Kate Parminter was Chief Executive of CPRE (the Campaign to Protect Rural England) from 1998-2004. She is presently combining family responsibilities for two young daughters with consultancy work in the private and voluntary sector and sitting on a number of voluntary and political committees. She is an Advisory Board Member for the NCC (the National Consumer Council) and served on the NCC Commission into Public Services (2002-2004). She has just been appointed a member of the Liberal Democrats National Policy Review Group.

Educated in Sussex, she graduated in 1986 from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford with an MA in Theology. After graduation she joined the marketing division of Nestle. She then worked for Simon Hughes MP, followed by working for a PR Consultancy. In 1990 she joined the RSPCA, leaving in 1998 as Head of Press & Public Affairs. During this time she chaired the Campaign for the Protection of Hunted Animals.

She has written for the Social Market Foundation and for others on the subject of pressure groups and lobbying & has lectured extensively, including at Oxford University’s Linacre Lecture Series in 2004.

She was a Liberal Democrat Councillor on Horsham District Council in West Sussex for eight years (1987-1995). She was honoured to be invited to a lunch for Women Achievers by Her Majesty the Queen in March 2004.