Entrepreneurship and innovation are part of Kate O’Keeffe’s DNA. From technology to energy to fashion – she is driving industry wide disruption at a blistering pace. Her passion to solve bold problems that don’t yet have answers grew out of her long-term drive to find better, faster ways to approach environmental and population challenges. At Cisco, her desire to tackle industry-wide challenges led her to create CHILL, a co-innovation catalyst in Cisco’s $12 billion global Customer Experience team.

CHILL leapfrogs traditional innovation processes to spark broad industry change by engaging with customers at the highest level. During an intense two-day Living Lab experience, industry leaders innovate shoulder-to-shoulder around a particular topic, immersed in repeated cycles of ideation, rapid prototyping, and user testing. This methodology is part of the secret sauce that is CHILL—creating new solutions for big problems at startup speed. Since CHILL’s inception, a full 70 percent of ideas have progressed to further stages, resulting in two start-ups, seven patents, and more than 20 joint projects and internal growth initiatives.

Prior to CHILL, Kate was the global leader of Cisco’s Services Innovation Excellence Center in London, where she was responsible for driving sustainable innovation initiatives.  The practice is based on an Innovation Maturity Model, devised to provide a clear pathway for businesses to build sustainable, measureable innovation capabilities. Prior to Cisco, Kate led innovation for an Australian-based corporation in the utilities sector.

As a native of Melbourne, Kate proved her entrepreneurial chops as a fashion designer by founding, building, and exiting a successful shoe business, Cinderella Bella. She holds a Master’s Degree in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and is the recipient of numerous industry awards and recognitions including the HBR/McKinsey M-Prize: Innovating Innovation Challenge. Kate was also named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business” and included in the Anita Borg Institute’s annual Women of Vision awards. She is co-author of Managing Multiparty Innovation, which was published in the Harvard Business Review in November, 2016.