Ms Kate Carruthers

Kate Carruthers is Chief Data & Insights Officer for UNSW Sydney, is the Head of Business Intelligence for the UNSW AI Institute and, until recently, was an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer Science & Engineering. She has recently completed postgraduate studies in terrorism and security.

She was a foundation member of the NSW Government Data Analytics Centre Advisory Board and is a member of the Microsoft Regional Director* program for cybersecurity.

Kate was certified in information security in 2017, was awarded: Graduate Diploma in Terrorism and Security Studies from Charles Sturt University, Master of Tertiary Education (Management) from University of Melbourne, and Master of Management (Macquarie University).

She is co-founder of several startups, and has extensive experience in senior executive roles, working for diverse organisations such as Citibank, General Electric, AMP, Westfield (now Scentre Group), and NSW Treasury. Kate has extensive experience in the successful delivery of digital, data, ICT, and change projects across organisations of diverse sizes.

Previously Kate lectured in postgraduate information systems and accounting at Macquarie University. She also delivered TAFE level courses in business and management in the NSW Department of Finance, Services and Innovation.

Kate was co-founder of two Internet of Things (IoT) startups (Moorescloud with Mark Pesce, and IoTM) and is currently an adviser to several startups. She was also co-founder of Social Innovation Sydney (with Selena Griffith from 2005-2017), a group that helped change makers connect with one another and built-up networks to drive social innovation in Australia.

Kate is:

• Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia
• Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers
• member of the Australian Information Security Association(AISA)
• member of the Australian Women in Security Network
• member of the Royal Society of New South Wales

She was:

• a foundation member of the NSW Data Analytics Centre advisory board
• a member of the Advisory Board for the Faculty of Informatics at the University of Wollongong for several years before joining UNSW Sydney
• a member of the Telstra Industry Advisory Board

She started a podcast with Annie Parker in 2020 – Conversations with Annie & Kate – to profile interesting women around the world.

In 2023 she started the Data Revolution podcast. The Data Revolution podcast is about exploring the intersections between business intelligence, data analytics, AI, privacy, data protection, cyber and information security.

In 2014 Kate was named as one of Australia’s most powerful women in technology by Smart Company magazine. More recently, Kate was named among the 2021 Constellation Research Business Transformation 150 (BT150), which is an elite list that recognizes the top global executives leading business transformation efforts in their organisations. She was also named on the:

• Global Data Power Women List 2023
• Top Academic Data Leaders for 2022
• 2022 Global Top 100 Innovators in Data & Analytics
• CDO Magazine 2021 List of Academic Data Leaders.
• Global Top 100 Data Visionaries – 2020
• 2020 List of Global Data Power Women
• 2020 Business of Data Top 100 Innovators in Data and Analytics

In 2023 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by B&T at the Women Leading Tech awards. 

Over the past few years Kate has been working on the front lines of the intersection between data analytics, AI, ML, privacy, data protection, cyber and information security.

* This is an advisory role that provides Microsoft leaders with customer insights, real-world voices and insights

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