Catriona Schmolke, Chair of Artus Air, has been awarded with a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for Services to Engineering in the 2024 New Years Honours list by His Majesty King Charles III. Catriona is also one of only seven women in Scotland to be honoured with Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering.
In 2019 she received the Marion Martin Award from the National Safety Council of America for Outstanding Female Leadership in Safety. She recently completed a three-year term as a Trustee and Vice President of the Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2024, she was appointed as Chair of Artus Air, an innovation company revolutionising air conditioning with its sustainability credentials.
A pioneering hydrogeologist, Catriona has had an incredibly varied executive career, contributing to major capital investment projects for private and public sector clients across multiple markets and sectors. She was a visiting Professor of Sustainability, Risk and Resilience at the University of Newcastle. In 2020 she started her non-executive career portfolio which now includes Scottish Water, National Physical Laboratory, NES Group, and Artus Air, with the common themes of innovation, sustainability and large asset management.
Based in Scotland, Catriona is one of only a very few women to have been awarded both a CBE for Services to Engineering and a Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering. Her commitment to furthering the impact of engineering innovation to drive sustainable change and her support for diversifying talent entering and progressing through the sector have been key drivers throughout her career and reflect her broad non-executive portfolio roles. Catriona serves as a member of Court at Strathclyde University where she is also an alum.
Catriona Schmolke CBE FREng commented: “Innovation is a mindset – for a company to innovate it needs to create the environment where ideas can emerge, be encouraged, and where there is a culture of collective excitement about the potential innovation and the positive impact it can have on society.
“I have always been focused on delivering environmental and social change through engineering and environmental-related innovation. My career has been a balance of project execution and talent development to support high-growth organisations. Cultures of knowledge sharing, ideas generation, and innovation are ones I like to help cultivate and Artus Air is a great example. These characteristics are going to be fundamental in this sector to drive success and allow for a broader range of perspectives and experiences to encourage the innovation that we need in the world today.”
Catriona’s focus on talent development and multi-disciplinary alignment across global teams has made her a natural coach and mentor. She has cemented her commitment to developing the next generation of leaders with the establishment of Executive Mentoring and Transformational Growth Consultancy, CharlieFive Ltd.
Catriona continued: “Artus Air is such an exciting business to be part of. Its growth potential is significant, and the diverse talent it has already attracted is very impressive and highly motivated, which is going to be crucial moving forwards. But, most importantly this is an organisation with positive impact at its core delivering a simple, low energy, and low carbon solution to the market. I have always supported innovation and impact, enabled by first class engineering and Artus Air exemplifies all these things.”
Rebecca Stewart, Artus Air CEO commented: “Catriona brings a wealth of experience as an engineer, business leader, entrepreneur and non-executive Chair. But crucially she is also a significant supporter of people and talent development. For our business with a focus on culture and team work to underpin our ambitions of global carbon reduction impact, this is fundamental. I have personally learned a huge amount from Catriona and her guidance for an impactful board is having a very positive and evidential bearing. I congratulate her, along with the rest of the Artus Air team, on her CBE. She is an outstanding exemplar to others, as well as a champion of so many across this sector.”
