Cathy graduated in Russian and Soviet Studies from the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies (now part of University College London). She joined the Foreign Office in 1991 to work in the Soviet Research Department and worked there throughout the 1990s as the UK was developing new relationships and opening Embassies in the newly independent states. She went on her first overseas posting as a trade attaché to Moscow in 1999. She has since served in Kuwait and Serbia as well as completing a second tour in Russia. She moved to Ukraine earlier this year to work on energy policy and to head up the Department of International Trade’s Kyiv team.