Kate Thorley

Kate is a course director at Birmingham City University (BCU).

She graduated in the mid 90's from the School of Jewellery, Birmingham with a BA (hons) in 3D design specialising in Jewellery and Silversmithing and entered the jewellery trade as a bench worker with Europe’s largest bullion and findings manufacturer. Progressing to Senior Designer Kate created successful commercial jewellery sold in national high street outlets. In 2002 she won an International Jewellery Competition; World Gold Council’s Gold Virtuosi and had two sell out shows on QVC shopping channel.

The valuable manufacturing experiences helped Kate in her next role as Senior Designer for the industry facing Jewellery Industry Innovation Centre (JIIC) facility at BCU. The JIIC provided companies and designer-makers with New Product Development solutions.

Kate established a bespoke jewellery consultancy in 2009 and was a regular visiting tutor at BCU sharing her commercial experiences with students. During 2016, the pathway for the new International Jewellery Business course was forged and Kate took lead responsibility for the Course Director role;

“the School of Jewellery continues to have a significant impact in feeding our industry with outstanding graduates specialising in design, traditional bench skills and innovative digital technology; so I am delighted to be leading the new business-facing BA (hons) ‘International Jewellery Business’. This course has been designed specifically to cultivate leaders in jewellery marketing, entrepreneurs, researchers and project managers for our innovative world-wide trade.”

Kate also worked on 4 successful Knowledge Transfer Partnerships as Supervisor and Lead Academic.