The Women’s Organisation – the largest developer and deliverer of training and support for women in the UK, headquartered in Liverpool – has a new Director of Business Development and Strategy.
Katie Dean, an economist by training, has experience in business and strategy development – with a career spanning corporate banking, international consultancy, and local government, before joining the Women’s Organisation.
Liverpudlian Katie worked at national level with a global economic development consultancy firm, using her experience in banking to develop specialisms in SME access to finance and strategy development.
After stints in London and Manchester, Katie returned to Liverpool in 2019 and joined the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority as the lead economist, where she played a pivotal part in shaping the region’s economic strategy and providing expert advice on high-profile investment projects.
Katie then led on strategic transformation for the Combined Authority, working on the development of the Corporate Plan and supporting strategies, including the organisation’s first ever Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion strategy.
In her new role, Katie will be deploying a robust evidence base to ensure that national and local policy and investment initiatives are effectively structured to encourage and enable SMEs to start and grow and deliver increased levels of social and economic prosperity.
Katie will be specifically working on female entrepreneurship and socially trading enterprises to ensure that they are afforded the same development opportunities as other enterprises. She will be responsible for helping to grow The Women’s Organisation’s international markets and leading with business innovation.
She said:
“I’m delighted to be joining such a dynamic and entrepreneurial organisation, with its focus on supporting businesses and in particular women by promoting equality and inclusion.”
The Women’s Organisation was established in 1996 and has supported over 80,000 women and helped to create more than 5,000 businesses, generating impact through employment, enterprise and wellbeing support; business incubation; programme management; consultancy; and research and influence.