Katie Bell

About

I am the technical co-founder of health-tech startup Pactster. Pactster is an online gym for people with specific health conditions with a current focus on cystic fibrosis based in London, New York and Sydney. We offer condition specific exercise video alongside motivational features to help people use exercise as medicine.

I've been in the world of tech startups for the past 10 years, founding my first in 2009. My first venture was Grannies, Inc., a social enterprise producing bespoke knitwear hand-made by grannies in the UK, which sold 1400 pieces of knitwear in its first 4 months of trading and was acquired by Wool Magic in 2014. I graduated from the Oxygen startup accelerator in London in 2014 as CTO of Cherry Bird, a startup aiming to disrupt the student accommodation market.

Before my startup adventure, I enjoyed the perks (job security, money, large entertainment budgets) of being an IT consultant in the asset finance industry, working with clients such as HBOS and Bank of America. Ultimately though this lifestyle left me feeling unfulfilled and I jumped ship into the world of entrepreneurialism, following in the shoes of my dad and brother.

I have a first class honours degree in computer science from Bristol University and the University of California.

One of The IoD's Director Magazine's "One's to Watch" in 2010.

Public Speaker: Next Berlin 2012: Social commerce: http://video.nextconf.eu/video/6371776/social-and-commerce-knitting Royal Society of Medicine, Journey through sport and exercise medicine, June 2016: Fit-tech