Bio:
Current employment
1. BT, Director of Regulatory Affairs.
Career highlights
1. OfWat, Chief Executive Officer
2. Office of Rail Regulation, Director of Markets and Economics
3. Office of Telecomm, Economic Advisor
4. Competition & Markets Authority, Director of Remedies & Analysis
At BT Cathryn is responsible for developing and implementing regulatory strategy.
Cathryn was previously Chief Executive of Ofwat. She was responsible for ensuring that Ofwat held a £120 billion industry to account and successfully saw through the delivery of a new strategy for Ofwat, focussed on a vision for the sector of trust and confidence in water and waste water services, and transformed the regulator in order to deliver this.
What do you see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for future and emerging tech (5-20 years)?
Quantum computing, especially when combined with new material being developed in composite matter physics will revolutionise the computing power we can access. The main challenge I see is maintaining trust and legitimacy especially with greater use of AI and machine learning.
What’s the one priority for joint action you would like to take forward?
Public engagement on emerging tech – what are the best tools and techniques to find out what people hope and fear for with new technologies. Because only if we find ways of doing that will we know what we need to navigate to maintain and build trust and legitimacy, which are essential for take up and therefore for the benefits of new technologies to be fully realised.