Catherine Soileau Heitman

Overview

Catherine Soileau Heitman is a communications strategist with more than three decades of executive-level experience in issues and reputational management, government agency transformation, and disaster and crisis response. She has worked in journalism and held posts at multiple agencies at the state and federal level — as a Congressional aide in Washington and in Louisiana.

Her experience includes corporate consulting and executive positions in multiple state agencies, developing and implementing public awareness and engagement campaigns around some of society’s most pressing issues: human services, food insecurity, pre-K to 12 and higher education policy, child welfare, and disaster response and recovery.

Her disaster communication experience began with hurricanes Katrina and Rita and continued years later with Louisiana's innovative sheltering and food assistance operations following the compound disaster of the COVID-19 pandemic and a punishing string of major hurricanes (Laura, Delta, Zeta and Ida). The response and targeted digital communication strategies Heitman helped develop have served as national models.

She has helped guide the communication efforts of organizations that include:
Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services
Louisiana Recovery Authority
University of Louisiana System
Louisiana Department of Education
Louisiana Office of Youth Development (now Office of Juvenile Justice)
Louisiana Highway Safety Commission
Louisiana Public Facilities Authority
Community Coffee Company
See Catherine's full profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherineheitman/.