Heather Flanagan is the Principal at Spherical Cow Consulting, where she helps organizations navigate the fast-moving world of digital identity and Internet standards. With more than 15 years of experience translating complex technical concepts into clear, actionable strategy, Heather is known for her ability to bridge communities, guide collaborative work, and make standards development a little less intimidating.
She currently serves as co-chair for the W3C Federated Identity Working Group, the W3C Exploration Interest Group, the IETF Secure Patterns for Internet Credentials (SPICE) working group, and HotRFC. Her past roles span many of the Internet’s most influential technical communities, including the OpenID Foundation (Lead Editor), IDPro (Executive Director), the IETF and IRTF (RFC Series Editor), and REFEDS (Coordinator).
Named to the 2025 Okta Identity 25 as one of the top thought leaders in digital identity, Heather is also a regular speaker and writer focused on standards, governance, and the real-world friction of identity implementation. If there’s work underway to shape the future of identity or rethink how the Internet functions, she’s probably in the middle of it.
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