Kati Ohens smiling outdoors with sunglasses, wearing a gray sweater and a red and black jacket, standing in front of a tree near a beach with ocean in the background.

My career never fitted neatly into one function.

I started in marketing, moved into digital and technology, built software, led teams and founded businesses across New Zealand, Europe and the US.

It wasn't a deliberate career plan. I kept following interesting problems, and each one taught me to see a different part of how businesses work.

The breadth that once made my career difficult to describe is now exactly what makes the work possible.

2022 - Present‍ ‍
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER.

Today I work with founders and leadership teams in different capacities depending on what the business needs, from fractional and embedded leadership to focused consulting and advisory.

I've worked as a brand strategist with FutureYou, helping reposition the business and build its brand and methodology into a scalable system; as an embedded product and business lead with R6, helping build the commercial structure around its sustainability technology; and more recently with Original Machine, working across SaaS product definition, brand, go-to-market and team structure.

The roles look different, but the work has a common thread: getting close enough to the business to understand what's really needed, then helping put it into practice.

  • Original Machine. Securing human craft in the age of automated noise

  • Sandra Chemin from futureyou talking at a conference

    Working alongside the great female leaders of FutureYou

  • A digital presentation slide with a blue background and a network pattern, featuring a white and purple logo with the letters 'R6' and the text 'Mapping a sustainable future' with the date '28 Feb 2024'.

    Working with pioneers of the European CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive)

  • Legit Kitchen - optimising food safety requirements and customer demand in one elegant system

2018 - 2022‍ ‍
GOING GLOBAL - Plantcraft.

As Co-Founder of Plantcraft, I helped build the company from an idea into an award-winning US consumer brand, working across strategy, product, brand, marketing, fundraising, team building and international expansion.

We established operations across New Zealand, Hungary and the US, joined the ProVeg Incubator in Berlin, raised investment, launched into the US market and built partnerships across the emerging plant-based industry. Plantcraft went on to win multiple international product and brand awards.

It was the first time I was responsible not just for one part of a business, but for helping build the whole thing.

  • A woman smiling in a professional profile graphic for women building the future, part of a business leadership series, with her name Kati Ohens, 44, from Auckland, New Zealand, identified as co-founder and CEO of Plantcraft.

    Massive honour to have been selected as Vegan Woman of the year 2021, Vegan Women Building the Future, Business category, (VWS and Impossible)

  • Impact entrepreneurship is connecting friends, with Alan Ramos

  • A woman speaking into a microphone during a presentation at a Provég INCUBATOR event, with a projected slide behind her.

    Pitch day in Berlin, at the ProVeg Incubator, at the end of the four month program

  • Green circular logo for the World Plant Based Awards 2021 with text indicating 'WINNER' and a graphic of two leaves.

    Four prizes taken in 2021 and 2022, for best product and best startup

  • Katalin Ohens and Csaba Hetény, founders of a Hungarian startup, standing against a teal wall, holding plant-based meat products, smiling.

    Article in Forbes Hungary

  • With Geoff Palmer at PBW Expo, where I was meeting many of my heroes in person

  • Split-screen video interview of two women discussing vegan business. The woman on the left has long dark hair, is smiling, wearing a red top, and in front of a plain background. The woman on the right has shoulder-length brown hair, is smiling, wearing a black top, and in a room with a bookshelf and a whiteboard. Text overlays indicate they are talking about vegan business and feature their names and affiliations.

    With Katrina, doing Vegan Business Hour

  • Smiling man and woman taking a selfie at a large conference or event hall with a stage and many empty chairs in the background.

    Seeds and chips -The Global Food Innovation Summit, Milan

2014 - 2018‍ ‍
From projects to products.

Through Boys From The Factory and SALVO Tech Incubator, I moved deeper into product leadership and software, working with founders and businesses from early ideas through product definition, MVP and commercialisation, working in the SaaS and iOT space.

At Yabble, I worked as an embedded product lead, translating the founders’ market research expertise into an executable SaaS product, defining requirements and roadmaps and working closely with the development team. At Autogrow, we developed the frontend and API for its touchscreen platform and helped establish the repositories, Jira, continuous integration, ticketing and documentation practices around the software team.

Through SALVO, I also worked with early-stage ventures across IoT, agriculture, food technology, aviation and security, helping turn research and ideas into products, business models and development plans.

  • Kati Ohens talking on a cellphone inside an office with a 'Boys from the Factory' logo on the wall behind her.

    In our first shared office at Boys From The Factory

  • Large group of diverse people gathering outdoors on steps in front of a building, smiling and posing for a group photo at a the KiwiFoo non-conference event.

    At kiwifoo non-conference 2017. One of the inspirational events, demonstrating talent and ingenuity in New Zealand

  • Telecom to Spark rebrand campaign hero image from 2013

    Running a chunk of the Telecom to Spark rebrand campaign with Touchcast. One or the most complex campaigns in my entire career.

  • Douglas street office

    Douglas street office

  • Screenshot of a website homepage for Salvo, a business incubation company, with a dark background featuring a stock market or financial chart, and navigation links including Who we are, Fail Early, and an Apply button.

    Proudly uncool business creation - early stage “things” incubation,

  • A group of six people working at a long white conference table in a bright office. They are using laptops, and some have headphones. The room has large windows with wooden blinds, ceiling lights, and framed artwork on the walls.

    The boys and girls from the factory.

  • Johan Rockström giving a presentation about planetary boundaries with a large image of Earth behind him to an audience.

    New Frontiers, 2018. Johan Rocksrom’s speech strongly influenced the following years.

  • A graphic with a silhouette of a red and black bear, overlapped with an industrial machine in red hues, and the text "Work Harder Comrade" in large, bold black letters.

    Simple principles: work hard and have fun.

2010 - 2013‍ ‍
Where marketing met technology.

As Co-Founder, Executive Producer and Head of Production at The Space InBetween, I led multidisciplinary teams delivering digital campaigns, experiences and software for hundreds of brands across New Zealand and Australia.

We delivered more than 100 applications and 300 digital projects, working with advertising agencies, brands, creatives, designers and developers to turn ambitious ideas into things that could actually be built and launched.

This was where working between creative, commercial and technical teams became second nature to me.

  • A woman and a girl smiling and posing in front of a robot in a busy indoor setting with several people, some children, in the background.

    Media Lab opening ceremony. What a privilege to be part of launching this innovative project in New Zealand!

  • Humble beginnings at the first Herne Bay office

  • New headquarters at Victoria park

  • Screenshot of the 'Pick & Shovel' Minecraft-themed website, featuring a navigation bar with options such as About, Study Gaming, Server, Forum, and Downloads. The background depicts a pixelated sky with clouds and three Minecraft-style characters.

    A recruitment campaign within Minecraft won us and Media Design School an Effie nomination

My early career was unusually varied. I worked in newspapers and magazines, sales and marketing for an industrial tech company, recruitment, and international vegetable seed marketing, where I worked alongside the global marketing director.

I then started my first business and moved into country-level marketing for wine and spirits, including work with Wines of Hungary.

2002 - 2009‍ ‍
Learning business from different angles.

Those years gave me exposure to very different industries, customers and ways of doing business, long before I began working primarily in technology and product.

LET’S TALK

If you're building something, changing something, or trying to make the pieces work better together, I'd love to hear what's going on.