Alex Rühl is an award-winning immersive creator, technologist, and innovation leader whose career spans VR content creation, enterprise consulting, and emerging technology strategy. As founder of Cats Are Not Peas and former Head of Emerging Tech at PwC, Alex has helped shape how global organizations adopt and scale immersive technologies.

Key Takeaways

• Roots in Innovation: Alex’s journey began with a fascination for new tech, inspired by her family’s early adoption of internet tools and gadgets.
• Immersive Content Pioneer: She spent seven years building VR experiences and later expanded into AR and other immersive formats, always seeking to understand how people create and engage with new media.
• Enterprise Innovation at PwC: At PwC, Alex led metaverse and emerging tech initiatives, guiding large organizations to adopt VR, AR, blockchain, AI, and quantum computing for real business value.
• Value-Driven Approach: She emphasizes that enterprise adoption hinges on clear value—saving money, saving time, or creating new revenue streams.
• Authenticity Over Transaction: Alex stresses the importance of genuine relationships in business, advocating for honesty and setting realistic expectations, especially in high-stakes innovation projects.
• Learning Through Experimentation: She shared the story of launching Geospatial Insights, an enterprise app for Apple Vision Pro, highlighting the importance of transparency about risks and learnings in new tech deployments.
• Balancing ROI and Innovation: Alex discusses the tension between the need for measurable ROI and the necessity of learning and experimentation in innovation, advising founders to focus on the right industry and buyer profiles.
• Personal Glow Up: After a decade in immersive tech, Alex is taking a well-earned break and looking forward to a new phase of “giving back,” sharing her knowledge and supporting the next generation of innovators.

About Alex Rühl

Alex Rühl is an award-winning virtual reality creator and founder of Cats Are Not Peas. Formerly head of Metaverse Technologies at PwC. Since starting her VR career in 2015, she’s written, directed and exec produced several original pieces included 360º romcom Keyed Alike (Starring Gemma Whelan, HBO’s Game of Thrones, and Natacha Karam, Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star), interactive VR thought experiment Playing God (premiered at Cannes XR 2019) and her most recent piece Rock Paper Scissors which had its world premiere at Venice Film Festival in 2022 (first VR piece funded by BFI Network).

A notable figure in the XR industry, she has received industry recognition for her work in immersive storytelling (The Drum’s 50 under 30, Women of the Future Awards, Pioneers of XR Award) and is a global keynote speaker on the topic of the metaverse (TEDx, BFI, Adobe, Royal Television Society, Department of International Trade & more).

Alex has worked alongside the world’s big

A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.
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