Kate Milne is a passionate Heath Promoter who started Cardea Health Consulting to provide healthy ageing solutions. Cardea teaches organizations how to more deeply engage, support and retain their midlife and older female talent by making their workplaces age-friendly.

She also offers a direct-to-consumer coaching program for women 50+, called Age Sister. With experience running three successful businesses in the past three decades, Kate is no stranger to dealing with risk, thinking outside the box and pushing her limits.

I have always had the mindset of an entrepreneur because I love to build things and learn and grow at the same time.

Today she is sharing her passion for support and education for women’s health by helping her clients with her signature four-part framework that focuses on movement, home life, the menopausal transition, and brain health.

Built around the goal of helping populations of people age in a healthier way, Kate’s business, Cardea Health Consulting, provides evidence-based lifestyle programs that can profoundly change the course of ageing. These programs work with clients to increase movement, build strength, reduce stress, improve brain health practices, manage the menopausal transition, and balance occupational and home demands.

In 2021 Kate received support through the help of WeBC’s Regional Relief and Recovery Fund. With this loan, Kate could implement online courses to help more people during the pandemic.

This loan helped me elevate my business by putting Cardea and Age Sister onto an all-in-one website/Learning Management System. It also allowed me to build-out several online courses for both sites to attract new customers.

Looking into the future, Kate hopes to serve more of the corporate market and launch even more online offerings to support new and existing clients in the coming year.

Loan Client Q&A

Q. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned while running your business?

My biggest lesson has been to outsource what you are not good at while learning as much as you can about all parts of your business.

Q. What challenges have you faced over the past 18 months, and how have you overcome them?

The role of health promotion consulting services to governmental organizations has shrunk significantly, especially with the onset of the global pandemic. Changes in demand for health promotion services meant that I had to find a way to evolve my business offerings.  Given how COVID has impacted work, I am focusing more on Cardea consulting services in the workplace, specifically on midlife and older women at work (women over the age of 45 make up half of the current workforce).  I spent ten years in workplace health and disability management, which allows me to make a reasonably easy pivot.

The biggest threat to companies in 2022 is the departure of mid-level managers during the Great Resignation, in which women are predicted to leave at the highest rates. Only 68% of women recently surveyed plan to stay in their current roles – a drop of 22 points in only one year. C-suite women are leaving at the highest rate of all. A lack of focus on employee well-being is one of the top reasons women are exiting their workplaces at such an alarming rate.

I also worked on a multi-year research project with midlife women, looking at the impact of helping them to make lifestyle changes earlier in the ageing process. That work has allowed me to develop a comprehensive well-being program to teach employers how to best support this population.

Where to Find Cardea Health Consulting

CardeaHealthConsulting.com

309 West Cordova Street #326, Vancouver, British Columbia V6B 1E5, Canada

(604) 710-6464