Catherine Faiers, COO at Auto Trader, was named as the winner of the Automotive 30% Club IMI Inspiring Automotive Woman of the Year Award of 2025 at the IMI Awards Dinner.
Faiers joined Auto Trader in 2017 and progressed to COO in 2019.
When asked how she felt about the award, she said: “It feels amazing. It’s been such an inspiring evening hearing all the stories of the incredible winners tonight.
“The future of automotive is bright with all these incredible women at the heart of it.”
Faiers is passionate about social mobility, inclusion and gender balance, and is a Patron of the Automotive 30% Club.
She is the executive sponsor for Auto Trader’s ethnicity network and provides mentoring and sponsorship for women, especially those who have an intersectional characteristic that creates barriers to career progression.
In addition, she volunteers with the Social Mobility Foundation, is a Business Mentor with the Cherie Blair Foundation For Women, and recently started investing in female founders through a women’s angel investor network to address the issue that only 3% of Venture Capital funding goes to women.
Last year, she spearheaded a new initiative called “Great Events for All” to ensure industry events are safe and inclusive. This included a collaboration with the Automotive 30% Club and Consent Collective to educate the industry on sexual harassment and consent.
Founder of the Automotive 30% Club Julia Muir, said: “Catherine truly embodies what it is to be an Inspiring Automotive Woman. She promotes her company as an employer of choice for women, creates solutions to help women thrive in the workplace, and raises awareness of intersectionality and underrepresented female groups.
“She takes part in inclusion networks, mentors and coaches female colleagues, is an inspirational female role model, and an outstanding trailblazer.
“If that wasn’t enough, this amazing woman is a senior executive driving positive change not only in her own company, but also across the automotive sector and in wider business and society.”
