My story

A little bit more about my background.

Hello.

I’m Katie. Nature lover, ultra runner, deep thinker, dog mum to a wild golden retriever and fiancé to a Yorkshire farmer.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve lived and breathed the challenges of driving forward ambitious change in a local government context. I’ve designed Creating Impact to provide all of the support, tools and capacity that I wish I’d had at my fingertips.

For the story behind my career, my proudest moments, and the origins of Creating Impact, read on.

Or, if you’ve read enough, do get in touch!

Get in Touch

Circular Beginnings

While studying for my Masters in Sustainability and Business at the University of Leeds, I was drawn to the concept of the circular economy. At a time when many organisations were tinkering round the edges of sustainability, the circular economy presented a more holistic and transformational approach.

So, in 2016, I started my career leading the ambitious Circular Peterborough initiative. In this role, I worked with partners to develop and manage innovative pilots and funding bids, created the Circular City Champions network, and worked with businesses to inspire and support them on their journey to circularity. I quickly learnt the importance of audacious goals, the power of partnership and tenacity to create projects with minimal resources.

As the city’s ambitions grew, I led the co-creation of Peterborough’s Circular City Roadmap – which provided a pathway and monitoring framework towards becoming the UK’s first circular city.

At 23, I was speaking at international conferences to share the lessons learned in the journey to co-create a circular city, from the inaugural World Circular Economy Forum in Helsinki to the People, Innovation, Nature & Creativity (PINC) Conference in the Netherlands .

Creating a Circular City Article
World Circular Economy Forum, Helsinki (2017)
Circular Peterborough Event
IET Sustainable Manufacturing Report featuring Share Peterborough

Driving Regional Climate Action

In 2018, I returned to Yorkshire to take on a new challenge: driving climate action at a regional scale, as York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership’s Low Carbon and Circular Economy Lead.

Over the subsequent years, I led the co-creation and implementation of:
– York and North Yorkshire’s Local Energy Strategy: An evidence-based strategy to increase the adoption of low carbon energy technologies, supporting energy independence and economic growth.
– York and North Yorkshire’s Circular Economy Strategy & Circular Yorkshire Campaign: An innovative systems thinking approach to enable the region to accelerate the transformation to a circular economy, focused on creating change across high-impact sectors & places. This was accompanied by an annual campaign – Circular Yorkshire – raising awareness and supporting collaboration to bridge the gap between interest and action.
– York and North Yorkshire’s Routemap to Carbon Negative: A co-owned strategy to become England’s first carbon negative region.

Sustainable Regions Conference, Barcelona
Facilitating the Launch Workshop for York and North Yorkshire’s Circular Economy Strategy
Presenting at the Foreign Commonwealth Office’s Sustainable Cities Event, Glasgow
Facilitating a Stakeholder Co-creation Workshop

Building Momentum: Supporting Devolution & Combined Authority Mobilisation

As the York and North Yorkshire Local Enterprise Partnership’s Senior Strategy Manager for Low Carbon and Environment, I was responsible for driving forward energy, circular economy, natural capital and farming agendas. My role varied from leading the development of a circular economy framework for Yorkshire and the Humber to overseeing the development of an integrated suite of Local Area Energy Plans (LAEPs).

Alongside this, in 2020, I started working with York and North Yorkshire’s 9 Local Authorities to develop and agree our strategic net zero and natural capital devolution asks. This included leading the development of business cases and strategic positioning with Government. In 2022, this resulted in securing a landmark £7million to drive green growth and a commitment to joint working to achieve the region’s carbon negative ambition and natural capital investment.

Our ambition, evidence-based strategies and strong partnership-working led to central Government gravitating towards York and North Yorkshire to be part of national pilot programmes, including:
– Local Net Zero Accelerator Programme
– Local Investment in Natural Capital Programme
– Defra Place-Based Pathfinder

When the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority was formally launched in early 2024, I was TUPE’d across to work as part of the new CA Team. During the CA’s first 24 months, I led the growth of an amazing team (see pictured!), continued our strong track record of delivery & securing funding, and embedded carbon-negative as a cross-cutting policy priority across functions.

York & North Yorkshire’s Carbon Negative Conference, 2025
2025 APSE Energy Award for Collaboration
Stakeholder Workshop to shape the refresh of Y&NY’s Routemap to Carbon Negative
York & North Yorkshire Carbon Negative Conference 2025
Sharing lessons learnt from devolution at UK100’s Climate Leadership Academy

The Call to Create More Impact

As the national politics surrounding net zero played out in local committee rooms, it made me reflect on the key challenges holding back progress.

After 10 years in local government, it felt like the right time for a new chapter, to leverage what I’d learnt to create more impact. For me, Creating Impact is about returning to a wilder, more radical approach to sustainability – that starts with people – working collaboratively to rethink and create new systems that can catalyse the changes we need to see in the world.