Katherine has over 10 years cross-sector experience working to promote sustainable development among the private sector. She has international experience supporting companies to develop strategies to manage and report on their sustainability risks, opportunities and impacts. Working with international NGOs, bilateral and multilateral agencies, Katherine has also worked extensively to develop the wider ecosystem to provide guidance and tools to support companies in their sustainability journey.

As a sustainability reporting expert, at the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), Katherine facilitated  international multi-stakeholder working groups to develop GRI sustainability reporting guidance using a consensus seeking approach. This included thematic, country and sector specific reporting guidance. She engaged with companies in the media, construction and real estate, airport operators and events sectors among others to create and encourage the adoption of global sector specific sustainability reporting guidance to respond to their unique sustainability challenges and impact. Building on this experience, during her time working at Ernst & Young India Katherine advised Indian companies on their sustainability strategy and reporting process, and Indian chambers of commerce including AIMA on promoting responsible business among their membership. In addition Katherine ran capacity building workshops for Indian public sector banks on monitoring, evaluating and reporting on their sustainability performance including their efforts to promote financial inclusion.

Katherine has supported bilateral and multi-lateral agencies on their strategies for promoting responsible business behaviour among companies in developing countries. In India she authored a market study and facilitated a multi-stakeholder engagement process  for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on the international and India specific responsible finance trends. In turn she developed the business strategy, and participated in two appraisal missions to establish a new 3 million EUR bilateral assistance programme for the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) & GIZ on Responsible Finance in India.

Women’s economic empowerment is an area of  thematic expertise. While at GRI in partnership with the IFC, Katherine managed a international stakeholder engagement process and co-authored the ‘IFC-GRI Embedding Gender in Sustainability Reporting –  A Practitioner’s Guide’.  Subsequently she was responsible for the fundraising, partnership development and in turn the project management of  the G3.1 Gender Update process for the GRI Guidelines, facilitating the multi-stakeholder working group meetings. More recently Katherine developed the reporting guidance for the UN Women UNGC Women’s Empowerment Principles and contributed to the authoring of an IFC global gender baseline study on access to finance for SME women entrepreneurs.

Katherine has a focus on responsible business among SMEs and social enterprises in the Indian context.  As a technical expert to the multi donor MSME financing and development project in India, Katherine advised the Small Industries Development Bank (SIDBI) on its sustainability and reporting strategy and advised on its role to act as a catalyst for responsible business behavior among MSMEs. She undertook a market assessment of the social enterprise ecosystem in India for GIZ including planning and facilitation of 3 capacity building workshops with donors, impact investors and incubators. In addition she facilitated the stakeholder engagement process and undertook research on Climate Change Adaptation Innovation Opportunities for Indian MSMEs for the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Small Industries Development Bank India (SIDBI).