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Kate Richardson-Walsh is an Olympic gold medallist, leadership and performance coach, and co-founder of Be Create Inspire Ltd, currently working with teams and organisations around the world to build stronger, more inclusive, high-performing cultures. She is also Assistant Coach for Field Hockey Canada and a trusted advisor to businesses such as Virgin Media O2. Organisations hire Kate as an inspirational leadership speaker because she combines real Olympic-winning experience with practical strategies on teamwork, resilience, diversity, and purpose-driven leadership.
Kate’s early career was defined by relentless commitment and exceptional performance in international hockey. A standout talent from a young age, she was shortlisted twice for the FIH World Player of the Year award and won the Hockey Writers’ Club UK Player of the Year three times. She was named Great Britain Hockey Athlete of the Year in 2007 and built a career that included Olympic, World Cup, and European Championship medals. Her journey through setbacks, injuries, and team challenges shaped her understanding of trust, communication, and mental resilience, insights she now brings to audiences as an inspirational speaker who shows leaders how to unite teams around a shared vision.
In her later career, Kate became captain of the Great Britain and England teams, leading them to historic Olympic gold in Rio 2016 and an Olympic bronze in London 2012, alongside multiple Commonwealth and European medals. She moved into leadership roles beyond the pitch, including Head Coach at Hampstead & Westminster Ladies XI and Co-Chair of the International Hockey Federation Athletes’ Commission. Her contributions to sport have been widely recognised: she was appointed MBE for services to hockey in 2015 and later honoured with an OBE in 2017. That same year she received the National Lottery Spirit of Sport Award, England Hockey’s Member of Honour, an honorary doctorate from Brunel University, induction into the European Hall of Fame, and other academic fellowships acknowledging her influence as both an athlete and role model. She also co-authored ‘Winning Together: An Olympic-Winning Approach to Building Better Teams’, sharing her leadership philosophy with a global audience.
Kate Richardson-Walsh is recognised as one of the most respected voices in modern leadership. As an Olympic champion, coach, advocate for inclusion, and experienced organisational advisor, she speaks with authenticity and clarity about what it takes to build winning teams. Every stage of her journey, from elite athlete to global leadership coach, has shaped her perspective, making her an inspiring and practical speaker who helps leaders create cultures where people and performance thrive together.
Kate Richardson-Walsh is regularly booked to engage audiences at events, read their latest feedback below:
“Kate was amazing, her talk was so inspirational and she was so humble and honest. The feedback from our customers and staff following the event and Kates talk has been so positive they really took so much away from it, as did I.”
“Last week we were joined on Campus by Olympic Hockey Player Kate Richardson-Walsh (OBE) who told a brilliant story of building a culture that drives winning teams – focusing on values, behaviours and mindsets. These are all incredibly important to me personally, but also to everyone across our business – her story really inspired all of us in different ways, so a huge thank you to Kate for her insights. The feedback we have received on the session was incredible and I’m sure it isn’t the last we will hear from her!”
“Please could you pass on our huge thanks and a lot of love from our U80 for Kate? The session was more than we could have hoped, perfectly balanced and pitched and really authentic and engaging, we really couldn’t have hoped for anything better. Thank you for the honesty and openness.”
“Kate gave a fascinating, insightful interview on leadership, team dynamics and the culture of a winning team, all in a way that was relevant to our senior corporate audience and which perfectly strengthened the core theme of our event: how to achieve gender balance and redefine leadership”
“Kate was wonderful, such an inspiring speaker and was an absolute delight to have as a guest. We have been inundated with compliments for her and it seems she really struck the right note with the audience in everything she said about team ambition and leadership”
“We feel like the conference went well and Kate was definitely a big part of that! Her talk was inspiring, motivating and very emotional (in a good way) The reactions we got after her talk were all super positive. Please tell her that the entire of Intuo is a bit in love with her.”
“Bang on in terms of the topics and challenges that we are facing, both as an executive team as well as throughout the teams within the organisation itself. In fact, when you talked of some of the challenges, some of my Management Committee members and I had thought that you had been listening to our committee earlier the same day! I have to say that your delivery is excellent, and so authentic. Many thanks for sharing your experience, your journey, your stories and the personal challenges that you faced yourself. I can relate to each and every one, and it is heartwarming to know that sometimes we are not quite as alone at the top as we might sometimes think.”
“Kate was fantastic! We had really great feedback, our delegates rated the guest speaker 4.87 out of 5. She was a true professional, we were experiencing some technical issues and Kate was able to deliver an excellent, motivating presentation. Feedback from our delegates: ‘Kate Richardson-Walsh was the highlight of the whole event’, ‘Kate was very interesting and inspirational’, ‘Kate was incredible, she brought her medals for us to look at and made time for pictures’ and ‘The guest speaker Kate was a great add-in she was very positive and I for one felt that she left a positive impact on how I deal with things in the future’.”
“Kate is a true role model, and I was delighted that she joined me and my leadership team to share her story. Kate’s honest and personal account of the importance of working as a team to achieve your goals and win left me reflecting on how my team can continue to get the best from ourselves and each other through our equivalent to the gold standards, and of course our ‘Superpowers’! Kate’s passion for her sport and her story are clear to see and we were honoured that she shared not only her successes, but also the challenges she faced and how she overcame them.”
The Inspirational Leadership Speakers Agency is one of the UK’s leading bureaus for inspiring global leaders. We supply speakers for corporate and public events across the world and cater to both in-person occasions and online webinars. Our roster includes athletes, psychologists, celebrities and more, each with top industry insight into leadership.
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