ANYONE WHO'S EVER WORKED WITH CATHY KNOWS SHE HAS A PENCHANT FOR TAKING A CONTRARIAN POINT OF VIEW.

MORE LIKELY THAN NOT, SHE’S SWIMMING UPSTREAM WHEN THE REST OF THE INDUSTRY PUNDITS AND CONSULTANTS ARE GOING THE OTHER WAY.

Cathy’s point of view comes from her extensive background in financial services and consulting culled from over 25 years of experience. Before starting Swimming Upstream, Cathy spent eight years at Forrester Research as a VP and Principal Analyst. Prior to joining Forrester, Cathy’s career was spent in retail banking. She found her passion with the online channel and led the Consumer Online Channel divisions at both Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

At Swimming Upstream, Cathy provides both strategic and tactical consulting to financial service firms and technology providers. Areas of focus include the online channel, payments and mobile banking. In addition to consulting services, Swimming Upstream can provide custom quantitative research in the form of online, phone and mail-based surveys as well as qualitative research through focus groups. Cathy is also a sought-after speaker for both in-person speeches as well as Webcasts.

It’s simple: Cathy tells it like it is. She’s not a big believer in fawning over the “next killer app” for the online or mobile channel. She takes vendors’ adoption predictions with a grain of salt. Why? Because her experience has taught her that if technology solutions don’t: 1) meet a real customer need; and 2) add true economic value to the bottom line, there’s no reason to prioritize the offering above other more mission-critical projects.