our researchers who had interviewed about 85 sports executives, 6,500 hockey participants, and then the Canadian general public, as well as all our member associations. We asked them the same types of questions. It was really interesting to take a look at: how do others perceive hockey versus how do we perceive it ourselves and internally? That's one piece of information. When I'm saying I'm curious, sometimes, I'm curious on a really large scale, as in what do Canadians think and perceive about hockey and how it matters to their life. Then it goes all the way to staff. How does Hockey Canada make your life better or worse? Then to hockey participants.

Second, I am currently on a cross-country tour, and I just spent the afternoon with Hockey Saskatchewan. I've been spending it with the hockey administrators, the coaches, the officiating personnel, the diversity and inclusion people, asking them not just how hockey is doing, but how hockey in Saskatchewan is doing. How are the local minor hockey associations? How are your facilities? How are your communities?

Then I was at the Rivalry Series, so I saw Canada take that series. I got a chance to offer the cup to the team and couldn't have been prouder of our Canadian women. Then I hopped on a plane and I went to Boston, and I watched our men also meet our rivals, the U.S., and win. Just the last couple of weeks, seeing what's going on in Canada and then what's going on in hockey, just how meaningful all of this is to Canadians. I'm listening to what the media has to say about it. I'm listening to what Canadians have to say about it. I'm also listening to what the members have to say about it. It's like a tsunami of information coming at me.

Hockey in Canada is such a responsibility. Much like curling in Canada. I can only imagine that making the transition from curling to hockey did seem like a career risk, especially considering how much turmoil was going on within Hockey Canada. Would you consider that the biggest risk you've taken in your career? Or was there something earlier in your career that felt like a bigger risk?

I have kind of a meandering path that got me to this place, but almost every single step of the way involved some sort of risk. It's leaving something I'm really comfortable with and stepping into something I'm not nearly as comfortable with.

I have a strong belief that if the organization is willing, I want to help make a difference with the organization. I want to help create a future for the organization. I want things to be better for my colleagues, for the people who play, for Canadians. In that way, yes, it's a risk. It's a huge responsibility. But you can't really achieve things without taking risks.

I know how much curling means to Canadians, and I was inundated and sort of steeped in that. So I knew coming in just how powerful the voice of Canada was going to be in terms of the decisions that I needed to be able to make on a day-to-day basis. It's something I don't take lightly. That's always a risk, but at the same time, it's a worthy risk. It's something people love. It's an honor to be part of it.

Who do you most respect in the sports business?

I can name so many names, but the people I've really respected a ton are the volunteers. My son played minor hockey, and I used to watch the coaches who would show up three or four nights a week. They weren't being paid anything. They did it because they loved hockey and because they thought it was really good for kids. They gave so much of their time, and their energy, and their commitment.

I just had tons of respect for them and what they did for my child and a bunch of other little boys who turned into young men through their hockey career.

What's something you recently learned from someone below you in your organization?

I wouldn't say someone below me, but someone earlier in their career. The most recent thing I learned was just sitting around a table full of people who've worked in hockey their whole life and seeing the love they have of the game. They want to make it better.

I was just talking about someone - a woman I worked with in curling. When you talk about trying to create welcoming environments and include people that maybe haven't been included before, one of the conversations I had with her was when we were trying to work with a program called Lead Like a Girl. I was offering her some things that I could do with a sport that I felt would really help these little girls that she was working with. She gave me some really good advice because she was talking about her own community, She said, "My girls don't need your particular sport. What they need are leadership opportunities, and they need to be able to navigate unfamiliar spaces. That's what they need. Now, if your sport can help them with that, then we're partners."

Sport is so much more than just learning skills and learning technique. It's more about how sport builds communities and makes them more resilient and adds to people's lives. So, you know, I think sometimes people who can really clearly articulate how sport makes their communities better have been powerful lessons for me.

You've seen a lot of winning teams across your career, both in hockey and curling. What is the most important quality in a winning team?

We just watched the world's best-on-best in women and men do it within a span of a couple of weeks. And each one of them has been kind of heart-stopping. I think it's that willingness to put team over self. We saw some of the world's greats take a step back and work on lines that they're probably not used to working on, take positions that maybe they understood were good for the team and maybe not good for them personally. I think that really defines team - being able to put yourself aside in order to be able to say, "I have a greater connection with the people on my team and we all want the same thing so let's figure out how to do this together." That, to me, creates those great teams. Because, you know, the teams just go in and they do what they need to do. It isn't just skills; it's also your ability to understand what the team needs in the moment.

What is your most treasured memorabilia from your career so far?

My very first Women in Curling leadership sweatshirt. I still have it. It's a bit threadbare. I looked around in curling and said there's not enough women leaders in this thing. Where are all the coaches? Where all the officials? Where are all the administrators? We started this thing called Women in Curling, and not only did it grow but it caught fire. It was like a brush fire that just suddenly turned because people went back to their own provinces and said, "Hey, if they can do this at the national level, why don't we do it at the provincial level?" Then the clubs started doing it. So, it's really turned into its own thing.

Also, in 2016 I was on the board of Rugby Canada. We'd just gone through a process where we had eliminated the pay-to-play model, and the women were getting the same support as the men. I felt like I was a huge part of that. Just before they went off to win a medal at the Rio Olympics, I was sent a Team Canada rugby jacket that I still wear to this day. I'm really proud of it because it was something meaningful to me.

There are also lucky little things - like what I had in my pocket when Kaitlyn Lawes and John Morris won a gold medal in mixed doubles at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games that I still treasure to this day. It reminds me of being in those brilliant moments. I also have my son's Scarborough Ice Raiders jacket. I also have one of my daughter's T-shirts that I still wear when I go out to exercise from when she was playing volleyball for the Western Mustangs. Those are things that are great for me personally as a mom.

What was in your pocket when Lawes and Morris won the gold medal?

It was these little amethyst stones that I had. I grew up in Thunder Bay and these stones are from Amethyst Harbour. While I was nervous, I was playing with them. Then, every time they won, I'd have those in my hand. They became this lucky talisman. So, I consider their win part of Amethyst Harbor.

What was the last good book you read?

I'm reading Amor Towles' "A Table for Two." It's a bunch of short stories that I just really enjoy. I loved "A Gentleman in Moscow," and I just read "The Lincoln Highway." Then I got his next book, "A Table for Two."

What is your motto?

It's kind of corny, but I always say carpe future - seize the future. We all know where we are right now. It's OK to sit around and sort of wring your hands about where we are now. But grab the future. We know what it should look like. We all do in our heart of hearts. We know what a good future looks like. So, grab it. Then once you've grabbed it you have to make a plan to get there. Start with the future. The present has already happened, right as we're speaking.

Jolene Latimer is a feature writer at theScore.