Kate Veronneau: The Woman Behind the Revolution in Women’s Professional Cycling

Kate Veronneau is one of the most influential people in cycling. Her post-racing career path took her through marketing at a cyclo-tour company to this small start up called Zwift. It was at Zwift, that she changed the sport as we know it, spearheading the campaign behind Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.

The Director of Women’s Strategy at Zwift, Kate has been instrumental in changing the landscape of women’s professional cycling.

Her youth first took her D1 basketball before racing as a semi-pro cyclist in the US. In her post racing career, 
she continued her work in cycling, first as the marketing director for an international tour company, and then 
onto Zwift. 

She now lives in Las Vegas with her husband, renowned bike painter Michael, and her Great Dane, Bruce.

It was after moving to LA, that Kate noticed on Strava her clients were using this platform called Zwift. Little did she know it at the time, but the move to LA and the introduction to Zwift was about to change not just her own career path, but the path of women’s professional sport.

Kate’s first role at Zwift was starting Zwift Academy back in 2016. It was a women’s only programme in the first year, running alongside the Canyon/SRAM professional team.

“We had been debating with the idea of a Talent ID programme because of the GT Academy, and then when Canyon/SRAM came to us with a similar idea, it was a match made in heaven.”

Zwift set an original goal to get 500 women to compete in the first year of the Academy. By the end of that first year, they had 1100 women. These days, there are now over 150,000 people per year who participate in the Zwift Academy.

“Leah Thorvilson won the first Zwift Academy contract and that gave us a glimpse into the reality of the sport at the time. We had to figure out what her salary was going to be, and at the time the minimum was one hundred euros a month…

We paid her a living salary and paid for all of her housing in Europe. I think that moment was eye-opening to everyone inside Zwift as to how much women’s cycling could grow.”

“If you told me all those years ago that I’d be standing on the podium of the women’s Tour de France, after all that time taking clients to the men’s race, and all those years wanting to become a pro-cyclist but not having the opportunity” - Kate Veronneau

“It was never one decision. It was a million tiny decisions. How can we make the sport more inclusive? How can we use our platform to grow community? How can we support women in cycling?

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift is the most important race to happen to women’s professional cycling, and arguably women’s professional sport in recent history. It formed out of the pandemic edition of the ‘virtual Tour de France’, which was hosted on Zwift in 2020.

“We were forced to think differently during the pandemic. Everyone was on Zwift and everyone was hungry for racing so we put our heads together with ASO (the owners of the Tour de France). 

It was simple to us: we’re doing it on Zwift, so we’re doing it by Zwift rules. That’s equal opportunities for men and women.

The shorter format of Zwift racing suited a lot of the female pros and they took full advantage of the opportunity. The women brought their best, and the racing was dynamic and exciting. That kicked off the conversation of bringing it into the real world. The proof of concept was there.”

While the ASO had been getting a lot of pressure about bringing back a women’s Tour de France, Zwift were the right partner to bring it alive. 

“Again, it wasn’t one big decision, it was a whole bunch of little decisions that had got me into that room. Decisions where we said we want to do this better. The bicycle has always been a machine for freedom, and we wanted to show that.”

When Kasia (Niewiadoma) won yellow last year…it was like it was scripted. At that moment, all of our work came full circle. We’ve been on this journey with Canyon/SRAM since 2016 and now for them to win the Tour de France. I have her jersey framed on my wall, it was a life changing moment for everyone involved.”

“The first Paris-Roubaix was in 2021, and we came onboard in the second year of that race to bolster our partnership with ASO. We’re already backing the world’s biggest stage race, and then there was this beautiful opportunity to back the world’s biggest one-day race.

It’s iconic having women racing in Roubaix. It’s the velodrome, the cobbles and the showers. It’s such an iconic race that it's into our brand and we wanted something that was going to break barriers.

The imagery of those races are going to inspire young women to come into the sport. It also gives us this opportunity to run our ‘Watch the Femmes’ campaign through spring and build hype all the way into the Tour de France Femmes in summer.”

This year, Kate and Zwift are encouraging as many women as possible to race the Paris-Roubaix Challenge sportive that happens on the Saturday of the women’s race. They’re holding a big event on Friday with a Happy Hour and women’s ride to encourage more women to make a weekend of the race.

“I want our race sponsorships to inspire women to ride. It’s not just about supporting he pros. It’s about going down to the grassroots and inspiring more women to get on bikes.

We’re all about community. Zwift’s platform is community, and I think we brought more community to the sport. We want to be this fun brand. We want to show up and be a place where people want to go. Most importantly, we want people to feel welcome in cycling. 

Cycling isn’t always a welcoming sport. It’s an intimidating sport and there are a lot of barriers to enter the sport - especially for women and newer riders. We’ve found that Zwift can break down a lot of those barriers, and knowing that we can bring more people into the sport has been an incredible opportunity.”

Kate’s bike is a hark back to her racing days. The Melee is a modern day road racer and is equally capable in criteriums or on the cobbles. Her bike is equipped with our 4.5 wheelset.

What allows Kate’s bike to stand out however, is the paint. It’s eye-catching, it’s unique and it’s so very Kate.

“I chose the design I did because I’m an animal lover. It reflects me too, it’s a wildcat. I’m fierce, fun and loud. I stand out from the crowd already, so I may as well have a little fun with the bike.”

The bike is custom painted by her husband, the talented Michael Patrick Hurley aka @MPHPaint . It's chrome, candy paint, snow leopard livery.

In the past decade, Zwift has gone from a start-up training software to one of the most 

influential players in the sport. The Zwift Academy introduced a whole new aspect to cycling and then the Tour de France Femmes and Paris-Roubaix, took it to a new stratosphere.

“It’s so exciting to see the Tour de France Femmes, and the impact goes so much beyond just that. The next step is for there to be more women working in the sport, and the industry banding together. 

That’s why I love collaborations. I love working with ENVE and we’re going to be working with a whole bunch of different brands this year. I want to demonstrate that together is better and stronger.”

Thank you to Kate Veronneau for taking the time to talk to us.