An Interview with Catherine Callow, COO

Catherine Callow joins the Faraday Institution as Chief Operating Officer on 8th September 2025. We talked to Catherine about her motivations, experience and drive for data-driven decision making.

What attracted you to serve as COO of the Faraday Institution?

I have a passion for the innovation sector and was looking for a prominent role in an organisation that had a clear focus and mission, with strong links into industry as well as academia. I’ve known about the Faraday Institution – and the wider Battery Challenge – since its inception. KTN (the organisation I previously worked for) was involved with stakeholder engagement before the Faraday Institution was launched. So, it’s wonderful to have the chance to support the organisation’s mission directly as COO.

What are you most looking forward to about the role as COO?

That would have to be the opportunity to support the organisation’s collaborative research programmes as we all fuse around the common goal of the electrification agenda. I’m also looking forward to learning about the breadth of science programmes and industry involvement.

In my previous role I was mostly inward looking – liaising with 300+ employees. The FIHQ is much smaller than that, so I’m looking forward to being much more outward facing, and being able to help facilitate wider partnerships, including into Faraday Institution projects.

What experiences did you have at the highly aligned organisation Innovate UK Business Connect (IUK BC) that you will bring into the Faraday Institution? What are your preferred ways of working?

I joined Knowledge Transfer Networks four months after several companies had been merged into one. That’s just one example of when I built and optimised systems (in finance, HR and IT and beyond), and managed funders and funding.

I’m a fixer. I roll my sleaves up, trouble shoot, optimise, and get stuck in. I’m always looking for opportunities to automate systems, to reduce administrative burden, to remove pain points from people’s day-to-day roles, freeing up their time to be productive, to do the hard thinking or to up-skill. I’ll be bring that same mindset to the Faraday Institution.

You’ve served in finance and operations roles for a further education college and other organisations in the education sector. Tell us about that.

The college I worked for was in financial recovery and I played a role delivering a three-year plan to significantly build revenue streams and diversify our training offering. That involved development of commercial courses, apprenticeship training, and growing the number of international students. Helping to developing that wide, accessible offering, suitable for learners whatever their path to or through the education system was very fulfilling.

I wouldn’t anticipate being particularly involved with the skills development programme at the Faraday Institution, but these are examples of how I thrive on working through challenges and inflection points.

How have you worked with academics in the past?

Yes. I’ve worked a lot with academics. I originally trained as an engineer (in the design and manufacture of electrical equipment) and I grew up in an academic environment. When I was Management Accountant at Activate Learning we started delivering university courses from De Montfort University. So I’m deeply familiar with how academics work, and how that differs, typically, to people working in industry. I have played roles in agreeing common operating frameworks, and to roll out best practice to ease processes for academics.

We’re always looking to improve our EDI practices. What experience do you bring in creating more diverse and inclusive communities?

The diversity and inclusion (DI) team at IUK BC reported to me. Initially it was internally focused – improving recruitment practices and aligning policies with best practice. More recently the team has been delivering programmes like Women in Innovation, which aims to enable women to fully achieve their vision for their businesses and which champions and celebrates gender diversity.

For the last two years the IUK BC DI team has been supporting Innovate UK in improving accessibility in competitions and grant applications to facilitate reasonable adjustments service and give an equal level of opportunity for all applicants. It’s been challenging but has really open my eyes to accessibility issues and how different people consume information differently.

Are there any other thoughts you’d like to share?

The finance function is my bread and butter. I’ve always worked in audit-heavy fields where there is, rightly, scrutiny around public use of funds. As you might expect of a finance executive I like data. I take pride running a finance function that performs predictably to support good data-driven decision making across functions.

Meet and welcome Catherine

Catherine Callow will join the Faraday Institution as Chief Operating Officer on Monday 8th September 2025. Please reach out to her at the Faraday Institution Conference and introduce yourselves and start a dialogue.

Read Catherine Callow’s bio.

Posted on September 2, 2025