Catherine Mayer.
Catherine Mayer is an author, journalist, and political activist.
As co-founder and former President of the Women's Equality Party, Catherine helped reimagine politics as a force for inclusion and collaboration. Her books include Send Them Victorious: Royal Women, Their Battles and Why We Should Care (2026), Charles: The Heart of a King (2022), Good Grief (2020), and Attack of the Fifty Foot Women (2017), challenging assumptions and sparking conversations about leadership, equality, and human connection. She also co-founded the award-winning Primadonna Festival.
Catherine began her career at The Economist and served as TIME's London Bureau Chief and Editor at Large. Her career has bridged media, leadership, and creativity, from shaping public debate through her writing to performing original work on stage. She continues to bring her curiosity and conviction to projects that champion equality, culture, and human connection.
keynote speeches.
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We are more divided than ever before and not just on subjects that directly touch on our lives. How can we hope to reach consensus in the workplace if we’re passionately polarised on Meghan and Harry or whether cancel culture even exists? Catherine looks at the drivers of such polarisation, unpicks the way that these arguments are often proxies for other issues such as race and inequality, and looks at what works, and what definitely doesn’t, to defuse potential hostilities and bring people together.
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This addresses some of the key points in the Difference Works keynote, but looking in more detail at the subject of female participation in the economy and the workplace. Why is it that organisations struggle to retain women and how can they improve that record? And, why the rewards of doing so are huge.
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There is something much more damaging than saying the wrong thing to the newly bereaved—saying nothing at all. Not that there’s much value to mumbled platitudes or ill-timed expressions of sympathy (grieving people often seek a semblance of normality at work and may not wish to be forced to answer questions about how they’re feeling). Luckily, such mistakes are easy to avoid. Catherine talks about what she’s learned from dealing with the bereaved and from her own widowhood and other losses.
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Organisations know they need to improve the diversity of their workforces—but they often don’t know why. Catherine unravels the confusion surrounding diversity and diversity programmes, highlights the dangers of creating echo chambers or cultures that suppress dissident opinions and demonstrates the value of more inclusive cultures.
videos.
Showreel
books.
in the news.
