Carolyn is the Director for Delivery of Net Zero for Compass Group UK & Ireland, leading multi-disciplinary teams across six sectors to decarbonise its multibillion-pound business: 50,000-strong workforce, 214mn meals, 4,000+ locations, £1.4bn procurement spend. She also sits on the Sustainability Leadership Team for its FTSE 25 parent company: Compass Group plc, the largest contract caterer in the world.

On completing the Leading Sustainable Corporations programme at Saïd Business School, Oxford University, she led and authored a world-first transition plan for the foodservice industry – drawing on 20 years’ experience across diverse roles spanning news reporting, trade journalism, 15th Century manuscript transcription (recipes) and commercial leadership positions in a start-up, SME and two plcs.

This work has given her a front row seat to the complexities of our food system, its dependency on the natural world and the urgency with which we need to communicate the commercial and social significance of recovering this relationship.

To help this effort, learn and constructively challenge is why she wants to ‘work’ until she’s at least 100. Carolyn lives in Peterborough, is a wild swimming enthusiast, proud wife of a serving soldier, mum of two and best friends with the family St Bernard, Kubwa (Swahili for giant).