Warsash Maritime Academy| 
wmaheadertext 
Southampton Solent University|  

Dr Katherine Devitt BA (Joint Hons) MSc PhD 

Senior Lecturer, School of Management and Postgraduate Studies

Katherine Devitt
Telephone:
+44 (0)1489 556299  
Extension:
4299  
Room:
WW 209  

Expertise/Academic Interests

Strategic leadership of multi-agency major incidents.

Maritime Resource Management (leadership and teamworking; cultural awareness; communication; situational awareness; stress management; conflict management) in all contexts.

Behavioural markers for maritime leadership and resource management.

Coaching for senior managers and officers.

Teambuilding for effective operational effectiveness.

Biography

Katherine has extensive strategic and operational experience in several industries as well as within the public sector, in HR, OD and management development and change management skills at Director level. She also has broad experience in business continuity/crisis management training and planning. Her maritime background includes 15 years as an RN and RNR officer, and operational HR experience in the ferry industry.

In 1997, she set up a successful consultancy as a business psychologist specialising in business performance coaching, management development, team-building, facilitation and organisational analysis. She has worked with people at all levels in a wide variety of sectors including financial services and banking, central and local Government, the Emergency Services, the NHS, IT, electronic engineering, aerospace, and a major publisher. This has included work with clients at all levels of management.

She joined Warsash in March 09 as a Senior Lecturer, focusing on leadership and maritime resource management, and is involved in a range of research and consultancy activities.

She is an associate with Penna, specialising in career coaching and personality profiling to directors, senior and middle management, as well as change management, assessment and special projects. She is also an associate with a risk management chambers, authoring and exercising disaster plans, carrying out training, and observing and reporting on the psychodynamics of strategic management groups operating in crisis situations.

Katherine holds a BA (Joint Hons) in Law and Politics from the University of Keele, an MSc in Organisational Behaviour from the University of London, and a PhD from the University of Portsmouth for her research on effective strategic leadership of multi-agency major incidents

She is a certificated NLP practitioner, is qualified in psychometrics to British Psychological Society level B (including OPQ, Firo-B and MBTI)and has a diploma in Business Performance Coaching and a Certificate in Counselling.

Principal Publications

Devitt, K. R. and E. P. Borodzicz (2008). "Interwoven Leadership: the Missing Link in Multi-Agency Major Incident Response." Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management 16(4): 208-216)

Associations

Principal member of the Association of Business Psychologists.