Kate Middleton Delivers First Speech Since Her Cancer Diagnosis

Kate Middleton is taking the next step in her mission to give children the best possible start in life.

While delivering her first speech since sharing her cancer diagnosis with the world in March 2024, the Princess of Wales, 43, discussed her Royal Foundation’s Business Taskforce for Early Childhood at the Future Workforce Summit during a visit to London’s business district on Tuesday, Nov. 18.

At the event, Princess Kate met with corporations to encourage policies that support parents and caregivers of children under five. What began as a personal exploration of how families can be better supported has, over the past few years, expanded into the business world.

Tuesday saw Princess Kate, who was wearing a business-ready gray pantsuit, bring together more than 80 business leaders to hear from experts in human development and early childhood. Her goal: to inspire a society that is healthier, happier and transformed from the earliest years upward.

BBC News broadcaster Mishal Husain, who interviewed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle during their 2017 engagement announcement, anchored the morning, as well as hosting the panels and introducing Princess Kate.

After thanking attendees for being there, Kate said she hoped people would find it “interesting and insightful,” before thanking The Royal Foundation’s Centre for Early Childhood director, Christian Guy.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Christian, who has led The Centre and built many of the relationships here today. Thank you Christian for holding the fort, particularly over the last couple of years,” Kate shared, referencing her stepping back from royal life to focus on her cancer treatment and recovery. She completed her treatment in September 2024, before announcing she was in remission early this year.

“My passion and the work of The Centre for Early Childhood stems from one essential truth; that the love we feel in our earliest years fundamentally shapes who we become and how we thrive as adults,” she added in her speech.

“Love is the first and most essential bond. But it is also the invisible thread, woven with time, attention and tenderness, through consistent, nurturing relationships which creates the grounded and meaningful environments around a child,” she insisted. “It is this texture, the weave of love, which forms a child’s emotional world and becomes the foundation, the very fabric of resilience and belonging.”

Kate said that “the home should be the space where love, safety and rhythm enable a child to thrive,” adding, “A loving home ultimately teaches us how to love and how to care, but every environment has the potential to shape our hearts.”

“Every one of you interacts with your own environment; a home, a family, a business, a workforce, a community. These are the ecosystems that you yourselves help to weave. Imagine a world where each of these environments were built on valuing time and tenderness just as much as productivity and success,” the Princess of Wales continued.

She insisted that business leaders will “face the daily challenge of finding the balance between profitability and having a positive impact,” adding, “But the two are not, and should not be incompatible.”

Kate said of her organization, which was launched in June 2021, “At The Centre for Early Childhood, we believe that we must do all we can to create the conditions for love to flourish. That is how we invest in our future.”

“Every child deserves respect and safety, and everyone who cares deserves recognition and appreciation. Every act of care creates community because we are all essentially weavers of that same fabric,” she continued. “I believe in restoring the dignity to the quiet, often invisible work of caring, of loving well, as we look to build a happier, healthier society.”

“You are here because you care, so thank you,” she concluded.

Princess Kate’s latest speech comes after she last brought together experts from across the world at the Shaping Us National Symposium, which was held by her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood at the Design Museum in central London in November 2023.

Tuesday’s summit highlighted how businesses investing in the early years can play a vital role in nurturing the uniquely human skills that tomorrow’s workforce will need to thrive. Through these efforts, Kate’s Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood aims to reach more than one million babies and young children by 2026.

The Princess of Wales stayed over an hour longer than expected at the event, where she listened as journalist and broadcaster Husain moderated a conversation between former England soccer manager Sir Gareth Southgate and research psychologist Professor Marc Brackett. The summit also featured sessions from Harvard University’s Professor Robert Waldinger and psychotherapist and author Philippa Perry.

Dame Amanda Blanc, chief executive of insurers Aviva, told the gathering, “What Her Royal Highness has asked us to do is very different from what is traditionally asked of the business community. We are being asked to look at the fundamentals of how we operate, to think about how we manage our people and to understand how we can support them beyond traditional approaches.”

“We need to act now as business leaders. Her Royal Highness has made a big ask of us. And we have chosen to respond. And the ask isn’t charitable. It is for our own benefit as well as the wider community and the communities that we serve. Fundamentally, this is not just about responsibility; it’s about opportunity too. We have the chance to build a more compassionate, productive workforce today and to nurture a resilient, skilled workforce for tomorrow.”

She added, “Every child deserves a safe, happy start to life and the chance to reach their full potential. But today, there are too many children who have their future prospects limited by the challenges they face in their early years.”

She quoted a report that talked about the benefits of investing in early childhood and that it can add tens of billions to the economy by providing a future workforce with strong emotional and social skills and create “a healthier, more resilient workforce today.”

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Through a series of new initiatives, the taskforce has already encouraged major companies — from IKEA to leading banks and the British grocery store Co-op — to launch programs that better support parents and help children thrive. According to the foundation, these efforts have already reached half a million babies and young children.

Some of the newer initiatives include British grocery store Iceland, which introduced “emoji posters” in all its stores to help 30,000 staff better support young families. The company also launched a range of toddler meals in partnership with parents’ network Mumsnet, raising funds for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool and promoting healthy eating. NatWest Bank has expanded its lending to early years settings such as kindergartens while helping them operate more sustainably.

The summit follows a 2023 report released by the Princess of Wales, which emphasized that prioritizing the early years and investing in early childhood is not only the right thing to do, it’s also smart economics.

On Wednesday, Nov. 19, Kate will step out in the evening with her husband, Prince William, also 43, for the annual Royal Variety Performance in London. Next month, the couple will join King Charles and Queen Camilla in hosting the incoming state visit of the German president.