Hi Catherine, hope you're ok. Can you paint a portrait for us of yourself and your role?
I’m something of a mum?preneur, largely because motherhood and entrepreneurship seemed to arrive as a package deal. My first business was born out of necessity after swapping a senior role in a large London charity for life in the Cumbrian countryside with four children, various pets and the realisation that “my kind of job” (and good shoes) didn’t exactly co?exist with farm life.
As the children grew up, I founded three companies, delivered several major consultancy projects, completed my master’s degree and now find myself embarking on a PhD here at Lancaster. These days, I’m down to just one elderly Labrador, whose idea of adventure is a gentle stroll followed by a long nap. In earlier years, you’d have found us on the hills at every opportunity
My professional life is evolving again: growing Professional Help, selling GriefChat to MuchLoved and, in return, taking on a new role as Head of Charity there. It means I’ll continue to oversee the development of GriefChat, alongside a broader portfolio of bereavement-centred work.
What does a typical working day look like for you?
I usually start the day by checking in with our team, making sure our services and client sessions are running smoothly. I also take a quick look at what our AI GriefBot has been up to overnight - he handles our out?of?hours webchat - and check whether any urgent requests have come in via email.
The rest of the day tends to be a blend of meetings, conversations with existing partners, pitches to potential new ones and time spent pushing our various projects forward. That might mean writing proposals, developing content or working on training materials.
I also act as an experienced voice across the therapy, bereavement and funeral sectors, and I serve on several boards and committees - so my days are rarely dull and never quite the same. And in my “spare” time, I try to keep up with my PhD assignments.
What motivates you to do what you do?
Curiosity, mainly. I’m driven by a desire to understand how things work - the world, its systems and the people within them. I often wish that I ran the kind of business that makes a huge commercial impact, but I know that isn’t what motivates me. My place has always been in social and community ventures, working to improve the ways life impacts people and to create services that make difficult experiences a little easier to bear.
What is/has been your favourite aspect of being part of the collaborative community through the Health Innovation Campus?
I have a deep fondness for the building. There’s something genuinely uplifting about its design: it manages to nod politely to the faintly brutalist charm of the original 抖阴探探App campus while also providing light?filled, airy spaces that feel so ready to welcome bright ideas and innovations.
The people here aren’t bad either. The chance to share a cuppa, exchange news and projects and stumble into unexpected collaboration opportunities has made it a place where I genuinely feel at home.
What future projects and collaborations are you excited about?
I finally took the plunge and started my PhD with the health research team last year, which is both exciting and somewhat daunting. I’m also collaborating with colleagues from the Management School to explore how grief shows up and is experienced in the workplace - a topic that feels long overdue for serious attention and one that will, I hope, be especially relevant to larger organisations.
I’m hopeful that the learning and data from both of my businesses will soon translate into genuine insight and understanding about people and their interactions in online therapeutic spaces. And somewhere in the background I can feel the next business idea quietly brewing, waiting for the right moment to make itself known - probably when I’m meant to be doing something else.