Ryann Foelker studies what happens when modernization makes life harder.

A keynote speaker and executive advisor with 20+ years inside insurance, healthcare, financial services, and education, she helps leaders fix it before it costs them the relationships they can't afford to lose.

She calls it The Burden Tax, and helping leaders catch it early is the whole practice. Her work has been recognized by Fast Company, Reuters Events, RISE, and The Digital Insurer.

She trained as an industrial designer, where the lesson that stuck was that a product is only as good as the relationship it creates with the people who have to live with it. That lens carried into foresight, work recognized by the United Nations and the Global Foresight Advisory Council.

At American Family Insurance, she joined as the first hire in a new Digital Transformation Office and later became the company's most senior design leader. Before that, she built a design agency from solo practice to a multi-client firm with employees and a 30-company roster. Over two decades inside systems like these, she developed Designed Equilibrium, a framework for designing healthy service systems in high-stakes industries.

Today she speaks nationally to executives, founders, and innovation leaders, giving them a name for what they've been feeling, a framework for understanding why it keeps happening, and a methodology for building something better.

Awards & Recognitions

  • In 2025, I was named in Reuters Event’s list of Trailblazing Women in Insurance.

    My achievements in the insurance industry were recognized on the basis of my professional track record, influence, social impact, and leadership.

  • In 2024, my leadership brought American Family Insurance a win in the Americas Regional Finals, Insurer Innovation category.

    We took the honors with our coverage calibration support solution, “PIRfy,” which transformed the personal insurance review process for AmFam agents.

  • In 2024, I was awarded RISE’s inaugural Innovator of the Year recognition.

    The Innovator of the Year Award is an accolade that celebrates outstanding contributions to the insurance industry through innovation and visionary leadership. This award aims to highlight and applaud individuals that have pioneered transformative solutions, setting new standards for the industry.

  • In 2023, my leadership (and application-writing abilities) won American Family Insurance Group its first placement on Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators list (No. 71) – making it the only insurance category winner in the top 100.

  • Speculative design piece that interpreted and presented a vision of what peacebuilding could be, based on the history of the UN’s actions, its current peace efforts, and imagined futures. Semi-finalist ranking issued by United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (DPPA) and the Design Futures Initiative (DFI) in 2020.

  • Certified by the Global Foresight Advisory Council (GFAC) to conduct trendspotting, horizon scanning and pattern-making that informs future scenarios and impacts business results.