Cathrine Armour

Biography

Cathrine was Chief Customer Officer at the UK Hydrographic Office (UKHO) from 2018 to June 2022.

Cathrine joined the UKHO in 2018 after an extensive global career in industry and government across environment, geospatial, technology and data science.

Beyond commercial business her expertise lies in the design, development and delivery of transformative ‘critical change’ programmes that resolve essential social and environmental issues while effecting economic growth. In 2014 Cathrine led Ordnance Survey’s Innovation Programme, in partnership with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, launching its ‘Geovation’ accelerator, to stimulate, enable and grow the UK’s geographic information economy.

From 2016, Cathrine was inaugural Director of the South West Centre of Excellence for Satellite Applications at the University of Exeter. Working with the Satellite Applications Catapult, her work has focused the transition of academic research and development to commercial opportunity through innovation. During her tenure, Cathrine secured funding from UK Space Agency for the unique space technology incubation programme ‘SpaceTech’ in partnership with SETSquared and to provide outreach for the European Space Agency across South West England and Wales. As expert analyst for Resilience, Environment and Sustainability on the South West, Science and Innovation Audit she presented the case for innovation in data-centric science as critical for regional economic growth.

Throughout her career, Cathrine has been an advocate of the importance of data and technological development as a means for sustainable economic growth. In 2016 she was shortlisted for the WISE Bloomberg, International Award for Open Source, for her work facilitating international collaboration and cooperation in environmental data for sustainable development.