Dorothy Kilroy on Leading ŌURA’s Femme Tech Revolution
In this exclusive interview, we sit down with Dorothy Kilroy, the trailblazing Chief Commercial Officer of ŌURA, to discuss her journey to becoming the first to hold this pivotal role. Dorothy shares insights into her career path, the motivations behind her move to ŌURA, and her vision for integrating women’s health into the company’s innovative health-tracking technology. With a rich background that includes nearly eight years at Airbnb, where she played a key role in scaling the Host Community, Dorothy brings a wealth of experience to ŌURA.
Dorothy’s passion for mission-driven companies and her commitment to empowering individuals through technology are at the forefront of her work at ŌURA. In this interview, she delves into how ŌURA’s cutting-edge features are transforming health and wellness tracking, particularly for women. She also discusses the importance of partnerships and how the company is prioritizing women’s health and reproductive health in its product development. From the integration with Natural Cycles to the latest advancements in heart health monitoring, Dorothy provides a comprehensive look at how ŌURA is setting new standards in the health tech space. Join us as we explore the future of wearable technology and its potential to make a meaningful impact on women’s health.
How did your career lead you to becoming the first Chief Commercial Officer of ŌURA?
I’m responsible for leading our commercial and go to market efforts across ŌURA. This includes expanding into new business lines like enterprise and healthcare and working closely with key partners to grow the brand into exciting new spaces. Before this, I was at Airbnb for nearly eight years where I led the Host Community to 4M+ global hosts, including leading the Superhost loyalty programme. I have always been drawn to working for mission driven companies. My learnings growing and scaling the Airbnb business from the early days are very relevant for finding ways to scale growth at ŌURA.
What is it that attracted you to becoming part of ŌURA?
I’ve been a long-time Oura Member for 5 years – even before I started my role here – I honestly just loved the tech that was backed by incredible science and when I went to find out more about the company behind Oura Ring, I knew I had to become a part of it. I believe so strongly in the mission to empower everybody to realise health. ŌURA is making moves within the health tech space which other companies are yet to make; from making genuine commitments to women’s health to guiding Oura Members towards longevity. I align with Oura’s values, and that to me is really important.
Can you share more about your vision for ŌURA, especially regarding the integration of women’s health and reproductive health into the Oura ecosystem?
My vision for ŌURA centres around solving problems for our members across their health journey. We need to meet our members where they are in their journey. We measure more than 50 biomarkers on Oura Ring that translate into a lot of incredible experiences that support our members – from sleep quality, stress, heart health, activity and more. We believe one of the unique ways we can solve member problems is through building an ecosystem of partners which will provide Oura Members with the most full-rounded use of the technology. We currently have over 800 partners and strive to add even more integrations for users to gain deeper insights into their overall health journey. A key area of focus for me is the work we are doing for Women’s Health where we are integrating with a growing number of top women’s health partner platforms, such as Natural Cycles, Glow and Clue. For example, if a member is trying to conceive – we will allow the member to connect her Oura data to the partner services to support her needs. Our goal is to empower women with the meaningful tools they need to navigate their health journey.
The partnership with Natural Cycles has been incredibly successful. Can you elaborate on how the integration of Oura Ring with the Natural Cycles app benefits women in tracking their reproductive health and managing birth control?
During the menstrual cycle, hormonal changes cause body temperatures to rise during ovulation and drop when menstruation begins. Natural Cycles automatically syncs your temperature from your Oura Ring to determine your daily fertility status, to help plan or prevent pregnancy naturally, without some hormonal contraceptives. The ring automatically tracks your temperature. This saves women from taking their temperature with an oral thermometer when waking up, making their morning routine that little bit easier.
Oura Ring’s temperature sensor is highly accurate, attaining over 99% lab accuracy. This provides women with a reliable and effortless experience when tracking their reproductive health. Oura Ring can benefit women in tracking their reproductive health by spotting how each cycle phase impacts their heart, lungs and brain. We want to continue to empower women to become experts of their own body.
How does ŌURA ensure the accuracy and reliability of the health data it provides, particularly concerning women’s health? Are there ongoing studies or collaborations with health institutions?
At ŌURA, we hold ourselves to a high standard when it comes to accuracy and, while not a medical device, Oura Ring has capabilities that are comparable to advanced medical technologies. We’re not measuring ourselves against other consumer wearables, but against gold-standard laboratory testing.
For instance, Oura Ring measures resting heart rate at 99.9% reliability compared to a medical-grade electrocardiogram (ECG) and heart rate variability at 98.4% reliability compared to a medical-grade ECG.
Our team has over 20 PhDs perfecting the science of our product and we’re consistently funding and contributing to new studies and research papers validating the place of wearables in the future of health across the globe. To date, we have over 75 published, peer-reviewed research studies involving ŌURA.
What specific features of Oura Ring make it particularly suited for tracking women’s health metrics, such as menstrual cycle and hormonal changes? Cycle Insights, Period Prediction, Pregnancy Insights
We’ve released three features so far with the aim of supporting women’s health: Period Prediction, Cycle Insights and Pregnancy Insights.
Period Prediction uses key bio-signals to provide a five-day prediction window for the start of your next cycle and period onset. It was our initial women’s health feature launched in 2022. Since then, we’ve seen 76% of members using Cycle Insights log their periods and 80% of members using Cycle Insights track their cycles without hormones. And the feedback from women has been incredible on this feature. As we expanded our cycle tracking capabilities, we folded Period Prediction into our latest evolution of women’s health called Cycle Insights.
Using biomarkers like body temperature trends, Oura’s Cycle Insights feature tracks your monthly cycle and highlights which phase you’re in — either follicular or luteal — so that you can learn more about how your body changes within each phase and how this may impact your sleep score, your HRV and overall stress.
Our most recent addition to our women’s health offering is Pregnancy Insights, which supports women throughout each trimester of their pregnancy. This helps women to better track and understand what they might expect each week throughout their pregnancy.
What feedback have you received from female users about Oura Ring’s capabilities in tracking their health, and how is this feedback influencing future product developments?
The Pregnancy Insights feature was developed by our team using feedback from Oura Members. This is a new feature that launched earlier this year and is just the first step in providing a better experience for our pregnant members.
We also recently launched Oura Labs, which allows members to opt-in and test experimental features and provide feedback to our team. Through Oura Labs, we get to understand what works for our Members and iterate on features accordingly. By being directly in touch with those who will be using these future features, we can ensure that each feature we release is being developed with our members in mind.
Lastly, we have a strong team of female leaders at the helm of our features, research studies, and partnerships. This work is personal to many of them. They have faced challenges in conception, in pregnancy, and all around just understanding their bodies. They are here to make the change that they want to see in the world. This is one of the best parts of my job – working with such smart, talented women who are building products for women.
With your experience in scaling growth at Airbnb, how do you plan to expand ŌURA’s market presence and brand awareness, particularly among women?
By listening to Oura Members and understanding what they want to see from Oura Ring, I want to ensure that we are prioritising our member needs. We’re very in touch with what our Members want to see from us as a company and so by continuing to stay close to them, we can really grow. Airbnb was a community driven brand – growing through word of mouth and continuously improving the experience through feedback. We are doing the same at ŌURA.
With women, we hope to meet them where they are through partnering with brands that understand them just as much as Oura does. Natural Cycles, Clue, and Glow are all steps in this direction in addition to evolving our women’s health features beyond tracking fertility is an actionable next step to keep us connected to this important, and underserved community.
Retail is also a major part of our overall expansion. This year we’ve partnered with three major retailers in the US and have just launched two retail partners in the UK and the Nordics. In April, we launched exclusively in John Lewis as our first UK retail partner. We heard from many members that they want to see the ring and try it on in person before purchasing so we developed a unique sizing experience where customers can try on Oura Ring in store to feel and see the ring for themselves. Gaining global brand awareness and letting consumers touch and feel Oura Ring within their local department store is how we do that.
One amazing fact that I love about Oura Ring is its ability to indicate whether someone is a morning person! Can you explain how it works this out?
Your circadian rhythm acts as your unique internal body clock, telling your brain whether it’s time to stay awake or go to sleep. You may not realise it, but you often feel best when your lifestyle aligns with your body’s natural circadian rhythm. After getting to know your patterns and rhythms for the first three months of wearing Oura Ring, it will reveal your chronotype. Oura analyses your sleep, activity and body temperature to determine if you are an early morning, morning, late morning, early evening, evening or late evening type.
I’ve even learned so much about myself through this incredible feature. I am far more productive in the evenings and I used to feel quite guilty that my mornings just weren’t as productive. However, since understanding that it’s purely my natural, internal body clock I use my alertness in the evenings to get my hardest work done – and I’m just as productive as early morning types.
Are there any upcoming partnerships or integrations focused on women’s health that you can share with us?
We are constantly working on our women’s health focused integrations and partnerships, and as we grow, we hope to announce more in the future.
How does the ŌURA For Business initiative support women’s health in workplace settings, and what benefits have organisations seen from incorporating Oura into their wellness programs?
ŌURA For Business has worked with thousands of customers in a range of industries, enabling organisations to better understand and improve health and wellbeing within the workplace. These range from sports teams purchasing rings for their teams, to the companies like Accenture supporting employee wellness to first responders and doctors using Oura Ring for safety in their jobs. By leveraging their team’s Oura Member data, businesses are able to address insights such as burnout, fatigue and illness detection that are affecting productivity within the organisation. ŌURA’s Business offering is rooted in the philosophy that a well-rested, mindful and active workforce will be happier, healthier, and more effective. And while we support a lot of corporate athletes, we are also very proud to support sports stars too such as the English football team who have been wearing Oura Rings since March ahead of the Euros.
As a long-time fan and member of ŌURA, can you share your personal experience with the Oura Ring and how it has assisted you in managing your health and wellness?
Our new Heart Health features are incredible. We’ve launched Cardiovascular Age which helps Oura Members understand their estimated cardiovascular age relative to their actual age, helping them to identify behaviours that can positively impact their health span.
When I first started using the feature, my cardiovascular age had been calculated as 7 years older than my actual age. In slight shock, as a healthy woman, I decided that there were small changes I could make to my lifestyle to improve this. I added 30 minutes of exercise, on top of what I was already doing, each week (just five minutes each day) to see if that would make an impact. I prioritised walking meetings and being more mindful of being active. Six weeks later, I saw that my cardiovascular age had returned to my actual age. It’s so empowering when you see the positive results of small lifestyle changes over time.
Why do you believe it is important for ŌURA to prioritise women’s health and reproductive health in its product development and partnerships?
Women have historically been overlooked in healthcare research, and still are to this day despite making up half the world’s population. Women’s health encompasses not only reproductive health — but a holistic approach to overall well-being, no matter their stage of life.
I believe women are truly the chief medical officers in their family and the gatekeepers to everyone’s health. When we focus on women’s health – everyone in the community around them benefits.
ŌURA aims to deliver meaningful products for our female members that provide insights and guidance in order to take care of their unique bodies. What we believe makes ŌURA special is that our game-changing features, such as the cycle insights and partnerships, are developed for women by women who take on board first-hand experiences to allow women to feel more in tune with their body.
What do you see as the biggest challenges and opportunities in enhancing women’s health through wearable technology, and how is ŌURA positioned to address these?
Oura Ring is different from other wearables on the market because of our approach. Many of the other options in the market are encouraging you to do more, holding you to a standard that is based on the average, not on you. Oura lets you define what works for you on a given day, in a given season of life. It can help you see the bigger picture of your health beyond just today and how rest and recovery are just as important as action – recognising that we are human beings, not human doings.
One thing we strive to do at ŌURA is ensure Members understand the data their Oura Ring is providing them. It is so much more than providing Members with just the data – the opportunity is to share the tools that empower women with deeper personal body literacy.
We believe in sharing insights and providing Members with educational pieces through our blog and app to allow women to have a better understanding of their bodies.
How do you envision ŌURA evolving in the next few years to better serve women’s health needs and stay ahead in the competitive market of health and wellness wearables?
We really want to support our female members through all stages of life. Our ongoing collaboration with leading academic institutions on innovative women’s health research ensures that we are ahead of the curve with the latest technology, as well as developing our existing features on Cycle Insights, Pregnancy Insights and Period Prediction. We will continue to expand to other key problem areas women face – including areas of fertility, menopause and longevity, so not just limited to reproductive health.
We are here to provide Oura Members with the tools to support longevity and more than just step counting. The addition of our two latest heart health features, Cardiovascular Age and Cardio Capacity, inform Oura Members how to make a difference to their long-term health. Women are twice as likely as men to die after a heart attack and whilst our technology is not there to prevent this from happening, it’s there to help Oura Members make actionable changes to encourage a healthy lifestyle.
What gives ŌURA an edge over other health tracking wearables?
The scientific backing behind Oura Ring and our partnerships are what give ŌURA an edge. And, ŌURA technology is consistently backed through scientific studies and research. For instance, we recently partnered with Clue and UC Berkeley to better understand the impact of perimenopause on women’s health and sleep. Accuracy sets us apart and the constant testing of our technology and features to be more and more accurate is what makes ŌURA the ideal holistic health companion.
Are you ready to upgrade your health? Give ŌURA a try with our referral link.