Catherine Elyssa Brown
Executive Director, Merlin Mobility Foundation
At fifteen, Catherine discovered the executive assistance career path, serving as the personal assistant to her grandmother, Shirley Coletti - Operation PAR founder, Just Say No Foundation co-founder, 2-time Presidential Advisor, and Women's Hall of Fame inductee. Today, Catherine holds over two decades of humble servant leadership and has assisted celebrities, politicians, and CEOs across a multitude of industries. She knows the MVP of every team is always one physical step behind the VIP and five mental steps ahead of everyone.
This passion for teamwork and longstanding experience in community organizations propelled her to work with the government, serving as a Special Assistant to the former two-term Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, C.W. Bill Young, and eventually into the early-stage start-up scene to encourage the development of corporate social responsibility goals.
Along the way, Catherine also spent the entirety of her twenties battling Struma Ovarii, a rare form of thyroid cancer that spontaneously grows in the ovaries. Resilience and grit saw her through the unique challenge and later morphed into grace and a perspective on life that she now holds dear. As the Executive Director of the Merlin Mobility Foundation, she gets to visualize the future while exercising her leadership skills to enhance the accessibility of a high-quality of life for all people.
Personally, Catherine is a graduate of The George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C., of Women's Start-Up Lab Accelerator in Silicon Valley, and Rent the Runway & UBS' Project Entrepreneur, Class of 2016. She is the founder of the former matchmaking service EM, where she received accolades in both GulfShore Business in Naples, FL, and The Almanac in Silicon Valley. Catherine is a certified Baptiste Power Yoga Instructor, a host committee member on numerous national fundraising boards, and an advocate on behalf of ovarian cancer survivors nationally. She currently splits her time between her quiet hometown of Naples, Florida, and the vibrant start-up scene of Silicon Valley, where she spends much of her time on a yoga mat.