Caroline Frankau

Caroline grew up and attended school in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. In 1999 she graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a Masters degree in French and Spanish, and gained a further Masters in Interpreting and Translating at the University of Bradford in 2000. Her final year of study included a month’s internship at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

Caroline worked for London-based language companies for three years, beginning as an in-house translator and then moving into project and resource management, where she worked with a number of high-profile clients including the Ministry of Defence, Virgin Atlantic and the BBC. She even managed to grab 15 seconds of fame interpreting for Gérard Depardieu on the So Graham Norton show!

After moving to Cambridge in 2003 Caroline began working for the United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) as Communications & Events Officer. She staged several large events to showcase the Centre’s biodiversity projects and collaborated on accompanying press releases. She also wrote the UNEP-WCMC Annual Report 2003 and Creating a Wiser World, a short publication about the Centre’s Chevening scholarship scheme.

In 2005 Caroline joined Pembroke College’s International Programmes (IP) department as Programme Co-ordinator and PA to the Director. She worked with a small team to create and run bespoke academic and social courses for American and Japanese students, taking responsibility for booking student accommodation and teaching space, recruiting teaching assistants, organising numerous drinks receptions and dinners in College and updating the IP website.

Caroline reluctantly departed from Pembroke in 2006 to live with her partner (now husband) Simon in London, but continues to work for IP on an ad hoc basis, and returned for a four-month contract in early 2008.

A keen amateur artist, Caroline has recently begun a course in Art & Design at Southwark College in the hope that next year she’ll be good enough to be rejected by the RA’s Summer Exhibition judges.