Kathy Peach
www.nesta.org.uk/team/kathy-peach/
www.nesta.org.uk/team/kathy-peach/
Director of the Centre for Collective Intelligence
The Centre for Collective Intelligence transforms societal collaboration by breaking down barriers to participation, reimagining civic engagement, and rebuilding trust in institutions.
Kathy is the director of the Centre for Collective Intelligence, where her team builds digital tools and designs innovative participation activities to help organisations engage the public at scale. Their work produces actionable insights that support informed decisions on the issues that matter most - from emerging technology and AI to the climate crisis. In 2023, the Centre won a UK National Innovation Award for Customer Experience and Insight and in 2025 was shortlisted for the Local Government Chronicle Award for Community Engagement.
Kathy was lead author of the Collective Intelligence Design Playbook and led the team's development of Zeitgeist, a new platform for scaling public deliberation on complex policy issues. She leads many of the Centre's partnerships with international organisations, government bodies and councils, from the UN to the BBC. Her Nesta publications include Collective Intelligence for Sustainable Development, Collective Intelligence for Climate Adaptation, Our Futures: By the people, for the people, Participatory AI for humanitarian innovation, and Combining Crowds & Machines.
Previously, Kathy was head of innovation & foresight at Bond, the global network for international development organisations, and held leadership roles at the disability charity Scope, international development agency VSO, and the public body Healthwatch England. She served on the board of the Nobel prize-winning charity Mines Advisory Group (MAG) from 2013 to 2019, sat on the Newton Fund Prize Committee in 2018 and 2020, and has advised the World Economic Forum on Technology & Society.
