Rebecca Murtagh : Human First Futurist
Award-Winning CEO
World-Renowned Thought-Leader on
Future of Work, Business, Humans, AI, and Life

About BIO for Rebecca Murtagh Human AI Futurist CEO Author and Speaker
“Let’s create an amazing human-first future, together!” – Rebecca Murtagh

Rebecca Murtagh is a high-energy, passionate, knowledgeable and highly-relevant C-Suite Advisor, Innovation Coach, Keynote Speaker, and Trainer clients and audiences love!

Futurist Rebecca Murtagh delivers powerful keynote at The Future is Still Human event in New York

Trusted Advisor to Executives, Entrepreneurs, and Their Teams

We live and work in rapidly changing world.

Rebecca is a dynamic, knowledgeable, highly-respected consultant and executive coach and trainer that draws from decades of experience working with startups, entrepreneurs and large established brands across many industries from Silicon Valley and Fortune 500, to Main Street U.S.A. to help organizations adapt and succeed in amidst disruption.

Always the futurist, Rebecca has earned a reputation for helping executives, organizations and professionals identify emerging trends and disruptions as opportunities to innovate and rise to the next level of growth.

Nearly every client Rebecca works with comes by way of an inquiry from a C-Suite executive seeking innovative, fresh ideas to grow their organization to the next level.

The rest typically come by way of referral.

As a trusted advisor, Rebecca works with executives, founder, entrepreneurs, and business owners, and their teams to identify and create new opportunities to innovate and a framework to continually grow their business for sustainable success.

Rebecca leverages her real-world experience to help others to identify what they can do NOW to respond to immediate challenges and create long-term, sustainable success.

Award-Winning Leadership

As CEO of the award-winning digital consultancy she founded in 2001,
and Founder of the Human AI Institute in 2021, Rebecca is a highly-respected global thought-leader on the future of entrepreneurship, e-business, leadership, collaboration, innovation, marketing and human performance in the age of AI. Her ability to identify emerging trends as opportunities for strategic planning for sustainable success has been invaluable to executives, business owners, and leaders for decades.

Why Should Your Hire a Futurist?

As a Trusted Advisor, Consultant and Executive Coach:

As a Futurist, executive coach, advisor, and consultant, Rebecca is trusted by forward-thinking C-level executives, entrepreneurs, business owners, leaders, and professionals across many industries. Rebecca’s futurist perspective, expansive knowledge and expertise is invaluable to clients.

As a Speaker and Trainer:

As a Futurist, speaker and trainer, Rebecca helps teams, audiences, students, and professionals of all levels approach disruption as opportunity, and see the future with a fresh, inspired perspective. Audiences love her energy, passion, and her ability to simplify complex topics so they can focus on how to innovate and achieve goals, faster.

Human AI Futurist Thought Leader Keynote Speaker Rebecca Murtagh

Disrupt or Be Disrupted.

Driven by over 30 years and 100,000 hours of professional experience, Rebecca has repeatedly leveraged emerging trends to reinvent herself, her career, and her business ventures by way of disruption, pivot, and innovation. Rebecca is passionate about helping executives, entrepreneurs, and professionals do the same to take their organizational and personal success to the next level.

What Does it Mean to Disrupt or Identify Emerging Trends?

After making several pivots in her career, Rebecca first identified future opportunity in the Internet in the mid 1990′s.

Her initial involvement in the strategy, planning, creation and marketing of the first few websites of a 80 million dollar publishing imprint of International Thomson Publishing would be just the beginning of a highly successful career as a subject matter expert, educator and adviser.

After catching the web bug, in the late 1990’s Rebecca left the stability of a corporate job to work along side highly talented and innovative web architects, programmers and code scripters in a new media start-up. Working on the earliest forms of Intranets, CMS, e-commerce and custom web applications, Rebecca absorbed everything she could as the firm created web environments for Time Warner to support the roll out of high-speed internet, Plug Power as it approached an IPO, created the first Tech Valley website, the first e-commerce website for TroyBilt, an award-winning website for the New York Capital Region’s Albany Colonie Chamber of Commerce, and a multitude of websites for business in various sectors.

She went on to take the lead for on-time, in budget completion of the first $1 million dollar budget e-commerce website for Harte Hanks Interactive of Harte Hanks Worldwide, which led to accounts with the U.S. Postal Service and Casual Corner. Rebecca then accepted a position as Director of New Media Services and Corporate Marketing for Wave Systems Corp (WAVS) to support R&D and deployment of streaming media subscription services, proprietary wallet technology, and partnering with players such as Philips, Microsoft, various OEMs and Cyber-COMM electronic payments, amidst early efforts to promote convergence of internet, digital streaming and television broadcast.

In 2001, Rebecca founded the award-winning marketing firm Karner Blue Marketing which has been engaged by large consumer brands, start-ups and enterprises in a multitude of industries.

Throughout her career, Rebecca has earned recognition as an internationally-recognized expert on topics related to business strategy, e-business, search, social media, e-business, digital and integrated marketing. Her straightforward, style has earned Rebecca invitations to speak at some of the industry’s largest international events, in addition to providing consulting, corporate training to private organizations throughout North America and Bahamas.

The Future is Still Human Keynote speaker Rebecca Murtagh CEO of Human AI Institute

Knowledgeable. Engaging. Passionate!

Motivate, inspire, and empower your leadership, team or audience!

Rebecca’s passion and mastery of a wide variety of subject matters quickly earns the trust and confidence of audiences of all levels. Her ability to adapt the conversation to C-level executives, mid-level professionals or first-time entrepreneurs can be attributed to mastery of the topics, and her ease in translating complex topics into information that can be applied to executable strategies that deliver results. Its no wonder clients and colleagues turn to Rebecca for advice again and again as the digital landscape evolves, to help them adapt strategies, overcome new challenges and deploy methods that impact the bottom line.

In 2013, Rebecca’s internationally-acclaimed book Million Dollar Websites: Build a Better Website Using Best Practices of the Web Elite in E-Business, Design, SEO, Usability, Social, Mobile and Conversion was published, adopted by college professors for students, distributed at association annual conferences, and continues to receive high praise and 5 star reviews from industry experts and readers.

In addition to creating a Google+ Community to provide ongoing support to readers and website enthusiasts, Rebecca became a columnist on Search Engine Watch, one of the industry’s most trusted sources for breaking news, best practices and expert insights in SEO, Social Media, Marketing, Mobile, Video and the digital landscape.

A Highly-Engaging Keynote Speaker & Educator

Rebecca Murtagh is continually exploring uncharted territory and taking audiences with her. Her engaging personality and ability to help audiences look into the future often draws standing-room only attendance to seminars and conference sessions, and conventions.

Rebecca is dedicated to dispelling myths, explaining complex subjects in language everyone can related to, to help them see how to adapt their goals and strategies for the future.

Human AI CEO Keynote Speaker Rebecca Murtagh
Rebecca Murtagh Keynote speaker at Human AI Institute “The Future is (Still) Human” event in New York. Photo by Andrew Elder : Best Frame Forward

Keynote Speaker, Coach & Trainer


Rebecca Murtagh is a recognized thought-leader, speaker and trainer helping others boldly navigate the hottest topics businesses and professionals face today, such as:

– AI Ethics, Alignment, and Responsible Technology Development
– Robots Don’t Innovate! The Secret to Innovation and Collaboration in the AI Era
– Protecting Human Agency, Creativity, and Sovereignty of Body, Mind, and Soul
– Future of Work
– Future of Business

– Innovative Leadership
– The Science of Collaboration
– The New Quest for Meaning and Fulfillment (in a world dominated by AI and intelligent machines)
– Leading with Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Growth
– Elevating Human Performance Amidst Artificial Intelligence
– How to Turn Disruption into Opportunity for Sustainable Success

Rebecca has presented keynotes, workshops, presentations, working sessions, lectures and seminars at a large variety of international, national, and regional conventions and conferences, private corporate trainings, and exclusive workshops for international, national and local organizations, including, but not limited to:
(view blog and media for podcast interviews and other appearances)

::  #HUMANTUESDAY – November 2024: Rebecca Murtagh kicked off an unscripted, weekly livestream series that appears simultaneously on LinkedIn Live exploring what it takes for humans to survive and thrive on a professional and personal level in the age of accelerating AI. Discussions include ethics, the future of work, the future of business, the future of humans, ethical AI, alignment, responsible tech, innovation, collaboration, and the future of humanity – all topics Rebecca has invested thousands of hours to research thoroughly over the past 14 years for her upcoming book.

::  WEBINAR – November 2024: Rebecca Murtagh was invited to deliver the webinar “Human First” Culture and AI Protect Human Agency, for The Association for Peace and Economic Development and The Universal Peace Federation, an NGO in General Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

::  PUBCON PRO Las Vegas, Nevada – October 2024: Rebecca Murtagh was invited to speak about “Turning Navigate Disruption Quickly to Increase Brand Visibility”, moderate another presentation, and website live review panel.

:: LEADING IN AN AI WORLD Paradise Valley, Arizona – February 2024: As CEO and Founder of the Human AI Institute, Rebecca Murtagh was the main keynote speaker, speaking about Leadership in an AI World, shared a fireside chat with Jeffrey Hayzlett of the C-Suite Network, and delivered a second keynote talk focusing on the Human First ethos, introducing the 501c3 nonprofit she founded, Ascently, Institute, Inc. and

:: MISSION ACCEPTED, Success Virtual Summit  – April 2024: As CEO and Founder of Ascently Institute, Inc. a 501c3 Nonprofit, Rebecca Murtagh joined Deb Drummond to speak briefly about her “Human First” contribution to the book, Mission Accepted : 262 Women Entrepreneurs, Ultrapreneurs, Creatives & Media  ROCK LEGACY & Tell All, chosen to be included in the 2024 Emmy’s Celebrity Gifting Lounge.

:: THE FUTURE IS STILL HUMAN – June 2023: As CEO and Founder of the Human AI Institute, Rebecca Murtagh will speak about the impact of AI on the Future of Work, Business, Careers, and Life at GE Theater in the historic Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, NY.

:: ART OF CONNECTION – 2023- Guest on the iNETrepreneur Network radio show.

::  PUBCON PRO – Local Marketing Virtual Conference – February 2021: Rebecca Murtagh hosted a virtual session outlining how local businesses can adapt marketing strategies and messaging to appeal to virtual audiences in a post-pandemic world.

:: CROWD SUCCESS Open Forum: Live Virtual Event – March 2020: Rebecca Murtagh hosted a live video forum to discuss the impact the Coronavirus Pandemic has had on businesses and careers of attendees, addressing everything from new ways to connect, best practices for virtual meetings, as well as tools and methods to streamline work for maximum productivity and work-life balance amidst disruption.

::  Pubcon Austin, Texas USA – February 2020: Rebecca Murtagh returned to Austin to deliver her very-popular presentation: Merging Psychology and Content to a standing-room only crowd.

::  Pubcon Pro Las Vegas, Nevada – October 2019: Rebecca Murtagh was invited to return once again to Pubcon Pro Las Vegas, the #1 Marketing Conference for an updated version of her 2017 presentation on Merging Psychology and Content.

::  SFIMA – Pubcon South Florida Interactive Marketing Association Summit April 2019, Ft. Lauderdale, FL USA : invited to return for a fifth year to speak at Pubcon’s “Marketing Spring Break” conference.

:: 2018 NYC Brand Summit, Brooklyn, New York USA – 2018: Rebecca Murtagh was invited by Incite to be chairperson of the Storytelling and Content track where she facilitated sessions and discussion about case studies delivered by CMO’s and top marketing professionals from American Express, KFC, Weight Watchers, and other global brands.

::  Pubcon Pro Las Vegas, Nevada October 2018 USA: Rebeca Murtagh was invited to return to Pubcon Pro annual Las Vegas Conference.

::  SFIMA – Pubcon South Florida Interactive Marketing Association Summit April 2018, Ft. Lauderdale, FL USA – February 2017: invited to return for a fourth year to speak at Pubcon’s “Marketing Spring Break” conference to share insight with internet marketing professionals, business owners, and entrepreneurs from around the world on how to use User-Generated Content to improve visibility of the brand, engage audiences, and create brand assets.

::  Pubcon Austin, Texas USA – February 2018: Rebecca was invited to present at University of Texas, Austin on “The Science of Influence”.

::  2017 NYC Brand Summit, Brooklyn, New York USA: Rebecca Murtagh was invited by Incite to be chairperson of the Storytelling and Content track where she facilitated sessions and discussion about case studies delivered by CMO’s and top marketing professionals from American Express, KFC, Weight Watchers, and other global brands.

::  Pubcon Las Vegas, Nevada October 2017: Rebeca Murtagh was invited to return to Pubcon Las Vegas, the #1 Marketing Conference (rated by Marketing Professionals) to speak about Merging Psychology and Content Creation.

::  SFIMA – South Florida Interactive Marketing Association Summit – February 2017: selected as one of the world’s top 50 experts invited to speak to professional marketers and entrepreneurs around the world on How to Use Psychology to Develop Content and Promote Conversion.

:: Pubcon Las Vegas – 2016 – Rebecca Murtagh invited to return as one of the top 200 expert speakers at Pubcon, deemed a Forbes “Must Attend Conference” and Inc. “Top conference for growing your business”.

:: Northeast Biofeedback Society – Rebecca Murtagh presented a 1/2 day workshop on how to use Digital Marketing (the website, social media, search and email) to build a brand, and private practice.

:: Pubcon Las Vegas – 2016 –  Rebecca Murtagh was invited back as one of the world’s top experts to present on emerging trends and opportunities for entrepreneurs, business owners and marketers to reach target audiences.

::  SFIMA – South Florida Interactive Marketing Association Summit – 2016: one of the world’s top speakers selected to present to professional marketers, Rebecca Murtagh spoke about the role of Big Data, Little Data, All Data being vital to direct investment in building a marketing plan and conducting ongoing analysis for optimum ROI.

:: Pubcon Las Vegas – 2015 – Rebecca Murtagh was invited to return to speak at the largest Pubcon conference to date, attracting attendees from around the world.

::  NANP – National Association of Nutrition Professionals, Tucson, AZ USA : Rebecca Murtagh was a featured speaker chosen to speak about the use of social media to build a business. This session drew a highly-captivated standing room only crowd!

::  SFIMA – South Florida Interactive Marketing Association Summit – 2015

:: Pubcon Las Vegas – 2014 – Million Dollar Websites book-signing and presenting two sessions at the national conference at Las Vegas Convention Center.

::  Chamber of Commerce – Guilderland, NY – February 2014: Rebecca Murtagh was invited to present Social Media: A Vital Business Leadership, Sales, Marketing and Customer Relations Tool for the Sustainable Business to members and guests.

::  Pubcon Austin Regional at University of Texas, Austin TX USA – 2014: Rebecca Murtagh presented a spotlight session:  ‘The Convergence of Social Media and Search’ to share latest research on the indisputable relationship between social and search to professional marketers and SEO’s.

:: Pubcon Las Vegas – 2013 – Million Dollar Websites book-signing and speaker for two sessions: Social Media in the Overall Marketing Plan, and Social Media and Search Today.

::  AOA Conference Albuquerque, NM USA – 2013 – Speaker for two sessions at the Annual Management and Marketing Conference for America Outdoors Association in Albuquerque, NM.

The Future of Digital Commerce and The Power of Google+ and Hangouts, were standing-room only sessions, followed by a private hangout for attendees to join to become more familiar with the webinar, video conferencing, social engagement platform.

::  SFIMA – South Florida Interactive Marketing Association Summit – 2013: as one of the Pubcon speakers invited to present to professional marketers representing some of America’s largest brands with a standing-room only session ‘All Roads Lead to Home’.

:: Pubcon New Orleans – Million Dollar Websites book-signing and presented two sessions: Social Media in the Overall Marketing Plan, and Social Media and Search Today.Marketing Keynote speaker Rebecca Murtagh hosted by Chamber of Commerce in Guilderland NY

:: SESNY: Search Engine Strategies NYC – Meet the Experts, meeting with business owners to answer burning questions about website Conversion.

:: The Special Event: Chicago, IL How to Reach Your “Ideal Customers” Using Today’s Digital Landscape.

:: PubCon Las Vegas 2012: Las Vegas – Two Sessions: Social Media, Search and Your Brand;  Integrating Social Media Into the Marketing Plan

:: Digital World Expo Las Vegas, Nevada: Two Sessions – LinkedIn and Loaded;   Google+ Inside and Out

:: PubCon Paradise 2012 Presenter and Panelist: The Convergence of Social Media , Search and Real-Time Search

:: PubCon Las Vegas 2011 Presenter and Panelist: The Convergence of Social Media , Search and Real-Time Search

:: Rebecca’s Post on the PubCon Social Media and Search Blog: Social Media Without Optimization Don’t Mean a Thing

:: NASCAR RV Resorts – Morgan RV Resorts: Keynote Speaker and Corporate Trainer. Rebecca created custom Keynote Speech followed by a custom workshop in Social Media Marketing for the management team from locations across the U.S.

:: PubCon Las Vegas 2010 Presenter and Panelist: The Convergence of Social Media , Search and Real-Time Search

:: PubCon Dallas 2010 Presenter and Panelist: How Search and Social Media Intersect, Including Real-Time Search

:: “Official Tweeter” for Silicon Valley Brand Forum  SVBF Event at: Electronic Arts  Managing Brand in the Social Media Jungle

:: exl Pharma 3 Hour SEO Pre-Conference Workshopexl Pharma SEM Annual Conference

:: Web 2.0 – San Franciso, CA SEO Seminar: Integrating SEO, Usability, and Internet Marketing for High Performance and Results

:: NHFA – National Home Furnishings Association Annual Conference: Paradise Island, Bahamas: Presenting Two Search Engine Marketing and Website Strategy Seminars at the All-Industries Convention

  • What is Search Engine Marketing?
  • Million Dollar Website

:: ISA – International Sign Assocition Annual Convention: Orlando, FL: Search Engine Myths and Facts

:: NAPM – National Association of Purchasing Management: New York Chapter: The Future of the Internet

:: PRSA – Public Relations Society of America: WRBG Studios Niskayuna: Search Engine Optimization Strategies for the Public Relations Industry

:: American College of Surgeons – COSM – Boca Raton Resort & Club, Boca Raton, FL USA: Rebecca was invited to speak to plastic surgeons and their practice managers on: How Search Engine Optimization Can Help You Grow Your Practice

:: ALTA Tech Forum – Association of Land Title Professionals – New Orleans, LA

:: RPI – Engineering Internet Symposium, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, NY – 2009, 2008, 2007

:: 2005 Rebecca and her team were awarded the American Marketing Association Mark of Excellence award for creation and launch of first commercial long-distance Wi-Fi transportation service.Rebecca Murtagh featured in business story for award-winning launch of Wi-Fi service for transportation company 2005Rebecca Murtagh launching Wi-Fi service for client at Albany International AIrport 2005

:: AdFacs – Business Expo – Albany, NY – 2003, 2004, 2005“Internet Marketing””Passion is Power”

:: U-Start Union College Entrepreneur Series – Schenectady, NY

:: American Marketing Association NY Capital Region Internet Symposium – Albany, NY

:: EAP – Entrepreneurship Assistance Program Instructor – Albany Colonie Regional Chamber of Commerce – Albany, NY

:: Society of Marketing Professionals – Association of Strategic Marketing

:: Schenectady Business Center Entrepreneurship Course Instructor – Schenectady, NY

:: Capital Leadership – Albany, NY

:: Private Corporate on-Site Training and Seminars Throughout North America

more about Rebecca Murtagh, the Keynote Speaker

Internet Marketing Pioneer Becomes a Keynote Speaker

Unlike the traditional perspective of the time that websites were IT assets, Rebecca recognized early on that the website was a marketing asset. Rebecca was an early advocate of this shift, promoting the involvement of marketing professionals in working with corporate clients.

When given the opportunity, Rebecca pursued an opportunity to become Marketing Director at an early new media start-up in the beginning days of the commercial internet website development. Working side-by-side with website developers, architects and e-commerce pioneers to develop innovative new web-based applications, tools and environments, Rebecca developed a true appreciation for the development of innovative problem-solving technologies that businesses could use. Her involvement in the design, development and promotion of websites began the early formation of the methodologies for website design, email, SEO and internet marketing. Rebecca discovered her love of training at this organization, teaching executives and practitioners how to leverage their website, statistics and tools to impact the bottom line for their organizations.

A Keynote Speaker That Empowers Audiences to Embrace the Future

Rebecca was then enticed to move on to Harte Hanks Worldwide to lead the new media team of developers, website designers and SEO staff to launch the firm’s first $1 million dollar budget e-commerce website for Rhodes Furniture to rival Furniture.com.

Rebecca led the creation of innovative new applications of Flash technology in the 1990′s to build the web’s first interactive “room planner” which integrated size and dimensions of e-commerce assets to enable pre-purchase room design for home owners and interior designers to save and manipulate…resulting in one of the Internet’s earliest fully interactive tools. Upon successful launch, Rebecca immediately accepted an invitation to become Director of Marketing, New Media Services for the publicly traded technology company, Wave Systems, to develop OEM and international distribution of a very early Web 2.0 social media platform, DRM for streaming media and transactional security “wallet” platform. Becoming Corporate Marketing Director, Rebecca was part of the team developing marketing partnerships with Philips, Compaq, Sony and CyberComm in Europe.

In 2001, the very day Rebecca was downsized out of her position, she founded the award-winning marketing consultancy, Karner Blue Marketing. She and her team created innovative approaches that would increase sales, profit, and market share for clients.

In 2005 Rebecca led her team to create and launch for a client the first commercial long-distance Wi-Fi service for commuters in New York, years before Wi-Fi would be made widely available to the public on planes, trains and ground transportation. The service garnered international media attention, increased the revenue of the client exponentially,  and the campaign earned the coveted American Marketing Association NYCAP Mark of Excellence Award.

Real World Experience Your Audience Can Relate To

Rebecca has always been leading the way into the future. For decades, Rebecca has helped C-level executives, entrepreneurs and individuals adapt to build sustainable strategies. She has been speaking to groups of all sizes and educating students, professionals and executives in programs held by colleges and universities, chambers of commerce, community entrepreneur assistance programs, and associations since the 1990’s. Her real-world experience makes Rebecca highly relevant and credible.

Explore how Rebecca Murtagh can inspire and motivate your audience!

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