Catherine Heald

Catherine Heald (née Evans) is a serial entrepreneur and founder of four software and travel companies in Asia and the United States since 1989. She is currently CEO of Remote Lands, a New York and Bangkok-based luxury travel company catering to celebrities and high net worth individuals travelling to Asia. Heald has been widely credited in the press for her deep knowledge of Asia and her Asian travel expertise, particularly in far-flung places off the beaten path. She lived in Hong Kong from 1987 to 1994, and currently lives in New York, NY and Sherman, CT with her husband, antiquarian bookseller Donald Heald.

Early years
Heald grew up in western Pennsylvania and attended Valley School of Ligonier and Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh. She later earned a B.A. in Computer Science from Barnard College, Columbia University in 1984, the first year that computer science was offered as a major. Following graduation, Heald worked as a software engineer at Wall Street firm LF Rothschild, Unterberg and Tobin. In the early 80s she attempted to become a semi-professional distance runner, but she reached her peak in 1985 when finished in 106th place in the women's field of the New York City Marathon with a time of 3:17:31, and she subsequently ceased to compete.

In 1987 she dropped out of the MBA program at NYU's Stern School of Business to move to Hong Kong, where she initially worked for the Apple distributor. In 1989, Heald started her first business, a software company in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, China, when she was 26 years old.

InterOptica Publishing Ltd.
Heald was known for her role as a new media pioneer in the early 1990s as Co-Founder & CEO of InterOptica Publishing Ltd, a Hong Kong-based travel software publisher on CD-ROM in the pre-Internet years. At a time when female chief executives were rare in technology, Heald was one of the few female CEOs and was a frequent public speaker at global new media conferences in the 1990s. Bill Gates, who helped spearhead the widespread use of multimedia technology, featured Heald on stage with him demonstrating her travel titles in two of his major keynote addresses, on October 8, 1991 when the "Multimedia PC" was launched at the Museum of Natural History in New York, and in San Jose, CA in 1992 at the Multimedia and CD-ROM Conference. Heald signed a distribution deal with Apple in 1993, making Apple the exclusive distributor for 27 of InterOptica's products, including its Sierra Club and Royal Geographical Society branded travel titles.

In 1993 she sold out to Peter Brant and model Stephanie Seymour, owner of Take-Two Interactive Software (NASDAQ:TTWO) and briefly served as a company executive before it went on to publish Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto and other best-selling video games.

Wanderlust Interactive, Inc.
In 1994, Heald founded Wanderlust Interactive, Inc. to create educational travel games for children, and signed a worldwide licensing agreement with Hollywood's MGM/UA for the Pink Panther character for digital and other rights. At the time, she was known as Catherine Winchester when she was married to British author Simon Winchester; in 2003 she married Donald Heald and took his surname.

She was credited with being one of the founders of New York's "Silicon Alley" by Crain's New York Business, citing that "Silicon Alley really began in the early 1990s with Catherine Winchester, founder of Wanderlust, which created educational software for kids.". At the age of 33, Heald became one of the youngest female CEO's of a publicly traded company in the US with Wanderlust's IPO in 1996 (NASDAQ:LUST). She signed licensing deals in 11 languages and 18 markets from Russia to South Korea, but sales in the USA were disappointing and she was eventually let go by the board.

Soliloquy, Inc.
Her third company, Soliloquy Inc., was a natural language technology developer whose goal was to revolutionize the online shopping experience by making it interactive and conversational. She co-founded Soliloquy with Nathaniel Polish, Ph.D, an expert in computer speech; later Mark Lucente, Ph.D, an artificial intelligence expert from the MIT Media Lab, joined them as CTO. The company raised more than $11 million in venture capital and employed over 60 staff, including 12 Ph.D's. In June 2000, she was asked by Michael Bloomberg and Muriel Siebert to join them onstage to discuss the future of e-commerce. Soliloquy closed after the tech crash in 2000.

Remote Lands, Inc.
Heald co-founded Remote Lands with Bangkok-based Jay Tindall as a high end travel designer and outfitter focused exclusively on Asia, with venture capital backing from Skymoon Ventures and Mike Farmwald. Heald and Remote Lands have been featured in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Town & Country, Travel + Leisure and Conde Nast Traveler/Concierge. Remote Lands accolades include National Geographic Adventure's Best New Trips in October 2008, National Geographic Traveler's Tours of a Lifetime in May 2009, May 2010 and April 2011, Travel + Leisure's Best Life-Changing Trips in October 2011. In March 2010, Heald's first hand account of a solo reconnaissance around North Korea was featured in Departures, the American Express Platinum and Centurion card publication, generating a controversial reaction and much criticism of her visit. Remote Lands is part of the Virtuoso consortium of leading travel suppliers and agents around the world.