In a world increasingly driven by technology and data, is it possible to preserve the health of the human experience and the broader planet?
One of the first 100 employees of Netflix, Kate O’Neill has long innovated at the intersection of technology and humanity. In the view of O’Neill and her signature “strategic optimism,” the future is still ours to shape, and businesses have a bigger role to play than they’ve ever had in the past. She and Maril discuss the human specialty of meaning-making, and the ways it manifests into organizational purpose work; why there’s no such thing as being future-proof, only future-ready; and why it’s so critical for leaders to approach societal forces and global headwinds through an integrated, future-forward lens.
About Kate O'Neill
Kate O’Neill is widely known as “the Tech Humanist.” A digital innovator for over 25 years, she is founder of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to improving human experience at scale, even — and especially — in data-driven, algorithmically optimized, and AI-led interactions. Kate regularly keynotes industry events, advocating for humanity’s role in an increasingly tech-driven future. Her world-leading clients have included Google, Adobe, IBM, Yale University, the city of Amsterdam, and the United Nations.
Kate’s prior roles include creating the first content management role at Netflix as one of the company’s first 100 employees; developing Toshiba America’s first intranet; leading cutting-edge experience optimization for Magazines.com; and founding [meta]marketer, a first-of-its-kind digital strategy, analytics, and experience optimization agency.
Author of 5 books including her latest, A Future So Bright, Kate’s insights and expertise have been featured in WIRED, CMO.com, USA Today, and many other outlets. She has been featured and quoted in a wide variety of national and international media, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, WIRED, NPR, Marketplace, NBC News, and BBC World News. In 2020 she was named to the Thinkers50 Radar, a global ranking of top management thinkers.
About Let Go & Lead
Let Go & Lead is a leadership community created by Maril MacDonald, founder and CEO of Gagen MacDonald. Maril brings together provocateurs, pioneers, thought leaders and those leading the conversation around culture, transformation and change.
Over the course of the past 14 years, Let Go & Lead has existed in many forms, from video interviews to resource guides to its current iteration as a podcast. At its core, it remains a place where people can access a diversity of perspectives on interdisciplinary approaches to leadership. Maril is also working on a book incorporating these insights gathered over the past several years from global leaders and change makers.
Maril has interviewed over 140 leaders — from business to academia and nonprofits to the arts — through the years. In each conversation, from personal anecdotes to ground-breaking scientific analysis, she has probed the lessons learned in leadership. From these conversations, the Let Go & Lead framework has emerged. It is both a personal and organizational resource that aims to serve the individual leader or leadership at scale.
Full episodes are also available on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Google Podcasts.
About Gagen MacDonald
At Gagen MacDonald, we are dedicated to helping organizations navigate the human struggle of change. We are a people-focused consulting firm and our passion is improving the employee experience — for everyone. For more than 25 years, we have been working with companies to create clarity from chaos by uniting employees across all levels around a single vision so they can achieve results and realize their future.
We have been a pioneer in bringing humanity to strategy execution, leading in areas such as organizational communication, culture, leadership, and employee engagement. Our Vision is to lift all humanity by transforming the companies that transform the world.
