Kat Thomas, Wine Education and Training Manager, The Hakkasan Group, Las Vegas (USA)

Kat Thomas, Wine Education and Training Manager, The Hakkasan Group, Las Vegas (USA)

Cathy Huyghe
Hospitality, Educator

Years in the Industry:

My years in the industry of hospitality must include, and start, with my time in charge of the crouton placement on salads at dinner when I was just 4 years old. Oh how proud I was to have that job, though many times the amount of croutons that actually made it into the salad were sparse as I thoroughly enjoyed them.

It wasn’t until 8 years ago when I truly felt the joy and fear of the study of wine when I was given a chance to be a floor sommelier, though without any knowledge of where Champagne was on a map, and yet I was hooked after day 3 on the service floor. If it hadn’t been for the patience and care of my two mentors and teammates at the restaurant, Jeff Eichelberger and Daniele Tavernaro, I’m not so certain I would’ve survived. It was from here I began the passionate, crazy and loving journey wrapped into serious intention to where I write to you now.

My Biggest Challenge to Wellness?

Being able to stop. I get “addicted” to learning and the go-go-go of it all and all of a sudden there’s the mandatory break in the pattern and I don’t know what exactly to do with myself. At this point there’s a period of self-sabotage that occurs where I ponder why I’m being so “lazy” which draws me into a low vibration period and I keep myself there even knowing I can easily fix it by getting back out of the house, seeing friends and interacting with my body and mind in healthier ways. Le sigh, a cycle I am still improving upon.

How I Keep it Together to Stay Well:

I used to run...a lot, and over the years worked out obsessively, which brought me to have one of my hips replaced last June. I now am listening to my body as I move through my yoga and running practices. If it hurts I give it love. Love used to equal pain for me so it’s been a path of discovery to relearn this and activate my cells to “think” differently.

You can connect with Kat on Facebook, Instagram @Winegoddesslv  Twitter @yoga_kat or MoreThanSomm.com

Cathy Huyghe
Hospitality, Educator
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Cathy Huyghe

Cathy Huyghe is a dynamic media professional with a special interest in wine and the spirit of hospitality. She is also an effective, engaging public speaker on subjects ranging from wine and gastronomy to digital media and entrepreneurship.

Cathy is the co-founder and CEO of Enolytics, a big data startup providing business intelligence for the wine industry. She also currently writes for Forbes.com about the business and politics of the wine industry, and for Inc.com about entrepreneurs with a special focus on women. She is the author of the award-winning book Hungry for Wine: Seeing the World through the Lens of a Wine Glass; she was a finalist for the 2016 IWSC Wine Communicator of the Year award; and she won the 2016 Innovator of the Year award from Diaz Communications.

Cathy's writing has appeared in print and online for both general-interest and wine industry publications including the Harvard Business Review network, The Atlantic, Decanter, Food52.com (where she was the "Wine, Unfussed" columnist), DailyBeast, The Boston Globe, the Washington Post, Wine Enthusiast, GlobalPost, Grist.org, and Daily Candy. She has also been featured on the BBC, WNYC, WGBH, and Nevada Public Radio.

Cathy is the founder of 365daysofwine.com and Red White Boston, a digital media company for the wine industry. Red White Boston produced daily content, monthly tasting events, and a location-based iPhone app of video wine recommendations from their network of 30+ local partner stores. While in Boston, she also managed the wine cellar at WGBH public broadcasting station and managed wine events for donors and the public.

Cathy’s restaurant experience started when she knocked on the kitchen door at Chez Panisse in Berkeley. She also has worked for Jean-Pierre Vigato in Paris (at Natachef bistro and at his two-star restaurant, Apicius) and for Thomas Keller at Bouchon in Las Vegas. She studied at La Varenne École de Cuisine in Burgundy, France; she completed the Wine Studies program at Boston University; and she received Advanced Certification from WSET (Wine and Spirits Education Trust). 

Cathy received a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Design at Harvard in 2004 and a second master’s degree in Journalism in 2010, also from Harvard. Before that, she received a master’s degree in comparative literature from the City University of New York in 1998 and a bachelor’s degree from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in 1995. She is also a trained mediator, and worked for two years at the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School on a project in the Middle East.

In April 2008 she founded the Harvard Alumni in Wine and Food special interest group, which provides educational and networking services to the Harvard alumni and current students. She has also served as the President of the Harvard Club of Georgia, and she has begun a term of service on the Board of Directors for the Harvard Alumni Association.

Her other non-profit involvement includes the Women's Solidarity Society at the new National Center for Civil & Human Rights (Atlanta), grant reviewer for the Food Well Alliance (an Atlanta-based organization that supports the local network of 350 urban farms and community gardens), Coach at GOTR (Girls on the Run) in Atlanta, Board Member at the Greening Youth Foundation (Atlanta), Board Member at The Food Project (Boston), and Mediator at the Neighborhood Justice Center (Las Vegas).

She lives in Atlanta with her husband, their twin boys, and their Bernese Mountain dog, Coco.

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