Kate Clay

Kate started her career at just 16-years-old, at Sainsburys PLC, where after starting on the checkouts, she joined the in-store HR team. By 17, she was representing HR on the Colleague Council and heading up store fundraising projects.

A move out of the area nearly three years later saw Kate move sectors to an estate agent, Bairstow Eves Countrywide, as Branch Administrator, which included HR admin. After two years, Kate progressed to an HR Advisor position at Cambria Automobiles, which was her first role in the motor trade and where she really got her HR stripes.

 While this industry is considered tough in many ways, especially for a 20-year-old female, Kate spent nearly seven years helping to build the brand from scratch and supporting with TUPE, as well as leading tribunals. By 25, Kate was asked to cover a management position, and was responsible for the entire HR function of Cambria, which was a Company of 1,200 employees spread across 28 locations in the UK. 

Kate then moved, to the North West from Kent, and as such had to move roles. This time, as a HR Advisor into a third sector organisation, Manchester Growth Company, where she spent eight months leading challenging restructures of the organisation.

Kate then moved into an HR Advisor role at Premex Services Ltd, where she really built her understanding of colleague wellbeing and implementing new policies that supported them. Here, she set up the company’s first mental health policy and delivered management workshops on supporting colleagues that suffered with their mental health. In addition, Kate was responsible for internal events to support the overall culture, reward, and engagement strategy.

Keen to grow in her career, Kate moved into a Regional HR Manager role for Ford Retail Ltd (TrustFord) some three years later. This was heavy on the employee relations side of HR as Kate was responsible for 800 employees within the North West and Yorkshire region. It was also the time of furlough, which meant juggling the challenges of keeping workshops open to support the front line, while operating with heavily reduced staff.

Nearly four years later, Kate joined eStar, as Head of HR, keen to take on a completely new challenge - eStar took over from a failed business that didn’t even have some of the basic policies in place. 

At 35, Kate was invited onto the Board of Directors, as HR Director as the first and only female.

From digitalising the department and building new reward and benefit strategies, to ensuring equal pay across the Group, and developing bespoke leadership training for the Senior Management Team, Kate has made a huge difference to both the company and the colleagues who work here.