JoAnn Garbin

Meet JoAnn Garbin

JoAnn Garbin has spent 25 years finding the better question before the obvious one takes over. That ability has taken her from entrepreneurial ventures and startups to Fortune 50 companies, working with organizations from Apple to Xerox and many others in between.

Across her career, JoAnn has built and scaled teams, transformed early ideas into practical solutions and developed a reputation for identifying market shifts years before they enter the mainstream.

Her approach brings together innovation, technology, sustainability, human-centered design and business transformation. Today, as AI reshapes business and the future of work, she helps leaders understand where technology creates opportunity and where human judgment, curiosity and leadership remain essential.

Innovation at Microsoft

As Director of Innovation in Microsoft's cloud business, JoAnn led the development of groundbreaking opportunities, including the Regenerative Datacenter of the Future.

For years, the industry's challenge had been framed around one question: how could companies persuade communities to permit a data center? JoAnn reframed it: what if communities were asking companies to build one?

Changing the question changed what was possible, unlocking new designs, new funding and an impact that started at $1 billion.

Her experience at Microsoft later helped form the foundation for The Insider's Guide to Innovation at Microsoft, written with co-author Dean Carignan. Published by Post Hill Press in 2025, the award-winning Amazon bestseller explores how innovation actually happens inside one of the world's most innovative companies.

The book earned JoAnn and Dean a place in the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2025 and a shortlist for the Thinkers50 Innovation Award.

From energy to entrepreneurship

Before Microsoft, JoAnn built a career spanning energy, sustainability, technology and entrepreneurship. At PWI Energy, she designed Pfizer's global energy management program and co-authored Philadelphia's Climate Action Plan. Following the firm's acquisition by Johnson Controls, she led its Energy & Sustainability Advisory Services practice, bringing human-centered design to more than 30 major institutions.

She later founded KnowE, a knowledge-engineering advisory whose values-based investing platform anticipated ESG before it became an established category. As Chief Innovation Officer at Aircuity, she led a ground-up redevelopment of the company's smart-building platform.

Her entrepreneurial instincts appeared early: JoAnn was running a restaurant from her family's kitchen at 10, a neighborhood gardening service at 12 and, by 22, a mascot and costume business with clients including the Seattle Seahawks.

JoAnn studied mechanical engineering and philosophy at Villanova University, combining technical thinking with a lasting curiosity about how people understand problems, make decisions and challenge assumptions.

AI & regenerative innovation

Today, JoAnn is CEO and co-founder of Regenerous Labs, working at the intersection of AI, innovation and business transformation. The lab partners with experts and organizations to move ideas from an early spark to market while building ventures designed to create more value than they consume.

Through keynotes, facilitated workshops and hands-on innovation partnerships, JoAnn helps leaders connect major technological and market shifts to tangible opportunities within their organizations.

Her message for the AI era is straightforward: AI will power the future of work, but people will drive it.

For leaders, that means looking beyond technology adoption to the bigger questions: Where is value being overlooked? Which assumptions are limiting possible solutions? And what becomes possible when the challenge is framed differently?

Book JoAnn Garbin for your event

Book speaker JoAnn Garbin for an engaging perspective on AI, innovation, business transformation and the power of asking better questions. Drawing on 25 years of experience across entrepreneurship, sustainability, technology, startups and Fortune 50 environments, she connects ambitious ideas with the practical realities of creating change.

Audiences can expect insights into:

• How better questions reveal overlooked opportunities and new sources of value.
• Why AI will power the future of work while people remain essential to meaningful transformation.
• What innovation actually looks like inside large organizations.
• How leaders can move ideas from an early spark toward scalable opportunities.
• How regenerative thinking can help organizations create more value than they consume.
• Why challenging established assumptions can unlock new business possibilities.

JoAnn also co-hosts Innovating Out Loud, exploring how ideas become innovation in practice. Her work has been featured by Bloomberg, Forbes, the Financial Times, CNBC, Big Think, the Next Big Idea Club and the Finding Mastery podcast.