Catherine joined PPL from Nesta, the UK’s innovation agency for social good, where she was Co-Director of the People Powered Results team, which pioneered new approaches to achieving change and innovation in systems. The team worked with over 500 local and national organisations to create the conditions and cultures required to rapidly adopt new innovations and scale what works.

Her work has focussed on leading innovation programmes at national, regional, and local levels – focussing on a varied innovation offer, including:

• Curating insights: Supporting systems to understand the world through the perspectives of people closest to challenges, and curate insights that drive action. Such as working with NHS England to better understand the conditions to effectively provide peer support to people with lived conditions, and co-design the Peer Leadership Development Programme
• Visioning and strategy work: Adopting a futures-focussed and participatory approach to strategy design and implementation planning. Such as working with Waltham Forest Council to redesign the children and families strategy through Covid-19.
• Making it Real: Bringing ideas to life by accelerating the pace and improving the experience of change in complex systems through people-centred and rapid testing approaches. Such as working with NHS Confederation and Arts Council Wales to support 19 partnerships exploring how creativity and the arts can play a role in addressing inequalities.

Catherine holds a BA (Hons) in Geography from University of Sheffield and was previously an Associate at the Young Foundation, focussing on ethnography, innovation skills development & workshop design/facilitation.