Catherine directs communications at Malcolm Reading Consultants. She oversees our web and graphic design team and is responsible for each competition’s brand, materials, website, and media strategy. Though always on the look-out for the perfect quote, she is keenly aware that in an increasingly visual culture, an image can be more effective than the most eloquent copy.
Experienced across a range of industries, she initially worked in the City for a Lloyd’s underwriting syndicate and an American investment bank. Subsequently, she trained as a journalist at Haymarket Publishing Ltd and later wrote for The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, World Architecture and The Times Educational Supplement.
At MRC, Catherine has worked closely with many of the UK’s leading press offices. She has written vision statements, media releases and quotes for international museum directors, business leaders, eminent academics and heads of Oxford and Cambridge colleges. She has also written exhibition materials for, amongst others, Arts South Australia, the Natural History Museum, the Saatchi Gallery, Lancaster Castle and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.
As the poet Catherine Ormell, she has been published in national magazines including The Times Literary Supplement, The Spectator, The London Magazine, and a range of poetry journals including The Rialto and Smiths Knoll.
Catherine has won prizes in the National Poetry Competition, the Troubadour International Poetry Competition, the Magma Poetry Competition, the Arvon International Poetry Competition, and the Ware Poets Competition. Campaign Desk was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Poem and is in The Forward Book of Poetry 2009, Delicacy is in The Best British Poetry 2011 and The Catch is in the Fish Anthology 2017. She was also shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship 2019.
Catherine has a Master’s degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.
