Katherine Hannah

In her current role, Katherine is the Head of Customer Engagement and Partnerships in the Innovation Team at Cisco UK and Ireland. With her team, she has created the ‘wow’ factor to ensure Cisco customers who visit our Innovation Centres have the most amazing experience interacting with technology demos of the future to show how Cisco is paving the way in Country Digitisation.

Katherine was responsible for building and driving the Innovation programme at IDEALondon, Cisco’s inaugural Innovation Centre in London, in partnership with University College London and EDF Energy. Katherine is responsible, from a business development perspective, in accelerating the start-ups businesses via Cisco customer and partner introductions, mentorship and establishing relationships with the wider Cisco. Katherine is also a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) Ambassador and is very passionate about educating the entrepreneurs and engineers of the future in the value of studying STEM subjects.

Historically, IDEALondon was one of the main components of Cisco’s British Innovation Gateway or BIG programme, which was Cisco UKI’s core Innovation initiative and a legacy from their involvement in London 2012. The programme was been designed to support and accelerate “tech” innovation across the UK.

Previously Katherine led Operations at Cisco House, a dedicated Cisco facility open for 5 months prior to and during London 2012 and hosted 12,000 guests. Cisco house showcased the 'Next Cisco' and effectively communicated Cisco's key messaging and partner ecosystem. Katherine ensured optimum delivery of the project for Cisco from an operations perspective.

Katherine’s has an M.A. in the History of Art and worked at Sotheby’s in their Impressionist & Modern Art Department for 8 years prior to joining Cisco.

She is passionate about the Arts, Tech, enjoys visiting castles and museums and is a keen swimmer and tennis player. She is married with 2 children.