Introducing Cat Taylor

MND Regional Support Advisor Waikato, Taranaki, and Whanganui (North)

Cat Taylor joined the MND NZ Team in late 2025. She is ‘happily un-married’ to her partner of 25 years, with a 22-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter. Their son lives with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Beyond her part-time role for MND NZ, Cat’s a gym instructor and Body Balance teacher at Les Mills and runs fall prevention classes for older people for Sport Waikato.

“I teach four classes each week with approximately 35 to 40 participants in each class – they are so fun,” enthuses Cat about the fall prevention classes. She also facilitates antenatal classes throughout Waikato, and she says she “loves being a small part of that journey into parenthood”.

Cat has found herself drawing on skills from previous roles to help find solutions for the challenges experienced by families impacted by MND she now supports. 

“I trained as a draughtsperson in my 20s, recently I have helped people with MND look at how to arrange furniture to make their space more accessible for equipment requirements and explain how a bathroom could be modified. As a qualified landscape designer, I have discussed a client’s seasonal garden and the changing colours in it. That garden is the only view she gets to see every day,” says Cat.

Outside of work, Cat is an avid adventure-seeker. “I’ve been shark-cage diving in Hawaii, parasailing in Fiji, blackwater rafting in Waitomo, ran off a hill attached to another human with a parachute in Queenstown… let’s see what 2026 brings.”