President & CEO, Nurse Next Door

Cathy Thorpe joined Nurse Next Door as President in 2014 with the mission of growing the business across both Canada and the US, and achieving a new level of operational excellence. Under her tenure, the company has accelerated its growth and now has over 300 locations across North America. In 2016, Cathy was promoted to President & CEO, with a goal of taking the organization to global heights and expanding its international footprint. Since then, Nurse Next Door has opened master franchises in both England and Australia, and is currently exploring other markets.

An accomplished leader, Cathy brings over two decades of leadership experience in the retail industry to Nurse Next Door. She previously served as President of Please Mum and Director of Canadian Operations for The Gap and The Gap Kids, where she was responsible for 150 stores and 1,000+ employees. Additionally, Cathy founded and ran Surge Advisors, a consultancy that provided strategic leadership council to small and medium size enterprises.

Cathy’s diverse experiences have inspired and enabled her to accelerate growth and disrupt the traditional home care industry model. However, her business goals go beyond market expansion. Through Bold Kindness, her culture and leadership philosophy, she has developed self-led leaders across the brand’s system, resulting in an average NPS score of 70+ among clients and caregivers. Through her new book, Bold Kindness: A Caring, More Compassionate Way to Lead (to be released January 2024), Cathy is bringing her Bold Kindness philosophy to other business leaders, and motivating them to disrupt traditional business practices.

Cathy’s leadership was recognized during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she was a recipient of a B.C. CEO of the Year Award for the Award of Distinction Category. During her tenure, Nurse Next Door has been awarded Canada’s most Admired Corporate Culture by Waterstone, ranked #50 on Entrepreneur’s Franchise 500 list in 2018, and won the Pacific Region’s EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in the Healthcare Services Category in 2016.

Cathy is also the host of How to Care, a podcast/conversation series on business Leadership.

When not at Nurse Next Door, Cathy is spending time with her two children and dog Henry, enjoying Vancouver’s natural beauty, trail running or exploring the world and learning about foreign cultures and languages.