Building on her commitment to integrated design, Caroline Cole founded the Equilibrium Network in 2014, bringing together senior, influential women working across organisations that commission, design and deliver the built environment in which we all live.

Caroline is the founder and director of Colander Associates, a consultancy that helps design professionals develop and run effective creative businesses, and also helps organisations commissioning built environment projects to identify the best design teams for their projects. 

Through this work, Caroline has inspired many of the UK’s most successful architectural practices, including a number of Stirling Prize winners, to develop creative businesses.  She has also worked alongside some of the most influential developers and building owners, helping to formulate their approach to architecture.

Caroline read architecture at New Hall, Cambridge and during her professional life has worked both as a design consultant and as a client commissioning design professionals.

In 2019, she helped set up Built Environment Declares, a global network now operating in over 25 countries across the world, uniting all strands of construction and the built environment in the fight against the climate and biodiversity crisis.

She was a member of the Steering Group responsible for the Government publication ‘Architectural Competitions, a Handbook for Promoters’, and was on the Development Board for the CIC’s Design Quality Indicators.  Also, Chair of the Industry Advisory Panel to the IDBE (Interdisciplinary Design for the Built Environment) Masters Course at the University of Cambridge.  She has recently stepped down from the Board of the Horniman Museum, following eight years as a Trustee and chair of the Capital Projects Board.

Caroline is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts; a Trustee of the Ove Arup Foundation; Chair of the Board of Trustees of SPACE Studios; an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA; a member of The Edge and a Professor at IE University in Madrid. She is on the Design Review Panel for HS2, and, as a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Chartered Architects, has received the Freedom of the City of London.

Caroline has published numerous articles and papers about the business of design and has spoken at many conferences and seminars to promote good design to clients, and good business to the professions.  She has been a judge of the Design Week Awards, the RIBA Regional Awards, the Manser Medal, the AJ Top 100 Awards and the Inspire Awards that recognise women in the built environment.

In her spare time, she is a ceramicist.