Andrea Kates

Andrea Kates (akates@suma.com) is a Silicon Valley-based innovation advisor, former tech CEO, and author of the award-winning book, Find Your Next, a complete guide for transforming ideas into concrete actions. She is also the creator of an end-to-end operating system on strategic futures called Get to Next. She is also Senior Fellow for the Economy, Strategy & Finance Center, Europe at The Conference Board.

Andrea advises large enterprises (Ford, Shimizu, Cisco), innovative organizations (Copenhagen Fintech, Mayo Clinic, Stanford Center of Responsible Digital Leadership), governments, and nonprofits to drive impact for their stakeholders, customers, investors, partners, and communities and has spearheaded significant transformation across multiple industries, including future of work, AI, Fintech, mobility, healthcare, manufacturing, energy, education, and technology across 5 continents.

Previously, she was the CEO of the Silicon Valley SaaS company that pioneered the application of the lean startup process with more than 13,000 corporate teams. A dynamic thought leader, Andrea is in high demand globally as a speaker and has delivered keynotes at some of the world’s most prestigious conferences, including the TED main stage, Aspen Ideas Festival, Dubai2020, the Edison Awards, Rueda de Innovación, Nordic Fintech, OpenFinance Mexico, Innov8rs, and the CXO Forum in Tokyo.

Her research and thought leadership articles have been featured in Harvard Business Review, Research and Technology Management Journal, Engineering and Technology, Merck KGaA strategy review, and Tid and Tendenser.

Andrea has taught at major universities in the US, Europe, Latin America, and Asia including Stanford University, Princeton, Cal Berkeley, Business Institute Denmark, Copenhagen Business School, Singapore Polytechnic, and Hitotsubashi University. She was a strategist in residence at Cisco and Tata.

You can learn more about Andrea on her website Suma.com.