The Mr. Beacon Ambient IoT Podcast

Building the Future of IoT: Kirsten Newquist’s Vision for Identiv

The Mr. Beacon Ambient IoT Podcast

Show Notes

In this episode of the Mr. Beacon Podcast, Kirsten Newquist, CEO of Identiv, shares her journey from Avery Dennison to leading one of the most innovative companies in IoT. Kirsten discusses Identiv’s unique engineering, new growth strategy, and their impact on healthcare and smart device solutions. She also highlights her values-driven leadership approach and offers personal insights on building resilient, purpose-led teams in a fast-evolving, connected world.

Kirsten’s Top 3 Favorite Songs:

“Don’t Worry Be Happy” by Bobby McFerrin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOZ-MySzAac “Rise Up” by Andra Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDffmI0ncfo

Mister Beacon is hosted by Steve Statler, CEO of AmbAI Inc. — creators of AmbAI, the AI agent that connects people to products and the brands behind them. AmbAI also advises leading brands on Ambient Intelligence strategy.

Our sponsor is Blecon http://www.blecon.net. Blecon enables physical products to communicate with cloud applications using Bluetooth Low Energy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More from The Mr. Beacon Ambient IoT Podcast

Oct 13, 2026

InPlay CEO Jason Wu returns to the Mr. Beacon Podcast with an exclusive announcement: LIVE IoT, a new initiative for secure, interoperable Bluetooth tags. Discover how InPlay’s IN120 chip enables sub-$1 temperature logging, why open standards matter, and how partnerships with Trackonomy and Hubble Network could accelerate Ambient Physical AI and connect trillions of everyday objects to the cloud.

Sep 29, 2026

Ismail Hamdad, Co-Founder of Adsum Networks, joins Mr. Beacon to explore how AI can accelerate IoT firmware development from months to hours. We discuss Adsum’s IoT Decoder, giving AI coding agents the tools and context to work with physical hardware, the future of open IoT development, and Ismail’s journey from telecom engineering to entrepreneurship.

Sep 15, 2026

Matt Maupin of Silicon Labs joins the Mr. Beacon Podcast to discuss the evolution from Zigbee to Matter over Thread, the company’s concurrent multi-protocol technology, and its collaboration with Philips Hue. We explore interoperability, wireless reliability, commercial IoT, chip integration, Bluetooth Channel Sounding, and how these technologies can make connected devices easier and more dependable.

Sep 1, 2026

Rob Tiffany, Research Director at IDC and author of “Saving the Earth with the Internet of Things,” joins Mr. Beacon to explore how IoT can tackle real-world challenges in agriculture, water, food and sustainable cities. We discuss his 100 practical IoT recipes, pioneering work connecting vending machines, his definition of digital twins, and why combining IoT, automation and AI could unlock enormous opportunities.

Aug 18, 2026

What happens when IoT finally gets the connectivity infrastructure it has been waiting for?

See all episodes →