Kathryn Harrison

Kathryn Harrison is a collaborative leader with extensive experience in early stage technology and emerging markets. Known for making complex technology and finance concepts simple to understand, she excels at bridging people, organizations and cultures to deliver exceptional results.

Kathryn is currently the Director of Global Offering Management for IBM Blockchain Platform, where she is the executive responsible for conceptualizing, developing and delivering IBM Blockchain software products. Making it  for organization to embrace and embed blockchain technology is her key mission, and as part of this role, she is an active member of Hyperledger, the open source blockchain initiative within the Linux Foundation.  In addition to serving as a technology and market expert, she is also dedicated to bringing blockchain technology to emerging markets and public sector use cases so that it can benefit people globally.

In previous roles at IBM, Kathryn served as the Payments and Blockchain Leader for IBM Middle East and Africa, responsible for developing and communicating the IBM point of view on blockchain and its impact on banking, government and supply chain across Middle East and Africa. Her interest in blockchain grew out of her experience working on payment modernization with several major banks in Turkey. Prior to her Istanbul assignment, Kathryn led Smarter Cities projects to help state and local governments across the US embrace technology solutions to improve operations, services and quality of life for their citizens.

Kathryn began her career in financial services at Gerson Lehrman Group in New York and Hong Kong where she led legal, political and regulatory research for the firm’s investment clients in North America and Asia. During business school, she worked at Morgan Stanley, where she sat on the international equities desk.

Outside of her career at IBM, Kathryn Harrison has been appointed to the Lauder Advisory Council at the University of Pennsylvania, where is an advisor the Director of the Lauder Institute. She previously served as the President of the Lauder Institute Alumni Association. She is a frequent conference speaker on topics related to blockchain including IFC CEO, Digital Currencies and Blockchain and the DC Blockchain Summit.

Kathryn has a Bachelor of Science the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, an MBA from the Wharton School and an MA from the Lauder Institute both at the University of Pennsylvania.