Catherine Timko is the founding principal of The Riddle Company, a Washington DC based economic development marketing firm, as well as a senior advisor at Econsult Solutions. The Riddle Company works with communities and companies across North America and positions them to effectively compete. Projects range from strategic business and marketing planning to positioning and business development strategies. We help our clients to craft strategy and language to advance business development, business attraction and investment. We leverage our relationships with the target industries and the media to enhance our clients’ public profiles. Our work has resulted in over $75M of earned media for client communities, influenced the creation of over 4,250 jobs, 3.5 M SF of new retail development, and nearly $1 Billion of investment.
Retail attraction is one of her specialties. Catherine has completed retail marketing and attraction strategies for almost every major market on the East Coast including Miami, Atlanta, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark and Boston. Her recent work on the Center City Philadelphia retail campaign, Be In On It, has achieved national recognition and resulted in over 300,000 SF of new retail investment. Catherine is an active member of APA, IDA, IEDC, ULI, and ICSC, and is the former Dean for Economic Development for ICSC University of Shopping Centers.
Earlier in her career as a city planner, Catherine worked for Wallace, Roberts and Todd on downtown planning and economic development projects and served as the project manager for what is now the SoFI District in Miami Beach. She has been involved in more than 75 downtown planning and marketing projects nationwide. and has been instrumental in the development of critical financing and marketing tools while working in local government and then as a consultant to communities and private investors. Catherine recently completed a national study analyzing the impact of BIDs and promotion on local business performance. Her knowledge of best practices is invaluable in shaping and implementing community based retail development models that work.
Over the past 20 years, she has consulted with communities, economic development organizations, and BIDs of all sizes in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Maryland, Virginia, Texas, Florida and Washington, D.C., advising them on retail and business attraction programs with measureable success. Private clients include Madison Retail Group, Marcus & Millichap, Lowe Enterprises, Bank of America, Roadside Development, City Center Retail, Pritzker Residential, Equity Residential and Tishman. Catherine is an active member of APA, IDA, IEDC, ULI and ICSC, and is the former Dean for Economic Development for ICSC University of Shopping Centers.
