Catherine Bond Muir – Episode 26
Catherine Bond Muir is the CEO and Founder of W Series – the world’s first all-female single-seater motor racing championship.
On paper, Catherine may not always have seemed the obvious candidate to establish the world’s first all-female motor racing championship as she’s a former intellectual property solicitor who transitioned into corporate finance and spent more than a decade working on sports and gaming deals. This included the sale of Chelsea FC to Roman Abramovich and the acquisition of Aston Villa by Randy Lerner.
After a career break following the birth of her first and only child relatively later in life, she was ready for a new challenge. And so the idea for W Series was born at Catherine’s dining table. As a lifelong motorsport fan with treasured childhood memories of watching James Hunt racing on the television, Catherine saw that while women’s sport was generally enjoying a boom in popularity the situation was only getting worse for women in motorsport. It has now been 45 years since a woman competed in Formula 1, and it is W Series’ mission to change this.
W Series is a free-to-enter championship that provides equal opportunities for women and eliminates the financial barriers that have historically prevented them from progressing to the upper echelons of motorsport. By placing all participants in identical cars the series ensures that talent takes precedence above all else. Since its inaugural season in 2019, W Series has created the greatest number of professional female racing drivers of all time. This year W Series will race alongside Formula 1 at eight Grand Prix weekends.
In this episode of In Her Corner, we talk to Catherine about the realities of challenging the status quo to set up the W Series, her relentless pursuit of success and the career and life lessons that have shaped Catherine’s journey.
You can listen to the trailer for Catherine’s episode using the player below:
Catherine’s full episode will be released at 1pm GMT on Wednesday 10 March and will be available to listen to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other major streaming platforms.
Podcast theme track by Wayne Urquhart and Mix Engineering by Nick Murphy.
