Dr Katherine Maxwell advises cities, governments and businesses on decarbonisation, climate resilience and climate finance. Over fifteen years she has shaped climate strategy for more than thirty cities across four continents, built and led net zero advisory teams, and served on international boards including UN-Habitat’s Climate Action Planning Board and Resilience Rising’s Engineering Leadership Group.

She is currently an Associate at Arup, where she leads climate and sustainability work for public- and private-sector clients, alongside academic appointments as a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, and a Visiting Lecturer at Yale University.

Katherine’s work bridges research and practice. Her first book, Governance Networks for Sustainable Cities: Connecting Theory and Practice in Europe (Routledge, 2023), examines how public, private and third-sector collaboration drives urban sustainability; her second, Collaborative Governance within Global Cities, is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. She has published widely on climate governance, net zero transitions and climate finance, and her commentary has appeared in the New Statesman.

Earlier in her career, Katherine held senior positions at Sweco and WSP, where she founded and led Net Zero Cities teams, and served as Senior Manager for Climate Action Planning at C40 Cities, where the data-driven tools she developed were recognised by the World Bank and the Global Covenant of Mayors. She was awarded the COP26 Climate Resilience Fellowship by the University of Cambridge in 2021.

Katherine holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford, where she was the first person to complete the doctorate in Sustainable Urban Development, and degrees from the University of Edinburgh.

Short bio for event organisers

Dr Katherine Maxwell is a climate strategy advisor, author and academic. An Associate at Arup, Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford and Visiting Lecturer at Yale University, she has advised more than thirty cities worldwide on decarbonisation and resilience, including senior roles at C40 Cities, Sweco and WSP. She is the author of Governance Networks for Sustainable Cities (Routledge, 2023), with a second book forthcoming from Oxford University Press.