Kat Vellos

Kat Vellos is a speaker, facilitator, certified connection coach, and the author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships which she also illustrated.

Kat has been designing and facilitating workshops and groups for artsy-writesy folks since Beyonce was lead singer of Destiny’s Child. She helps adults make and keep friends while riding the rollercoaster of modern life, and she helps companies retain staff by supporting them to find belonging and connection at work (no karaoke necessary!). She’s also a fan fave on stage at speaking events and her writing is read in over 100 countries.

Kat’s methods are rooted in qualitative research and the belief that dedicated creative experimentation can solve any problem that comes our way. In her former career as a user experience (UX) designer, she worked for Slack and Pandora, as well as with the creators of Siri designing their next stealth project. She was profiled in Forbes for her work as the founder of Bay Area Black Designers which she ran from 2015-2022 as the Bay Area’s largest professional development community for Black UX and product designers. As a UX researcher and designer, she helped millions of people find music they love, enjoy work a lot more, and get more done with greater efficiency.

Nowadays, she uses her UX superpowers to battle the loneliness epidemic. While she loved making software more user-friendly (and the unlimited kombucha was a lovely perk), she’s a lot happier now making life more user-friendly. She currently spends her days helping people escape the adulthood friendship desert so they can revel in the joy of amazing friendships, healthy work teams, and thriving communities.

Creations:

Kat Vellos creates tools for connection. Her debut book, We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships, is loved by critics, professional book reviewers, and consumers alike. She’s the creator and facilitator of Better than Small Talk, an immersive experience of authenticity and connection that’s been held in Seattle, Oakland, and Berkeley and is now available as a set of conversation starter cards. She’s also the creator of the Better Conversations Kit, the Better Conversations Calendar, the Connected from Afar action guide (which was a short addendum to We Should Get Together), and the viral "Alternatives to How Are You" illustration and blog post.

Speaking and facilitating:

Kat’s been interviewed all over the place; a few highlights include The New York Times, Forbes, NPR, Communication Arts, The Good Life Project, Design Observer’s The Design of Business | The Business of Design, The Wall Street Journal, Shondaland, and Hurry Slowly. She’s also a fan fave on stage and has blessed the mic at TEDx Talks, San Francisco Design Week, VivaTech, The Atlantic’s Pursuit of Happiness conference, Rosenfeld’s DesignOps Summit, and many more. Her clients go from A to Z literally — she’s facilitated team bonding events for Adobe, Asana, Workday, and Zendesk, and many other incredible companies in between who care about cultivating connection in the workplace. Kat welcomes booking inquiries at katvellos.com.

Background:

Kat identifies as a Black woman (she/her), an immigrant to the United States, and she’s a flag-waving member of the LGBTQ community. Her intersectional and empathetic perspective is informed by her lived experience, her work in both the for-profit and non-profit industry, and a plethora of earth signs in her astrology chart.