user

Biography

Cato Lie Biography

Cato Lie is currently President for the International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, the organization of persons with disabilities and full EDF member.

Since 2002, he has worked for FFO, the Norwegian Federation of Organisations of Disabled People also a member of EDF. For the past nine year, he has been- responsible for FFOs policy on universal design and accessibility in all areas of society, buildings and housing, transport and ICT. He aims to influence politicians in the Norwegian Government and Parliament on accessibility on behalf of FFO.

Cato Lie is a man of 60 years and a father of two. He was born with Spina Bifida and he is a wheelchair user. Having experienced discrimination and inaccessibility in built environment and of healthcare services in his home country, he has grown up in the Netherlands and moved back to Norway in 1979

Cato has a masters’ degree in business administration (MBA) from Handelsakademiet in Oslo. He has extensive experience of working and volunteering in both private and public sectors, such as marketing assistive technologies, overseeing financial management and logistical coordination.

He has outside his work been head of the Municipal Council on Disability in Nesodden municipality for 6 years, but stepped back and he is now a regular member in his third term. I He is also involved in the local sports club (FIF), where his oldest daughter plays indoor hockey.

In addition, he has for many years been engaged in work with disabled people, both as a competitor in wheelchair-basketball, wheelchair dancing and handicap diving, and as a representative on several boards, including Spina Bifida Association and he also was former chairman of Training and Consultancy Centre (TRS) at Sunnaas hospital. The latter office gave him valuable political experience, as it was necessary to fight for the center’s existence at the highest political and bureaucratic level. He was a Board member of FFO for about one year, before he started working at FFOs secretariat.

As a person, he is used to working systematically and hard. He is outgoing and cheerful, and greatly appreciate both humor and thoughtfulness in a hectic life situation.