Working the Future who we are

Cathryn and Patrick first met as students at the University of Reading in the late eighties, where they bonded over a love of early E.D.M. and French literature...

Nearly three decades later, they realised that they share another passion – the future of work – and that the skills and expertise developed during the course of their professional lives complement each other perfectly when it comes to bringing their insights and knowledge to a wider audience.

© Working the Future Ltd. 2016-2024. Limited company no. 10512378 registered in England and Wales

Registered office address: 42 Longfield Drive, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, HP6 5HE, United Kingdom

Working the Future, the Working the Future logotype and the arrowhead device are all registered trademarks of Working the Future Ltd.

Cathryn Barnard

Cat has a long background in building and nurturing high-performing teams for success outcomes.

She entered the European telecommunications sector in the early 1990s, just as it was deregulating. For the first ten years of her career, she built and supported the engineering teams that designed and deployed 2nd and 3rd - generation mobile phone networks across Europe. These projects were time-critical, requiring laser-focus on outcomes. The networks we depend on today for universal connectivity were delivered ‘on-demand’ – a precursor to agile workforce planning.

Optimising team performance requires both EQ and a fascination for what motivates people.

Cat’s interest in human dynamics has transferred across into her expert analysis of the future of work, and her insights help business leaders futureproof their commercial activities.

Patrick Lodge

Pat is a futurist and emerging trends expert, with a particular interest in generating and demystifying business intelligence applicable to all forms of upstream future-planning activity.

The work he does in this area is designed to help clients better anticipate the socio-cultural change likely to impact their businesses, and to translate the key implications and opportunities emanating from the changing world into actionable strategic imperatives.

Prior to co-founding Working the Future, Pat worked with Breaking Trends, an acclaimed consultancy that has built a solid reputation for generating future-focused trend intelligence for a host of multinational brands and businesses. Like Cat, he’s no stranger to working in the vanguard of emerging or disruptive sectors. Before trend forecasting, Pat worked in digital, starting out in this sector in the pioneering 'wild west’ days of the late '90s, bringing with him the adjacent skills he’d honed in corporate communication.

Our future of work crew

We believe that future workforces and teams will be far more dynamic, diverse and fluid in their make-up. Purposeful, 'blended' teams of 'permanent' and 'temporary' / freelance / interim staff will come together around customer challenges and opportunities to create, deliver and reflect on new products and services. A key feature of this new approach will be much closer, ongoing dialogue with their client cohorts.

In appreciation of this shift, we are growing our own ‘crew’ of future of work experts, collaborating with others through a set of core values and a clear vision for the change we want to see in the world of work.

Luis Suarez

Luis is a well-seasoned community builder and a Social / Open Business strategist with over 27 years' working experience in the fields of Knowledge Management, Collaboration, Learning, Online Communities of Practice, Remote / Distributed Work and Social Networking for Business.

He's currently focusing on helping organisations make the most out of their own change management initiatives, digital transformation and community building programmes (including Social Business) with social, digital tools as key enablers. In a nutshell, he’s helping organisations work smarter, not necessarily harder, while embracing and adapting to working distributedly in an effective manner.

As well as via the LinkedIn button here, Luis can be contacted on Mastodon at @elsua.

Liz Clayton-Jones

Liz has over three decades of experience within global FMCG, giving her deep insights into the workings of complex organisations and the people who lead and serve them.

A certified Strengths Coach with 15 years in engagement and learning and development-focused roles, Liz specialises in developing highly engaged and collaborative teams, helping people understand and activate their unique strengths, diverse thinking and working styles, and using these to intentionally collaborate for greater success.

Our research shows that newer generations are motivated by work that provides a sense of purpose and unique contribution. In addition, we know diverse and collaborative teams are more able to deliver innovative solutions to the new challenges the future of work is unveiling. The insights and experience Liz brings can help organisations make significant shifts to achieve both.

Dr Naeema Pasha

Dr Naeema Pasha is a future of work consultant and a leading expert in AI, diversity and skilling. She set up and led the World of Work (WOW) Institute at Henley Business School, which examined the future of work, including the ethical impact of AI on work, workers and workplaces. At WOW, she made a film, Privacy Ltd, on the ethics of the use and effect of facial recognition technology in UK society. At Henley, she also carried out a groundbreaking research on race equity in UK businesses, The Equity Effect. Today she advises on organisations and institutions on AI, diversity and skills projects, as well as policy (she has recently contributed to a UN Paper on the dangers of Generative AI).

Naeema has co-authored a book, Futureproof Your Career, covering the key issues of diversity, technologies and societal impacts, including the pandemic effects on careers and work. Her latest book chapter is on AI Coachbots and their implications for creating a perfect but de-humanised workplace. Naeema has been made a Visiting Fellow at Henley for her work on AI, Diversity and Skills and has also been recognised by Ifpc-online as one of the Top 50 Worldwide Influencers on AI Ethics.