CGT Catapult was established to advance the UK's cell and gene therapy sector, with a vision for a thriving industry delivering life-changing advanced therapies to the world. As the organisation adapted to the needs of the evolving life sciences landscape, the leadership team recognised an exciting opportunity: to design a future-ready culture of learning and leadership aligned to CGT Catapult’s values of Collaboration, People, Innovation, and Aspiration.
The People Strategy that followed placed personal development, self-awareness, and smart behavioural adaptation at the heart of CGT Catapult’s ambitions. A bespoke development framework was created using Lumina Spark, chosen for its ability to move beyond traditional ‘type’ models and provide a practical, scientific and sustainable approach to development.
This transformation was led by Kathy Varley, Head of L&D and Talent. With more than 25 years’ experience across outsourcing and financial services, Kathy joined at a pivotal moment when the organisation was beginning.
Kathy Varley, Head of L&D and Talent
With a background in commercial sectors including outsourcing and financial services and with 25 years of experience. She joined CGT Catapult at a pivotal time when the organisation was just beginning to explore personal development through behavioural preferences. Her remit includes internal L&D, early talent and apprenticeship programmes, external scientific training labs, and recruitment.
Having worked extensively with psychometrics, Kathy immediately recognised the potential in Lumina Spark’s humanistic and scientific design.
She valued its focus on measuring specific traits over assumptive types, the Three Personas for understanding behaviour in context, and the exploration of effective versus overextended behaviour in a non-judgemental way. Observing CGT Catapult’s early pilot, Kathy saw the opportunity to create something sustainable, which many psychometrics struggle to do: a scalable framework embedded across the employee lifecycle, providing a shared language for adapting behaviour and fostering a culture that values diverse ways of working. This thinking became the foundation of CGT Catapult’s behavioural development strategy.
Kathy and her team developed a comprehensive, three-part programme that could flex with the business, using Lumina Spark as the backbone: Build, Boost and Beyond. The Build, Boost and Beyond framework was designed to grow with CGT Catapult, enabling behavioural development to scale alongside the organisation. Each phase of the programme was designed to respond to a specific stage in the employee journey, ensuring that learning is relevant, integrated, and sustained over time.