Katharine is a warfare officer with 29 years’ experience who has deployed on operations to the Gulf, Adriatic, Baltic and West Africa. As an intelligence specialist she has completed staff appointments in 1*, 2* and 3* Joint and RN HQs and is a graduate of the Advanced and Higher Command and Staff Courses. Commissioning in 1996, Katharine’s sea time included assignments to HMS SANDOWN during Air Operations Iraq and Op ALLIED HARVEST in support of NATO’s Kosovo campaign. She subsequently served in HMS GLASGOW as part of the UK response to the civil war in Sierra Leone prior to navigating HMS MANCHESTER. From 2002, Katharine completed a series of personnel appointments, including warfare ratings Branch Manager, responsible for the strategic workforce planning and management of over 6500 ratings, and the officers and warrant officers’ Career Manager for Intelligence, Communications, Hydrographic and Meteorological personnel. Specialising as an intelligence officer in 2011, she was assigned as SO2 N2 to the UK Maritime Component Commander in Bahrain during the Arab Spring. On return, she took Command of the Maritime Intelligence Fusion Cell taking a newly formed organisation to full operating capability providing intelligence to deployed ships and the 2* HQs. Her time in the cross-Whitehall Joint Terrorism and Analysis Centre as PJHQ’s LO covered the rise of Daesh and the Paris attacks and was focussed on providing threat assessments to deployed forces. Katharine returned to PJHQ as SO1 J2 Plans, responsible for intelligence support to the 32 operations in CJO’s joint operating area. Beckoned back to ‘the dark blue’ in 2020 as SO1 Information Exploitation in Navy Digital, she led the development and delivery of intelligence and info ops capability for the RN. Promotion to OF5 followed with assignment as DACOS Naval Intelligence and de facto head of the RN Intelligence specialisation where she delivered a new N2 operating model and led the transformation of Information Warfare within the RN. A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Katharine is married to Rory, a serving RN officer and is mother to three boys. Family life is outdoors focussed and spent on or around a myriad of sports pitches.