Karen Brooks
Karen Brooks, Deputy Director, GW-SHIFT, University of Bath
Karen is leading an initiative in South West England and South Wales to create a Supercluster of Hydrogen Impact for Future Technologies (GW-SHIFT) which connects academic, civic and industry to maximise the enormous potential of the region’s hydrogen ecosystem. The aim to generate economic growth in the green hydrogen sector to make the region a world leader in this alternative fuel.
Prior to taking up this role, Karen founded the SETsquared Partnership and spent over twenty years supporting entrepreneurs, researchers and students to accelerate their ideas into flourishing businesses through support services and training programmes in a range of technology sectors. During this time she supported over 5,000 companies to raise over £5bn in investment and provided £15.7bn of economic impact to the UK economy through her work at SETsquared.
Karen now supports a number of organisations within the innovation and higher education space to provide access to commercialisation, entrepreneurial training, marketing, investment and ecosystem development in a consultancy capacity along with her role at GW-SHIFT.
Karen has also worked for Motorola and Compass Group in strategic communications and project management roles. She has over 30 years of marketing, communications and PR experience in a range of industries including IT, Telecoms and FMCG. Karen holds a degree in Computer Science, foundation in Psychotherapy and is PRINCE2 qualified.
