Catherine Spencer

Head of the Audit and Investigations Services (AIS)

Catherine is a British-French chartered accountant who became Head of CERN’s Internal Audit and Investigation Services in January 2026. She brings extensive experience in governance, risk management, audit, finance and fraud investigation. She studied for a BSc in Economics at the London School of Economics and trained as a chartered accountant with PwC.

She joined CERN in 2006, following an earlier career in the private sector. From 2006 to 2008, she worked in Internal Audit before moving to the Finance Department, where she served as CERN Treasurer and subsequently became Group Leader for the Treasury, Processes and Reporting services. In 2019, she took on the role of Deputy Head of Finance and Administrative Processes. In 2022, Catherine became the Head of Internal Audit.