My daughter Catherine Webb, who has died aged 47 from metastatic ovarian cancer, was a senior Treasury official during a turbulent period in British politics and latterly bursar of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where she had taken her undergraduate degree.

Having begun at the Treasury in 2000, Katie played a key role in helping ministers to deal with the 2008 financial crisis and Brexit before going on to become the Treasury’s director of operations, managing all the non-policy aspects of the department.

Katie was our first daughter, born to Jane (nee Holly) and me, in Bebington, Wirral, and brought up in the mid-Cheshire village of Hartford; my wife was a probation officer and I was a social worker. Katie was educated at Hartford county primary school, Hartford high school and then Sir John Deane’s sixth form college in nearby Northwich, where she was noted for her sophisticated grasp of economics and politics.

By then she was already a Labour party activist, and when she moved on to study economics at Emmanuel she continued her political activism in tandem with a vibrant social life.

On graduating in 2000 Katie eschewed politics to join HM Treasury. Initially working on labour markets, welfare policy and poverty analysis, she went on to play a central part in tackling the 2008 financial crisis, including on secondment to the Bank of England to work on the team trying to save the failing Northern Rock bank. From 2011 she was key to developing the UK’s economic relationship with China as economic and trade counsellor at the British embassy in Beijing.

Katie came back to the UK in 2015, promoted to director level, and held a series of roles at the heart of the UK’s relationship with the EU. She was the only woman among the senior Brexit negotiators, and led teams at the Department for Exiting the European Union and in the Europe Unit at the Cabinet Office.

She returned to the Treasury in 2019 as director of operations and member of the management board, leading the department’s response to the challenges of operating under Covid-19 rules and establishing the Darlington economic campus, the northern branch of the Treasury. She was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath in 2020.

In 2023 she left the civil service to become bursar at Emmanuel, with the remit to review and restructure the non-academic functions of the college, a task she performed while earning the respect and affection of its fellows and staff.

As a civil servant, Katie was valued for her qualities of kindness and empathy as well as her intellect and technical expertise. Wherever she went, she had a gift for making friends and holding them fast. She had a great rapport with children, and was a generous and thoughtful aunt, godmother and significant adult to the children of many friends.

Adept at many crafts, including cooking, breadmaking, quilting and sashiko, she was also a keen traveller. She loved to walk and cycle, and was a particularly enthusiastic swimmer, gaining great enjoyment from her membership of the London branch of Out to Swim, an LBTGQ+ aquatic club, and of the South London Swimming Club based at Tooting Bec Lido.

She accepted her diagnosis, without rancour or complaint, and when curative treatment failed, decided to prioritise quality over quantity of life.

Katie is survived by Jane and me, her sister Elizabeth and nieces Alice and Emily.