Global Product + Design Leadership | AI | UX | CX | Author
Speaking
I've spoken at dozens of conferences and events around the world. Whether I'm speaking to a group of 10s or 1,000s, my goal is always to make an authentic connection with the audience.
Topics: Product Design, Innovation, AI, and Women in Leadership.
Beyond Efficiency: Reclaiming Humanity in the Age of AI
Service Design Global Conference
October 17, 2025 | Dallas, TX
AI is changing everything about how we work — but efficiency alone won’t define the winners. In her closing keynote, Katrina Alcorn challenges us to design systems that amplify what only humans can do — empathize, imagine, connect, and care.
New Horizons: Design Leaders Navigating the Shifting Business Landscape
May 16, 2024 | Brooklyn, NY
Event sponsored by IDSA at the NYCxDesign Festival to explore industry challenges and opportunities with esteemed product design thought leaders.
Harnessing the Power of Design for Business
March 13-14 2024 | Helsinki
Good design is good business. But good design is also hard, because it requires that your entire company embrace a human-centered culture. This talk + interactive workshop was for business leaders who wanted to leverage their design function to become a true strategic differentiator. Included hands on activities to help business leaders understand the current state of their design function, and specific actions they can take to ensure design success.
*photo by Niko Hälvä
Ethics + Design in the Age of AI
January 2024 | Toronto
The possibilities of AI have captivated our collective imagination. From writing poems and songs, to analyzing medical data and recommending the best treatment plan, to predicting when complex machinery will need maintenance, AI has the potential to dramatically improve how we live and work. What does this mean for the role of the designer?
Design's Next Chapter
FORTUNE BRAINSTORM DESIGN
December 2023 | Macau
Are we experiencing a backlash against design in the corporate world? And what does this mean during a crucial time when the tech sector is being reinvented with the explosion of generative AI?
Teaching AI to Work with Humans
UX INDIA
September 2023 | Bangalore
Designing for AI requires new considerations and new ways of thinking. From the beginning of human history, our relationship with machines could be summed up as "We're the boss." But with generative AI, that relationship is rapidly changing to something more akin to a collaboration. What should this new relationship look like? What role do ethics and design thinking have? I address this and more in the closing keynote for India's biggest design conference.
Modernism, Inc.
BREAD & BUTTER FILMS
October 2023
I was interviewed in this brilliant, feature-length, documentary film about the career of legendary designer, Eliot Noyes. Noyes founded of the IBM Design program in the 1950s, the same program that I led decades later. I reflected on what has changed, and what has not, in 60 years. Many of our designers were featured in the final scene.
AIGA Conference
AIGA
May 2022 | Virtual
Bennie Johnson, Executive Director of AIGA interviewed me about all things related to design and business.
