Cathy Delhanty is a professional speaker and founder of The Networking Workshop lecture series. She has experience living abroad as an expat in multiple countries with her family. Drawing from over 25 years of international career experience, she became frustrated by the lack of effective networking advice and resources. Her lecture series and book aim to teach strategic networking focused on four key areas: networking strategy, visibility, meeting people, and relationship building. Participants can learn to advance their careers through professional visibility and networking, especially those with portable careers or who relocate internationally. Delhanty credits her own success to her extensive network and continues to build her visibility through workshops and lectures.

1. Meet Cathy Delhanty
Speaker at the Meet the Expert
“Increasing Your Visibility” 24th May
C&D team: Please tell us about your professional
background.
Cathy: Straight from university in Canada, my British
husband and I planned international careers. He became
a scientist and I consulted in Sales and Business
Development in international telecommunications and
aerospace. For the past 14 years, we have been living in
The Netherlands. From this year, I am changing career
to become a professional speaker with The Networking
Workshop.
C&D team: What are your experiences as an expat?
Cathy: How I wish we were offered the services of an
organization like Outpost when we arrived in The
Netherlands! In 2002, my job transferred from Sydney,
Australia to The Hague. We had a baby and a toddler,
my husband became the “trailing spouse’, and we had
no idea of the Dutch language or customs. We were on
our own and just had to survive.
C&D team: What motivated you to create The
Networking Workshop lecture series and to write a
book?
Cathy: Over the past 25 years, I credit my success to
the quality and breadth of my network and pay it as
much attention as I do my education. Because I reap
the benefits of networking, it has become something I
enjoy and it means that I don’t have to cold-call
prospects (something I really can’t stand doing). It
means that I know how to meet people and become
recognized in a new community. It means that I can
settle in wherever I live or work.
However, I see people struggling with networking skills
and there has not been much change in the past 25
years. People tell me they hate networking, feel
exhausted by the effort, or don’t know where to begin. I
set out to learn the difference between my experience
and theirs. I read about 20 books on networking,
hundreds of websites and blogs, and attended all the
workshops I could find. I asked “Would I succeed if I
followed this advice?” “Is it what the best networkers
do?”. The answer was NO because the advice centered
around meeting people and personality types.
Cathy Delhanty, Managing Director of Point 6
Consulting B.V. and founder of The Networking
Workshop lecture series
C&D team: What do you think are the biggest
misconceptions about networking?
Cathy: It is true that meeting people is a large part of
networking, but it is not the focus of the best
networkers. They have four focus areas: 1. Networking
Strategy 2. Increasing Visibility 3. Meeting People and
4. Relationship Building.
Helping others learn effective networking skills to
achieve their own goals is the passion behind The
Networking Workshop. One size does not fit all in
networking and I want to teach people how to create
their own unique networking skills.
C&D team: What will participants take away from the
Meet the Expert session and how do you think someone
interested in pursuing a portable career could benefit?
People with portable careers will benefit from the
Increasing Your Visibility workshop. The goal is to
present yourself as someone that others want to meet
by participating in activities that show off your skills so
the projects you want and people you want to meet are
able to find you. People looking to change or advance
their career, people working in multi-national
corporations or moving from one country to another
and will benefit by learning how to: Advance your
networking strategy through Professional Visibility;
prepare effectively and target the right audience; create
a personal Visibility Action Plan.
C&D team: What helped you to increase your
professional visibility?
Cathy: The Increasing your Visibility workshops are one
of the ways I increase my own visibility. It began as an
activity to help Women in Aerospace Europe provide an
interesting talk for their members. Since then, it has
become The Networking Workshop’s most popular
lecture and has been given in the USA, The Netherlands,
and Germany.