Kate Nowak

About

Kate has focused her career on bringing new technologies to market. She has done this in a variety of positions at startup, growth and large public companies. She is currently a member of the Viva Insights team within the Microsoft Data Platform and Growth organization. In this role, she researches and incubates products and features that aim to improve the way we work and positively impact collaboration, productivity, and well-being. Her main focus areas are developing solutions that enable large language models to analyze structured data and creating effective digital behavioral nudges.

Kate is also a member of the leadership team for Microsoft’s New Future of Work Initiative, which brings together researchers from a broad range of organizations and disciplines across Microsoft to focus on the most important technologies shaping how people work, e.g. generative AI. The initiative is working to create the new future of work – one that is equitable, inclusive, meaningful, and productive.

Kate earned a BA from Harvard, an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and a MSc behavioral science from the London School of Economics. Her thesis was on the impact of spatial audio on turn-taking, social presence, and task performance in 2-D video meetings.

Prior to Microsoft, Kate helped take a cleantech company public, manage a high-growth food technology company, develop one of the world’s largest wind farms, and launch a microbiome startup. She began her career in investment banking after working for the Patriots the year they won Super Bowl XXXVIII.