Cate has been the executive director of Clervaux Trust for about one month having left a management post in a local authority at the end of April 2011. She has worked within education and with children and young people with additional needs throughout her career; having first trained as a secondary science teacher and then as an educational psychologist.

Cate went to school in the south of England (Hertfordshire) but has always worked in the North East where her roots are.