Kate Buckley.

Kate Buckley is the Founder and CEO of Defining.com, a boutique advisory combining premium domain brokerage and acquisition with naming, branding, corporate domain strategy, and domain valuation.

With more than 30 years in branding, marketing, and business development—and nearly three decades in the premium domain market—Kate is widely recognized for her expertise in ultra-premium domain sales and acquisitions, domain strategy, valuation, naming, branding, and negotiation.

She has brokered numerous six- and seven-figure domain transactions, including Chocolate.com, eBike.com, Bar.com, and Pub.com, and regularly represents owners and companies in confidential transactions involving some of the world’s most valuable digital assets. Her work extends beyond the transaction itself: Kate advises clients on what a domain is worth, who is most likely to value it, how to acquire or sell it strategically, and how the right name can strengthen a company’s brand and enterprise value.

Before founding Defining, Kate’s career included Gray Advertising and Landor, as well as early work developing and monetizing premium geographic domains beginning in 1998. That unusual combination of brand strategy and hands-on domain-market experience ultimately became the foundation for Defining’s DomainFirst™ approach: considering the name, the domain, and the brand as interconnected business assets.

Kate is a member of the Forbes Business Council, has served on the Internet Commerce Association Advisory Board and NamesCon Advisory Board, and currently serves on the ICANN Business Constituency Credentials Committee. She is a frequent speaker and commentator on premium domains, naming, branding, and digital strategy, and her work and insights have appeared in Forbes, The Business Journals, DN Journal, Domain Name Wire, and other industry publications.

She holds a BA in Advertising/Public Relations from the University of Kentucky and an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University. An award-winning poet, writer, and visual artist as well as an entrepreneur, Kate brings an unusually creative lens to the business of names: understanding not only what an asset may be worth, but what a company can become around it.

The right name can change the trajectory of a business. Kate has built her career around finding, acquiring, selling, valuing, and building upon them.