Kate Wilson

Kate Wilson (she/her) is a proven global leader in digital development with over thirty years of experience developing organizations, driving strategic initiatives and forging impactful partnerships across global health, international development and digital transformation in Africa and Asia.

She is the managing director of Impact Futures Global, a senior fellow at Results for Development (R4D) and the host of the Digital Decisions Podcast. She has spent the majority of her thirty year career at the intersection of global development and technology, dedicated to the idea that everyone in the world should have access to trusted digital tools that make life better. This ethos drove her to found the Digital Impact Alliance, a “think, do, replicate” tank in 2016 that was at the vanguard of encouraging the development sector to take a holistic approach to digital public infrastructure and data over bespoke national systems. Kate stepped down as CEO in January, 2023 and is currently working on a book on the intersection of digital public infrastructure and artificial intelligence in addition to her consulting work.

Prior to founding the Digital Impact Alliance, Kate worked for the global health nonprofit PATH, where she founded and led its Digital Health Solutions group for nine years, working with more than thirty countries, primarily in Asia and Africa, on developing national enterprise architectures and strong policy governance frameworks. Before she joined PATH, Kate worked primarily in the private sector at techology companies including General Electric, Intel and Microsoft where she held various strategy, product and business development roles including introducing the then-new gaming platform Xbox Live to Europe. It was during her eight years at Microsoft where she internalized the value of how a well-built technology platform could be built once and scaled globally. That philosophy — a base of solid engineering, safety, and security upon which multiple innovative, life-enhancing applications can be deployed — is at the heart of the work of global digital transformation.

She currently serves on the Advisory Board of Exchange Design, an AI startup in the development space.

Kate holds an M.B.A. and an M.A. in Southeast Asian studies from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and a B.A. in international relations from the College of William and Mary. She speaks Bahasa Indonesia at a basic level and French certified at B1.3 level.