Katherine Henderson, who has held the position of CEO of Curling Canada since 2016, will be the next CEO of Hockey Canada according to a well-informed source. However, this source is not authorized to comment on the news publicly.
Hockey Canada has refused to comment on or confirm the news. “We will announce the appointment of our next CEO to Canadians when the recruitment process is completed. However, it is still ongoing,” said an organization spokesperson by email.
Katherine Henderson’s hiring will be officially announced in the coming days. When reached by phone, Ms. Henderson preferred not to comment on her appointment.
Katherine Henderson will thus succeed Scott Smith, who resigned amid turmoil in October 2022.
Smith, a long-time executive of Hockey Canada, became CEO of Hockey Canada during the summer of 2022. However, he quickly had to step down from his position in the wake of the sexual and financial scandal that hit the federation.
In the spring of 2022, Hockey Canada reached a confidential multi-million dollar settlement with the alleged victim of a sexual assault committed in 2018 by eight Team Canada Junior players. And Scott Smith was one of the senior executives who endorsed this agreement.
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The appointment of Katherine Henderson comes approximately six months after Hockey Canada’s new board of directors entrusted Montrealer Jonathan Goldbloom with the task of establishing a search committee to find the best possible candidate for the CEO position.
Since the beginning of the process, many observers expected a woman to be appointed to lead the operations and initiate a change in the Canadian hockey system’s culture.
In recent months, the name of Canadian Stacey Allaster had been widely circulated behind the scenes. Ms. Allaster is the CEO of the Professional Tennis Association of the United States. In 2020, she became the first woman in over 140 years to be appointed director of the US Open tennis tournament.
In the end, Hockey Canada’s board of directors chose Katherine Henderson, whose appointment as CEO of Curling Canada had been celebrated at the beginning of 2016.
Before taking the reins of Curling Canada, Ms. Henderson distinguished herself in the role of Senior Vice President (responsible for marketing and revenue) of the Pan American Games held in Toronto in 2015. She had previously had a career in the private sector, including a position as General Manager and Vice President at Whirlpool Canada.
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Parallels can be drawn between Katherine Henderson’s mandate at Curling Canada and the one she will begin leading Hockey Canada.
Led by former judge Hugh Fraser, Hockey Canada’s new board of directors has put inclusion and diversity at the top of its priorities.
This conversation has also started in the Canadian curling world in recent years. Last year, Curling Canada held a symposium for its members to hear firsthand how joining a curling club can be intimidating for members of various minorities.
Katherine Henderson argued that it was important to have these difficult conversations in order to advance curling, a sport that is very little practiced by men and women from cultural minorities.
From a sports perspective, Canadian curling has also lost its luster on the international stage in recent years. Canadian hockey is going through a similar situation as the number of Canadian players in the NHL continues to decline. On the women’s side, over 95% of the national team players are trained in American universities.
As CEO of Curling Canada, Katherine Henderson tackled the decline in Canadian competitiveness in 2022. She commissioned a comprehensive independent study in which elite athletes, high performance staff, and various federation members were invited to anonymously express their views on the state of the Canadian system and the changes that needed to be made.
“Everything is on the table,” she declared to make it clear that she was ready to undertake all necessary reforms to modernize Canadian curling and restore its dominant position.
This colossal task was followed, last February, by the hiring of Scotsman David Murdoch as Director of High Performance for Curling Canada.
In 2022, at the Olympics in Beijing, Murdoch oversaw the British teams that won gold in women’s curling and silver on the men’s side.
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In another context, Katherine Henderson should not feel completely unfamiliar when she takes on her new role. Just like Hockey Canada, Curling Canada is a large federation supported by prestigious sponsors and must, among other things, monetize the television rights to its most prestigious competitions.
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