Katherine Ritchie has never been able to hold to a five year plan, and she is fairly relaxed about that. What she has done instead is say yes, repeatedly, to things that were not on any plan at all. A six month placement before university. An internship she asked to move from Manchester to London, and from tax to transactions. A deferral so she could travel and volunteer at London 2012.
Today she is Head of Future Race Operations at Formula 1, a newly created role leading a multi-year transformation programme behind one of the most logistically demanding sports in the world. In this episode she joins host Sinead Donovan to explain what it takes to move a race around twenty three or twenty four locations a year, why the sport is shifting from air freight to sea freight as part of its 2030 net zero commitment, and what changes when your equipment suddenly needs months of lead time rather than hours.
Getting there took her through operational transaction services at EY, six and a half years at Novartis building a strategy and transformation function around oncology products with a shelf life measured in hours, and four years living in New York. The thread through all of it is not the industry. It is a qualification that taught her how a business actually works, and a willingness to ask for things she had no particular right to expect.
What you will take away
- Why being open and saying yes has outperformed a five year plan, and what that looks like as an actual career strategy
- How a Chartered Accountancy qualification gives you credibility in rooms full of pharmacists, engineers and specialists who are wondering what you are doing there
- What the Formula 1 sustainability commitment means operationally, and the knock-on effects of moving from air to sea freight
- Practical stakeholder management across departments that think very differently, including the social styles framework she still uses
- Why asking for what you want, whether that is a transfer, a deferral or a stretch opportunity, costs far less than people assume
- How to reset when you do not know what comes next, and what she worked out during her time out
About Katherine Ritchie
Katherine Ritchie is Head of Future Race Operations at Formula 1 and a member of ICAS. She joined the sport in early 2026 to lead a newly created transformation programme covering logistics, operating model, systems and capabilities, with the sport’s 2030 net zero commitment as a central driver.
She qualified with EY, where she spent six and a half years in operational transaction services across due diligence, integrations, separations and value creation, including a secondment to Dubai. She then spent six and a half years at Novartis, establishing a strategy and transformation function supporting radioligand therapy, cell therapy and gene therapy products, and was based in New York for four of those years. She is a committed sports volunteer, with London 2012 and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow among the events she has worked at.
