Catherine Heald

Catherine Heald (née Evans; born January 13, 1963) is an entrepreneur and computer programmer.[1][2] Heald is the founder of InterOptica Publishing, Wanderlust Interactive, Soliloquoy and Remote Lands, Inc. Wanderlust Interactive became her first Silcon Valley company to have an IPO.[3] Heald is the CEO of Remote Lands, Inc.[4][5]

Catherine Heald
Born
Catherine E. Evans

(1963-01-13) January 13, 1963
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
EducationColumbia University (BA)
OccupationEntrepreneur
Spouse(s)Simon Winchester (m. 1989; div.)
Donald Heald (m. 2003)

Early life

Heald was born on January 13, 1963 to Nan and George Evans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the second of three siblings.[6] She attended Shady Side Academy graduating in 1980 and then attended Barnard College at Columbia University majoring in computer science. She graduated from Columbia University in 1984.[7][8]

Career

Multimedia software

In 1987 Heald moved to Hong Kong where she met Simon Winchester and were married in 1989.[9] Together they founded a CD-ROM traveler developer called InterOptica Publishing in Hong Kong.[10] InterOptica produced 25 CD-ROM titles with many of them in the travel arena.[11] Apple, Inc. agreed to distribute InterOptica's CD-ROMs in 1993. In 1994 Heald sold InterOptica to a family group.[12]

In 1994 Heald continued to make multimedia software under the company name of Wanderlust Interactive. Wanderlust Interactive was incorporated in 1995 with her as CEO and president.[13] Heald managed to get $2 million in financing commitments for Wanderlust Interactive in 1995.[14] She secured the rights to make The Pink Panther computer games through Wanderlust Interactive from a deal made between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists.[15][16] The Pink Panther: Passport to Peril was the first computer game released by Wanderlust Interactive in 1996.[17] The Pink Panther: Hokus Pokus Pink was released the following year.[18] In March 1996, Wanderlust Interactive went public with an Initial public offering priced at $7.00 with an amount of $7.5 million raised.[19] In June 1997 Wanderlust Interactive faced financial difficulties leading to layoffs and a substantial decline in value in its stock. Heald stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Jay Smith while she remained president of the company.[20] She left Wanderlust Interactive in July 1997 to start a speech recognition company called Soliloquoy.[21][22]

Remote Lands

Heald first ventured into the traveling industry in 1987 when she dropped out of the MBA program at NYU to live in Hong Kong for seven years. She founded Remote Lands in Manhattan with Jay Tindall in 2006 as a luxury travel agency for wealthy clients.[23][24][25] Her travel connections in China have become an integral part of Remote Lands.[26] Heald was listed in Travel + Leisure's top travel experts A-list in 2012 and 2013.[27] During the COVID-19 pandemic, Remote Lands struggled due to the decline in tourism but rebounded later in the year due to postponements of trips instead of outright cancelations.[28]

References
  1. "Catherine Heald". Mobygames.
  2. King, Angela (August 16, 1996). "High-tech jobs boost city". Daily News.
  3. "FROM WILD DOGS IN INDIA TO MOMOS WITH A QUEEN". Travel Week Asia. May 10, 2015. Retrieved 31 December 2020.
  4. Dizik, Alina (December 30, 2020). "Post-Vaccine Vacation Dreamers Plot to 'Get the Hell Out of Their House'". Wall Street Journal.
  5. "Luxury Summer Games with Catherine Heald". Travelogues.
  6. "Nan Evans". Naples News. 2014.
  7. "A College For Women". Barnard. 2012.
  8. "WANDERLUST INTERACTIVE, INC". SEC.
  9. "Evans-Winchester". The Pittsburgh Press. June 2, 1989.
  10. "CD-ROM wins approval". South China Morning Post. March 9, 1993.
  11. "Scribe service hits AOL; CD list online". Daily Variety. June 29, 1995.
  12. "Multimedia". The Economist. October 1993.
  13. Conrad, Sandra (March 1996). "High-Powered Women In A High-Powered Industry". Upgrade.
  14. Lane, Randall (May 8, 1995). "Computers are our friends". Forbes.
  15. "In The Bit Stream". The Hollywood Reporter. June 22, 1995.
  16. Major, Wade (September 1995). "The Pink Panther Goes Interactive". Entertainment Today.
  17. Simons, Ellen (July 1996). "Wanderlust Signs Exclusive Domestic Distribution Agreement With BMG". Video Game Advisor.
  18. "Adrenalin Interactive, Inc". Mobygames.
  19. "Companies are cashing in". Technology New Media. January 1996.
  20. Mannes, George (June 9, 1997). "Pink Panther in doghouse: Software startup thought it had a tiger but got scratched". Daily News.
  21. Neff, Jina (2005). "The Changing Place of Cultural Production: The Location of Social Networks in a Digital Media Industry". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 597.
  22. Neff, Gina (2012). Venture Labor: Work and the Burden of Risk in Innovative Industries. MIT Press.
  23. Schensul, Jill (July 16, 2017). "Vacations of the 1%". The Star Press.
  24. "Made for you". Cigar Aficianado. March–April. 2007.
  25. Springer, Kate (September 11, 2020). "Rented penguins and $300,000 dinners: The wildest holiday requests from the super rich". CNN.
  26. "Native Intelligence". Town & Country Travel (Fall). 2008.
  27. Koumelis, Theodore. "Remote Lands CEO Catherine Heald named on Travel + Leisure A-List". Travel Daily News.
  28. Ekstein, Nikki. "The Coronavirus's Effect on Tourism Will Carry Into 2021, Experts Say". Bloomberg.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.