Caterpillar Business Psychologists Ltd is owned by Kate Williams, an award-winning Chartered Occupational Psychologist and Chartered Coaching Psychologist.
Kate Williams has a depth of expertise in organisational change, leadership development and executive coaching.
Kate founded Caterpillar Business Psychologists Ltd in 1999, working with her Associates to help leaders in organisations implement change. Using psychology to unlock potential, Caterpillar has an impressive client list, has gained professional recognition and has helped people and organisations across the globe to grow, exceed their own expectations and fulfil potential.
Kate is passionate about enabling her clients to understand and reach their full potential. She believes in taking a flexible, client-centred approach to her work that is designed to help an individual, team or whole organisation get ‘fit and healthy’ for the challenges they face. With her training in psychology and organisational experience she is able to support managers to make difficult shifts in their way of operating, helping them to add to their repertoire of leadership behaviours and build their confidence.
I attended coaching with Kate for around 2 years as part of my development into a senior leadership role within plc. When I first started the sessions with Kate I had been recently promoted and was nervous about my ability to perform in my new role. I have suffered from imposter syndrome my entire career and I was worried that this would hold me back from fulfilling my potential. Kate was able to help me draw out very quickly why I felt the way I did which in itself was a bit of a revelation. We spent time reflecting on my career in and outside of plc and my achievements in and outside of work. In addition, Kate really helped me see that what I was experiencing was “normal” and taught me to be kind to myself!!
Over the course of my sessions my confidence grew, and I started to feel excited about my new role and for the first time in a very long time I really believed I deserved to be in the role and part of the senior team. That was a real lightbulb moment for me and not one I would ever have arrived at had Kate not coached me. From a leadership perspective Kate has helped me identify what kind of leader I want to be and what kind of culture I want to build for my team. I now feel extremely proud to be leading a team of high performing individuals who enjoy being part of my team.
Kate has helped me in so many ways not just in helping me drive my career forward but also in how to manage a successful career as a mum and a wife. She is an extremely warm person, has a positive outlook and is a realist. There is nothing I didn’t feel I could share with Kate and in doing so I was able to overcome things that were standing in my way of success and I learned a lot about myself along the way. I would thoroughly recommend Kate as a coach, for me Kate’s real strength was that she was able to look at my life as a whole and didn’t just focus on my career. I found this to be really important as one impacts the other which is not something I had really considered before. She is someone that listens intently, challenges your thinking and encourages you to think differently about situations and reflect.
I found the coaching with Kate to be the most valuable thing I have ever done in my career. Kate has helped shape me into a high performing leader at plc but most importantly it has helped me truly believe in myself for the first time in my life!
Kate’s Leadership Development work with her colleague Jonty Leicester is currently featured on the Association for Business Psychology website in a new feature ‘Evidence in Action – How Business Psychologists are having an Impact’. Click on the link below to read more about the background to one of the most impactful parts of a recent leadership programme run by Kate and Jonty. https://theabp.org.uk/evidence-in-action-how-business-psychologists-are-having-an-impact/
Supporting a Primary School in Special Measures.
Kate from Caterpillar and Sally from Perform & Grow jointly carried out some large and small group facilitation, supporting the Senior Leadership Team of a school in special measures. A programme of development was co-created with the Head Teacher and allowed staff to reflect on strengths, build confidence and develop their plans and impetus for improvement. His Majesty's chief inspector of education and training in Wales has now removed the school from the list of those requiring special measures.
The Head teacher, Damien Beech commented “Sally and Kate were excellent partners at a challenging time for the school”.
This work involved working closely with the Head Teacher to create a shared understanding of objectives, challenges and strengths to build a consistent programme of development that would deliver results efficiently alongside other priorities for the school and busy teaching staff.
Kate has been working with the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales, building teams, facilitating learning and running workshops, including presenting ‘Leading Change’ at the Head Teachers Annual Conference, 2023.
“Over the past five years, Kate Williams has collaborated with more than 50 educational leaders through the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales. Her work with type coach, action learning, and system leadership has made a measurable impact, enhancing leaders’ capacity to foster collaboration and drive systemic improvement across Welsh education.” Mark Isherwood, Director for Leadership & Quality Assurance.
Part of the education reform journey, set out by Welsh Government as a key driver of high-quality teaching and leadership, Kate and a colleague Sally Evans, were commissioned to design, deliver and evaluate a pilot System Leadership Programme for the National Academy in 2021. Running the first programme during the pandemic meant much of the input was online. It was both novel and successful. The co-creation needed for developing and designing this cutting-edge programme was well served by Zoom meetings, allowing a diverse range of stakeholders to participate. The programme ran over 8 months with 18 participants learning about and applying the skills of system leadership in Education with impact measures taken post programme.
Kate Williams worked closely with colleagues Sally Evans and Michael Baker to develop a programme to support school leaders to implement change in their schools. Commissioned by two Local Authorities, it supported 110 schools to respond to the Welsh Government’s 2021 framework: Embedding a Whole School Approach to Emotional and Mental Wellbeing. We created a 4 x 1-day programme to increase participant’s knowledge and skills of project management, change management and emotional and mental wellbeing.
What has happened since? A participating school attained Healthy Schools highest award; another was awarded a Healthy Schools award. An Additional Learning Needs Parents Support Group has been created across a cluster of schools, with another school cluster creating a common set of approaches for addressing Wellbeing in a single geographic community.
Finalists in the awards category ‘Change Management’ at the Association for Business Psychology Awards 2023, this required entrants to demonstrate how they applied business psychology principles and practices to support organisations in managing change effectively and evidence to show how the approach resulted in successful change outcomes.
I attended coaching with Kate for around 2 years as part of my development into a senior leadership role within plc. When I first started the sessions with Kate I had been recently promoted and was nervous about my ability to perform in my new role. I have suffered from imposter syndrome my entire career and I was worried that this would hold me back from fulfilling my potential. Kate was able to help me draw out very quickly why I felt the way I did which in itself was a bit of a revelation. We spent time reflecting on my career in and outside of plc and my achievements in and outside of work. In addition, Kate really helped me see that what I was experiencing was “normal” and taught me to be kind to myself!!
Over the course of my sessions my confidence grew, and I started to feel excited about my new role and for the first time in a very long time I really believed I deserved to be in the role and part of the senior team. That was a real lightbulb moment for me and not one I would ever have arrived at had Kate not coached me. From a leadership perspective Kate has helped me identify what kind of leader I want to be and what kind of culture I want to build for my team. I now feel extremely proud to be leading a team of high performing individuals who enjoy being part of my team.
Kate has helped me in so many ways not just in helping me drive my career forward but also in how to manage a successful career as a mum and a wife. She is an extremely warm person, has a positive outlook and is a realist. There is nothing I didn’t feel I could share with Kate and in doing so I was able to overcome things that were standing in my way of success and I learned a lot about myself along the way. I would thoroughly recommend Kate as a coach, for me Kate’s real strength was that she was able to look at my life as a whole and didn’t just focus on my career. I found this to be really important as one impacts the other which is not something I had really considered before. She is someone that listens intently, challenges your thinking and encourages you to think differently about situations and reflect.
I found the coaching with Kate to be the most valuable thing I have ever done in my career. Kate has helped shape me into a high performing leader at plc but most importantly it has helped me truly believe in myself for the first time in my life!
Kate’s Leadership Development work with her colleague Jonty Leicester is currently featured on the Association for Business Psychology website in a new feature ‘Evidence in Action – How Business Psychologists are having an Impact’. Click on the link below to read more about the background to one of the most impactful parts of a recent leadership programme run by Kate and Jonty. https://theabp.org.uk/evidence-in-action-how-business-psychologists-are-having-an-impact/
Supporting a Primary School in Special Measures.
Kate from Caterpillar and Sally from Perform & Grow jointly carried out some large and small group facilitation, supporting the Senior Leadership Team of a school in special measures. A programme of development was co-created with the Head Teacher and allowed staff to reflect on strengths, build confidence and develop their plans and impetus for improvement. His Majesty's chief inspector of education and training in Wales has now removed the school from the list of those requiring special measures.
The Head teacher, Damien Beech commented “Sally and Kate were excellent partners at a challenging time for the school”.
This work involved working closely with the Head Teacher to create a shared understanding of objectives, challenges and strengths to build a consistent programme of development that would deliver results efficiently alongside other priorities for the school and busy teaching staff.
Kate has been working with the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales, building teams, facilitating learning and running workshops, including presenting ‘Leading Change’ at the Head Teachers Annual Conference, 2023.
“Over the past five years, Kate Williams has collaborated with more than 50 educational leaders through the National Academy for Educational Leadership Wales. Her work with type coach, action learning, and system leadership has made a measurable impact, enhancing leaders’ capacity to foster collaboration and drive systemic improvement across Welsh education.” Mark Isherwood, Director for Leadership & Quality Assurance.
Part of the education reform journey, set out by Welsh Government as a key driver of high-quality teaching and leadership, Kate and a colleague Sally Evans, were commissioned to design, deliver and evaluate a pilot System Leadership Programme for the National Academy in 2021. Running the first programme during the pandemic meant much of the input was online. It was both novel and successful. The co-creation needed for developing and designing this cutting-edge programme was well served by Zoom meetings, allowing a diverse range of stakeholders to participate. The programme ran over 8 months with 18 participants learning about and applying the skills of system leadership in Education with impact measures taken post programme.
Kate Williams worked closely with colleagues Sally Evans and Michael Baker to develop a programme to support school leaders to implement change in their schools. Commissioned by two Local Authorities, it supported 110 schools to respond to the Welsh Government’s 2021 framework: Embedding a Whole School Approach to Emotional and Mental Wellbeing. We created a 4 x 1-day programme to increase participant’s knowledge and skills of project management, change management and emotional and mental wellbeing.
What has happened since? A participating school attained Healthy Schools highest award; another was awarded a Healthy Schools award. An Additional Learning Needs Parents Support Group has been created across a cluster of schools, with another school cluster creating a common set of approaches for addressing Wellbeing in a single geographic community.
Finalists in the awards category ‘Change Management’ at the Association for Business Psychology Awards 2023, this required entrants to demonstrate how they applied business psychology principles and practices to support organisations in managing change effectively and evidence to show how the approach resulted in successful change outcomes.
