Kate Whitegroatt

I built Kate's Clothing from nothing into a multi-brand, multichannel ecommerce business and have run every aspect of it for over 20 years. Full P&L ownership from day one. The business scaled 10x year-on-year in its first three years. At peak, I managed 3,000+ SKUs and ~20,000 annual orders across Shopify, Amazon, eBay, and TikTok Shop. Brands include Necessary Evil (gothic clothing, moving towards UK-made production) and ANTIBrand (made-to-order, artist-led). I personally build and manage all Google Ads and Meta campaigns (no agency) delivering consistent 8–10x ROAS. After restructuring the media mix I pushed ROAS to 16.54x, then deliberately scaled budget back to maximise actual profit over vanity metrics. I hold top organic rankings for "goth clothing" and "gothic clothing," and built a successful New Rock boots dropshipping operation that consistently held #1 for "New Rock Boots UK", exiting strategically when product quality declined. I design my own products and manage the full production cycle: sourcing manufacturers (working directly with factories in China, Turkey, and the UK), setting specifications and quality controls, and managing production through to delivery. I designed every operational process from scratch, then cut overhead by 50% through systems and process redesign. I built automated product data pipelines, negotiated average supplier discounts of 15% (best deals at 30%), and reduced logistics costs through carrier negotiation and warehouse redesign. I own Shopify end-to-end including working directly in Liquid, HTML, and CSS. Continuous A/B testing, SEO and CRO programmes, improving AOV and UX. Email, lifecycle marketing, and loyalty (Appstle) drive retention. I've hired, trained, and led a team of up to 10, building a culture of ownership and psychological safety: people make decisions, surface mistakes early, and move forward without blame.

Joined as a Production Engineer, designing and developing automotive components supplied directly to major car manufacturers. Worked hands-on with suppliers and OEM customers to ensure parts met specification, quality, and delivery requirements, building commercial relationships alongside the technical engineering work. Promoted within six months into a project leadership role, transitioning production to international manufacturing partners in India. This was a challenge the business had attempted repeatedly over a 10-year period without success. I delivered it in approximately six months. My primary function after promotion was cross-departmental project management, working directly with each departmental Director to align priorities, coordinate dependencies, and drive progress across functions that had historically operated in silos. In practice, this meant bridging significant gaps between senior stakeholders who had competing priorities and deeply entrenched ways of working, and finding ways to build momentum and deliver outcomes where previous attempts had stalled. I had no formal authority over any of the teams involved, progress came through persistence, relationship-building, and a refusal to let things get stuck. During a period of significant organisational change, I worked closely with senior and group leadership to contribute to the redesign of the company's operational structure. The new structure was adopted at group level, fundamentally improving role clarity, accountability, and decision-making across the organisation. This was an intense, formative experience. I learned how to lead through influence rather than hierarchy, how to unlock progress in environments where politics and resistance had created paralysis, and how to work at the intersection of engineering, operations, and commercial delivery, instincts I've relied on ever since.

orked within Unilever's Innovation Centre in Crawley on the development and scale-up of food production processes, sitting at the intersection of kitchen-based product development and pilot plant manufacturing. Designed and tested processes to ensure new products could be produced consistently and at scale. Identified and championed a single-stage manufacturing approach for emulsion-based products such as mayonnaise, replacing the established two-stage process. It was a significant departure from how things had always been done and met initial resistance, but was later validated as a strategic objective for the business. My work was recognised by senior leadership and I was personally endorsed for the Unilever graduate training scheme by managers two and three levels above my direct line. This is where I first developed what has become a career-long instinct: look at how things are actually done, question whether it's the best way, and back yourself to propose something better, even when you're the least experienced person in the room.

Started in customer service handling account queries and payment issues. Contract extended based on performance, then promoted into a sales role. Worth noting because it set a pattern: every role I've held, I've been either promoted, extended, or endorsed for progression beyond my starting position.