Kate Naess – Keynote Speaker
Book Kate as your keynote speaker
Kate Naess is an inspiring and dynamic keynote speaker who draws from her extensive experience as a registered psychologist, elite athlete, and high performance specialist.
With a unique perspective on resilience, mindset, and inclusion, Kate’s talks empower audiences to rethink high performance, embrace change and uncertainty, and lead high performing teams with authenticity.
Keynotes by Kate Naess
The Hand You’re Dealt
A powerful, story-driven keynote that helps individuals reframe challenges, strengthen mental resilience, and perform under pressure. Kate blends elite sport experience with psychology to show how mindset shifts drive real performance outcomes—not just motivation.
Audience Takeaways:
- Reframe pressure into opportunity
- Shift from reactive thinking to purpose-driven action
- Build mental strength, clarity, and self-awareness under pressure
Winning Together
This keynote focuses on what actually drives team performance: trust, psychological safety, and shared accountability. Kate provides practical frameworks to move teams from individual success to collective performance.
Audience Takeaways:
- Build trust and psychological safety quickly
- Create alignment through simple, repeatable team rituals
- Shift from individual output to high-performing team culture
HYPE
Based on Kate’s HYPE framework, this keynote unpacks the internal drivers of performance: mindset, focus, energy, and recovery. Designed for modern leaders navigating pressure, complexity, and constant demand.
Audience Takeaways:
- Improve focus and decision-making under pressure
- Build energy and recovery systems for sustained performance
- Lead with emotional intelligence, presence, and control
What Kate Speaks About
Resilience Under Pressure
Practical frameworks to perform at your best in high-pressure environments. Learn how to reframe mindset, regulate emotions, and maintain clarity when it matters most—drawing from elite sport and leadership psychology.
High Performance Mindset
Build the internal engine of sustainable performance—mindset, focus, energy, and recovery. Kate helps leaders shift from reactive thinking to intentional, high-performance habits that drive long-term success.
Inclusive Leadership
Strengthen leadership impact through emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and empathy.
Develop the ability to respond—not react—in high-stakes environments while building high-performing, connected teams.
Leadership Psychology
Move beyond inspiration into practical, science-backed performance strategies. Kate blends psychology (CBT, ACT), neuroscience, and elite sport insights to deliver tools leaders can apply immediately.
Testimonials
“Kate’s experience and vulnerability set the scene to start with and her expertise in high performance meant that her insights and messages seemed to land really well with the group; eliciting many raw and honest moments of sharing, helping us to learn from each other whilst also feeling that we’re not the only ones experiencing what we’re going through.”
Kate is an incredibly warm, motivating, and authentic person, with a strong sense of self, that comes across incredibly well when she is speaking and engaging withothers. We found our people really connected with her, and exactly what we had hoped for. A very engaging and motivating speaker, with a sharp wit and real sense of humour, I would thoroughly recommend engaging Kate for any speaking engagements or appearances with an audience of any size
Kate Doughty was appointed The Aussie Hands Foundation Inc PATRON in September 2007. At this time, she was representing Australia in Equestrian and, in recent years, switched to Triathlon. Aussie Hands is enormously proud of Kate for competing at the Rio Paralympics and also admires all the support to those she counsels in her role as a sports Psychologist.
Kate has established strong relationships with many members by attending various events throughout each year, predominantly in Melbourne VIC. Kate regularly engages with members on Facebook and on the Aussie Hands website and You-Tube channel. Kate mentors and provides inspiration to the younger cohort of members, and, also reassures parents that their child with a hand difference will be okay.
