Kate O'Neill
Kate O’Neill is a Tech Humanist, Global Shaper, innovator, keynote speaker, author, and advisor to Fortune 500 companies. She is the founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm that supports organisations throughdigital transformationwith a focus on human experience. KO Insights provides executive advisory services, keynotes, and workshops to clients across sectors, including Fortune 100 companies, technology firms, and global institutions.
Kate began her career in digital systems and content strategy. She was among the first 100 employees atNetflix, where she helped establish the company’s first content management function. Before that, she developed Toshiba America’s first intranet and later founded [meta]marketer, a digital strategy agency that focused on customer experience. Her career has been centred on understanding how technology shapes people’s lives and guiding organisations on responsible and effective use of digital tools.
For more than 17 years, Kate has been a global keynote speaker for companies such asGoogle,IBM,Adobe,Microsoft, andCisco. She has also led digital transformation workshops for organisations includingCoca-Cola, McDonald’s, andCharles Schwab. She has spoken at events like Google Series and Etsy Engineering Day and has taught or guest lectured at academic institutions including Harvard, Cambridge, and Yale. Her work in communication and strategic insight has been recognised by comparisons to leading management thinkers and acknowledged for its practical value in the digital age.
Kate is the creator, host, and executive producer ofThe Tech Humanist Show, a programme that examines how data and technology influence human experience. The show features conversations with experts and thinkers such as Dr Rumman Chowdhury, David Ryan Polgar, Dr Safiya Noble, and Yanis Varoufakis. Through these discussions, Kate explores the social, ethical, and operational issues connected to technology adoption.
Kate’s work has been recognised through various awards. She was included in the Thinkers50 Ranking in 2024 and shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award for Digital Thinking in 2023. She was inducted into the CX Hall of Fame in 2023 and nominated for the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame the same year. She appeared on the Thinkers50 Radar list in 2020 and was named among Forbes Outstanding Women in Data Analytics in 2017. Her earlier recognitions include Women to Watch in Retail Disruption in 2016 and multiple technology and entrepreneurship awards in 2012.
As an author, Kate has written several books, includingPixels and Place(2016),Tech Humanist(2018), which was featured at CES 2019, andWhat Matters Next(2025). Her writing focuses on the relationship between technology, society, and human futures. Her work has also appeared in publications such asWIREDandUSA Today, contributing to broader discussions on digital transformation and human-centred strategy.
