Quality journalism is under attack as never before, as part of disinformation campaigns which threaten democracies. Join Canadian Club Toronto on May 3, World Press Freedom Day, to hear from Catherine Tait, President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, in conversation with CBC journalist and radio personality Saroja Coelho to discuss the new threats to fact-based media in Canada and around the world, and how the public broadcaster is responding.
**The livestream for virtual guests will begin at approximately 12:40pm ET & a link will be provided closer to the event date.**
Catherine Tait
President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada
Catherine Tait was appointed President and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada on April 3, 2018, for a five-year term. She began her mandate on July 3, 2018. Catherine is also the Chair of the Global Task Force for Public Media, an initiative of the Public Media Alliance launched in September 2019.
As President and CEO, Catherine is responsible for overseeing the management of CBC/Radio-Canada to ensure that Canada’s national public broadcaster can deliver on the various aspects of its mandate and continue to offer Canadians a broad spectrum of high-quality programming that informs, enlightens and entertains, and that is created by, for and about Canadians.
Prior to her appointment, Catherine co-founded New York-based Duopoly Inc, an independent film, television and digital content company, which she led as President from 2002 to 2018. She also co-founded iThentic, a digital content company, in 2006 and Hollywood Suite in 2010, a broadcasting company in Canada. Catherine was also previously the President and COO of Salter Street Films from 1997 to 2001. She has experience working for the Government of Canada as Director and Cultural Attaché with the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, and as Manager of Policy and Planning for Telefilm Canada where her passion for Canadian film and television content was ignited.
She’s been a member of a number of industry-specific boards including Comweb Group, DHX Media LTD, Hollywood Suite (which she co-founded), iThentic Inc, eOne Entertainment, CHUM Ltd, Aliant Inc, Rogers Mobile Film Fund and the Canadian Film and Television Production Association.
Catherine holds a Diplôme d’Études Approfondies, Communications Theory from the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (1983), a Master of Science from Boston University’s School of Public Communication (1982) and a Bachelor of Arts (Hon) in Literature and Philosophy from the University of Toronto (1979).
Catherine was named Playback’s Executive of the Year in 2019 and Woman of the Year 2021-2022 by Women in Communications and Technology.
Saroja Coelho
Host, CBC Music
Saroja Coelho is an award-winning broadcaster who currently hosts Mornings on CBC Music. She began her career as an Asia correspondent in South Korea, where she produced documentaries and reports for CBC, BBC, NPR and Deutsche Welle. She relocated to Berlin in 2006, where she covered post-Soviet development and environmental issues in Germany, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary. She ran Deutsche Welle’s Environment Department for two years, in the lead up to the Paris climate talks, winning a New York Festivals Award for this work. She returned to Canada in 2016 as the new host of Breakaway, CBC’s drive-home show for the province of Quebec. In 2018, she relocated to Toronto where she has guest hosted q, As It Happens, Here and Now, Ontario Morning and Day 6.
