Kate Josephs

Kate Josephs joined Sheffield City Council as Chief Executive in January 2021, having spent 20 years in national-government in the UK and United States. She joins Sheffield from a 6 month tour of duty as Director General in the Cabinet Office’s COVID 19 Taskforce.

Kate’s career as a senior leader in the UK civil service has included positions in HM Treasury; the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit; and from 2016-2020 in the Department for Education (DfE). In DfE Kate held roles with responsibility for national strategy, operations and oversight across the Academies Programme; and from 2019 was responsible for the creation of a new centre of excellence for schools, academies and post 16 funding, with oversight of £63billion in annual funding.

Prior to joining the DfE, Kate spent 2.5 years in Washington D.C. working for the US Federal Government during the Obama Administration, including as Executive Director of the White House Performance Improvement Council, working across US Government Agencies – on priorities from veterans’ affairs to STEM education – with a mission to advance and expand the practice of performance analytics and improvement.

Kate grew up in Doncaster and lives in Sheffield with her husband and two children.