Catherine Stephens OBE

Cathy grew up in Sarawak and travelled widely in her twenties, living in France and working at UNESCO and in Afghanistan where she got a job with the US Peace Corps.

Cathy started working for the British Council when she was 27 and spent wonderful years living in Zimbabwe, Cameroon, India, Indonesia and Nigeria before coming back to be Director Africa and Asia based in the UK. Her final British Council role was Director Programmes on the Executive Board with responsibility for arts, science and education programmes globally. During her 10 years in India, based in Delhi but working all over the country, Cathy became very familiar with the Charles Wallace India Trust. She has paintings bought at the regular exhibitions of CWIT artists, which used to happen at the British Council.

Having retired from the British Council Cathy lives in Suffolk with her husband. They met in Delhi and he comes from Jalandhar, so Cathy has an Indian family. Also having a young half Indian daughter keeps Cathy aware of what is trending as she confesses that she is not great at social media!   Cathy says that it is a real privilege to serve as a trustee and to help ensure that we continue to meet the objectives of the Trust.

“I have met such impressive CWIT scholars in my five years on the Board. We want to make sure that using the power of the internet we can connect both awardees, and partner institutions, and continue to explore new directions. At the heart of it all remains that clear purpose to enable artists and academics to develop. ”