Kathy Varol

Kathy helps her clients use purpose and ESG to stand out in a competitive environment, attract the best talent, gain consumer loyalty, and fully harness the innovative brain power of their employees (innovation that keeps them miles ahead of the competition). She shares her deep knowledge and “how to” with clients, so they can skip the hard lessons and go straight to strategies that work.

Kathy has 20 years of experience across brand marketing, strategy and impact, working at established brands like adidas, MillerCoors and Microsoft.

Through her experience, Kathy has developed a repeatable 4-step process to become a purpose-led brand: The Brand Purpose Model. When businesses embed purpose into the heart of their strategy, they don’t just disrupt their industry. They also bring humanity into the workplace, shape the future, and impact the world.

Kathy created the Global Purpose strategy for adidas, a 22 billion dollar global company, encompassing everything adidas does to positively impact People and Planet. Kathy’s hands-on experience creating purposeful change includes crafting the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) strategy for adidas. Through this experience, Kathy has learned the unintentional barriers that get in the way of a thriving culture, as well as how to foster a culture of inclusion, collaboration and continuous improvement.

At adidas, Kathy also created a holistic sustainability strategy and developed social equality platforms. These initiatives included creating an army of loyal brand advocates by inviting consumers to join a movement to end plastic waste, increasing access to sport for girls around the globe, developing new products, and initiating bold corporate actions to stand against inequality.

Kathy left adidas to help other companies on their journey to become purpose-led. She brings her wealth of expertise to move companies beyond outdated Corporate Social Responsibility approaches and into the new era of business integrated conscious capitalism.

Drive Profit With Purpose. Become Remarkable. Accelerate Growth.

How do you stand out in an increasingly competitive marketplace? How do you attract top talent? How do you increase profitability?

You do something remarkable. Purpose makes brands remarkable.

​As consumers, we’re putting our dollars toward companies with aligned values. 85% of millennials in the United States would switch brands for a good cause, and 50% of growth in consumer goods went to sustainability-marketed products between 2013 and 2018.

As employees, we’re looking for meaning in our careers, and the best talent is choosing to work for organizations that feed their hearts as well as their bank accounts. 92% of millennials believe that working for an environmentally and socially responsible company is important.

In the modern world, companies without a purpose beyond profit will be left behind. You can either be a pioneering force for good in your industry, or the disrupted.

Kathy built the global purpose strategy for adidas, a 22 billion dollar company, encompassing everything adidas does to positively impact people and planet. Through trial and error, Kathy has learned what works, and what doesn’t.

Through her work, a model emerged.

A way to successfully use purpose to drive profit.

In the Drive Profit with Purpose keynote, Kathy will reveal her 4-step Brand Purpose Model to engage your organization, inspire innovation, and win the hearts of your consumers.

Lead The Future Of Your Industry By Mastering ESG

At its core, ESG (environmental, social, governance) is about fixing what’s broken in business, fueling efficiency, equality, and integrity. And guess what? It’s a goldmine for resilience and profitability.

An effective ESG strategy future-proofs the business strategy.

From 2011 to 2018, the proportion of S&P 500 companies reporting on their sustainability efforts, corporate social responsibility activities, and ESG performance increased from just under 20% to 86%.

ESG has become an expected way of operating, and you don’t want to get left behind.

Kathy helps businesses create an effective ESG strategy that moves beyond a feel-good exercise and drives real change across the metrics that matter to their business. In this keynote, through captivating stories and real-world business examples, Kathy will reveal a step-by-step process that will help your company set the ESG gold standard for your industry.

Unlock Exponential Results by Nurturing Purpose, People and Culture

Data clearly shows that businesses that nurture their purpose, people, and culture unlock exponential results: engaged employees, loyal consumers, increased innovation, and accelerated growth.

In this keynote, through captivating business stories, Kathy will share why shifting the focus from your output (revenue) to your inputs (purpose, people, and culture) will drive better results. Kathy will also share concrete strategies you use right away to nurture each of these business inputs.

Skyrocket Innovation By Harnessing The Superpower Of Diversity

Diversity is one of the most vital qualities for organizations that want to lead their industries.

Research shows that diversity can promote problem-solving and innovation. Culturally and ethnically diverse companies are more likely to outperform their competitors by 33%; highly diverse teams are 13 times more likely to have engaged employees; and companies with above-average diversity have 19% higher innovation revenues.

Unfortunately, most businesses unintentionally create barriers to collaboration and stifle the innovation potential they have waiting to be unleashed across their workforce. They incentivize groupthink, and constrain the power of diversity – the superpower of their workforce.

In this keynote, Kathy will reveal how business leaders can harness the superpower of their diverse workforce to skyrocket innovation.