Katharine Perera

Katharine Perera has spent much of her working life championing community spirit and equality for women. Across her diverse career she’s pushed the boundaries of education and even in retirement, it seems she just can’t help contributing.

During her nine years as Chair of Governors of Withington Girls’ School, Katharine strove to ensure that the school maintained the highest quality of staff, teaching and facilities to provide the best possible platform for development. “I loved the energy and dynamism of the girls,” says Katharine. “They all have individual talents that must be nurtured.” And the focus was not just on academic success, but also sport, drama, music and community service. For her, seeing how they developed and reached the highest levels of achievement “really was uplifting”.

The school was founded in 1890 to provide education for girls on a par with boys, which was unheard of at the time; this was most notably in the areas of science and maths, which Katharine addressed in her professional life too. The aims of the founders were ever present in the mind of Katharine, her fellow governors, the head and her staff, and have been fulfilled with huge academic and extra-curricular success.

Having been a professor of linguistics, Katharine became Senior Pro Vice-Chancellor at Manchester University, where she developed and directed the Women in Leadership project, which aimed to address issues of underrepresentation of women at senior academic levels.

Katharine was eager to raise women’s aspirations and to help them develop leadership skills so they could compete with men for these higher level positions. The project also examined University policy and procedures. “We asked questions like ‘Is the University unintentionally making this difficult for women?’ and ‘Are there particular areas, for example science and engineering, in which women feel isolated?’” she says.

There were found to be problems with working hours and the effect of this on caring responsibilities. Although the initial aims were to make conditions better for women, Katharine found that there were improvements for men as well. “It starts from a female perspective but benefits the whole workforce,” she explains. “We found that it wasn’t only women who wanted more flexible working hours and to spend more time caring for children or relatives. We know that men and women alike work better in mixed environments, so it was important for everybody that some changes were made.”

Katharine feels she has been extremely fortunate in her own career to have such great support and to have been given the opportunity at Manchester to help younger colleagues.
Once the programme was up and running, Katharine stayed on as an adviser, offering mentoring, support and advice for women with regard to leadership and management. She was also involved with policy assessment, considering issues such as maternity arrangements within the University. In her time there, much progress has been made, although she feels there is still lots to do and that the issues that affect women in the workplace are complex.

Coming from an academic background, Katharine had experience of editing journals, and in 2008 she was snapped up to become editor of the Bowdon Church News, a monthly newsletter for St Mary’s parish, where she is a church warden. Each month, 2,500 copies are distributed to every home in Bowdon by 90 volunteers. This year the publication of the 600th issue marked the 50th anniversary of the BCN being distributed throughout the parish. It provides a forum for news about the church and the wider community of Bowdon.

The newsletter also promotes local businesses in the hope that it will help them to survive the recession. Each month, their ‘local business corner’ features the profile of a company and also includes free advertisements for small businesses that have been personally recommended by members of the community. On a personal level, she finds there’s a “certain excitement in seeing what you’ve commissioned or written in print!”

There’s a strong sense of community service throughout the work she’s done. Humble to the very core, she attributes her success to “wonderful colleagues and great friendships”, doing work she enjoys and having loving and supportive friends who can share good times. When she’s not working on her latest newsletter, Katharine and her husband make the most of opportunities to get away and they have just returned from the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe in Paris – their first trip to a race meeting. With this strong sense of adventure and her continuing enthusiasm, there’s no chance of her slowing down any time soon!