Catherine Gallacher

Catherine Gallacher is a speaker specialising in neuroscience-led leadership, mental health, and decision-making under sustained pressure. She is a Senior Accredited Psychotherapist, Certified Empowerment Result Coach™, and Founder of StepUpcmg™, with more than 25 years of experience supporting leaders and organisations operating in high-stakes environments. Catherine is best known for creating the Alivar™ System, a practical clarity framework that helps high-functioning individuals move from overload and misalignment into grounded confidence and decisive action. Her work sits at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and leadership strategy, translating complex science into tools leaders can apply immediately. 

Catherine’s early career was shaped by rigorous clinical training and frontline exposure to pressure. She studied at the University of Strathclyde and trained through the Royal College of Nursing, qualifying as an RGN and RSCN. Her early professional experience included work across medical, surgical, burns, and intensive care settings, environments where decisions are immediate and emotional regulation is essential. These formative years developed Catherine’s deep understanding of how humans respond to threat, responsibility, and uncertainty. Rather than remaining solely in clinical settings, she expanded her work into psychological leadership, supporting individuals who carried responsibility quietly and often invisibly. Catherine learned early that performance challenges are rarely about capability, they are about overloaded systems, internal pressure, and a lack of clarity.

Over the course of her career, Catherine has become a trusted advisor to leaders, executives, and organisations worldwide. She is the Founder and Director of StepUpcmg™, established in 2002, and has served for more than three decades as a Psychological Ambassador, delivering leadership development, executive coaching, and mental health training globally. She is the architect of several proprietary frameworks including Emotional Architecture™, Neural Sovereign™, and Empowerment by Design™, all designed to support clear thinking, influence, and sustainable performance. Catherine is also a published author, including 'Empower Your Midlife', and a respected voice on emotional intelligence, leadership presence, and decision-making under pressure. Her work is evidence-informed, grounded, and deliberately practical, shaped by decades of real-world application rather than theory alone.

Catherine is hired as a keynote speaker because she brings clarity where pressure is constant and expectations are high. She speaks on leadership under fire, influence without authority, confidence under pressure, emotional intelligence, and mental health in high-functioning professionals. These topics matter because unregulated stress quietly erodes judgment, culture, and performance. Catherine gives leaders language for what they are experiencing and tools to change it. Her flagship keynote, ‘Warzone to Boardroom™’, resonates strongly with executive audiences, offering practical ways to stay human, credible, and decisive when the stakes are high.