Katherine McDonald
Director of Consultancy
Katherine is Director of Consultancy with Stratagem and is a founder member of the firm. She advises some of Stratagem's longest-term clients and has provided project management to a range of organisations working in complex legislative and regulatory environments. She has also led higher-profile campaigns co-ordinating policy development, lobbying and public relations. She has developed and delivered a comprehensive and popular training programme on lobbying, campaigning and understanding government in Northern Ireland.
Katherine worked for the Labour Party based at Westminster for four years. After one year with Tony Blair MP, she worked as research and press assistant to Mo Mowlam MP, then Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. She has also worked for the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO).
Katherine studied Modern Languages at St John's College, Oxford, going on to complete a Master's degree at the University of Ulster in Journalism Studies, where she examined the potential of the internet as a tool to increase public engagement with the Northern Ireland Assembly. She continued in education completing a Certificate in Management with the Open University and in 2006 spent two months at the University of California, Berkeley, taking a course in Politics, Ethics and Leadership at the School of Political Science.
She has studied the American lobbying system in Washington and has undertaken leadership training at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She has been a board member of the Ulster People's College since 2000.