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 developed a track record of leading teams from nothing, to something, to scale. She also has a talent for seeing five to seven years ahead of the market, identifying shifts and opportunities before they become part of the mainstream conversation.

Her approach combines innovation, technology, sustainability, human-centered design and business transformation. Rather than accepting the question everyone else is already asking, JoAnn looks for the question that can change the possibilities available to an organization.

That perspective is at the heart of her work with leaders today. As AI reshapes business and the future of work, JoAnn helps audiences 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 her team in developing groundbreaking opportunities, including the Regenerative Datacenter of the Future.

For years, the data center industry's challenge had been framed around one central question: how could companies persuade communities to permit a data center? JoAnn approached the problem differently. What if communities were asking companies to build one?

Changing the question changed what was possible.

That shift unlocked new designs, new funding and an impact that started at $1 billion. It is also a powerful example of the approach JoAnn brings to organizations and audiences: challenging the assumptions hidden inside familiar problems can reveal opportunities that conventional thinking leaves untouched.

Her experience at Microsoft later became part of 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 demystifies 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

JoAnn's path to Microsoft was anything but conventional. At PWI Energy, she designed Pfizer's global energy management program and co-authored Philadelphia's Climate Action Plan. When Johnson Controls acquired the firm, she went on to lead its Energy & Sustainability Advisory Services practice.

In that role, JoAnn brought human-centered design to more than 30 major institutions, connecting ambitious ideas around energy and sustainability with the realities of organizations, people and implementation.

She later founded KnowE, a knowledge-engineering advisory. Its values-based investing platform anticipated ESG before ESG had a name, reflecting JoAnn's ability to identify emerging market directions years before they become established categories.

As Chief Innovation Officer at Aircuity, she delivered a ground-up redevelopment of the company's smart-building platform, adding another chapter to a career focused on transforming early ideas into practical solutions capable of creating meaningful value.

Entrepreneurship, however, started much earlier. JoAnn was running a restaurant from her family's kitchen at the age of 10 and a neighborhood gardening service at 12. By 22, she had built a mascot and costume business whose clients included the Seattle Seahawks.

Her academic background is similarly distinctive. JoAnn studied mechanical engineering and philosophy at Villanova University, combining technical thinking with a deep interest in how people understand problems, make decisions and question assumptions.

AI and regenerative innovation

Today, JoAnn is CEO and co-founder of Regenerous Labs, where she works at the intersection of AI, innovation and business transformation. The lab partners with experts and organizations to move ideas from an early spark to the market.

The goal goes beyond creating something new. Regenerous Labs builds ventures designed to be regenerative from the beginning, creating more value than they consume.

Through the lab, JoAnn delivers keynotes, facilitated workshops and hands-on innovation partnerships. Her work gives leaders a way to explore major shifts while connecting them to tangible opportunities inside their own businesses.

Her perspective is especially relevant as organizations determine how AI fits into their strategy, workforce and approach to innovation. JoAnn's message is straightforward: AI will power the future of work, but people will drive it.

The challenge for leaders is therefore to build for both.

Her work encourages organizations to move beyond simply adopting new technology and consider the larger questions surrounding value, people, innovation and transformation. Where is value currently being overlooked? Which assumptions are limiting the available solutions? And what becomes possible when leaders frame the challenge 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 big ideas with the practical realities of creating change.

Audiences can expect insights into:

• How asking a better question can reveal opportunities others overlook and create entirely new paths to value.
• Why AI will power the future of work while people remain responsible for driving meaningful transformation.
• What innovation actually looks like inside large organizations, informed by JoAnn's experience at Microsoft.
• How leaders can move ideas from an early spark through development and toward scalable market opportunities.
• Why regenerative thinking can help organizations create more value than they consume.
• How challenging established assumptions can unlock new designs, funding models and business possibilities.

JoAnn also co-hosts Innovating Out Loud, extending the conversation around 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.

Based in the Seattle area, JoAnn brings together the mindset of an engineer, the curiosity of a philosopher and the experience of a lifelong entrepreneur. Whether delivering a keynote, facilitating a workshop or working directly with an organization, she helps leaders look beyond the obvious answer, find the better question and uncover the value everyone else leaves on the table.