Kathy Varol

Kathy Varol is a purpose strategist, speaker, and corporate social responsibility expert who helps organizations use purpose and ESG as competitive advantages to attract top talent, build consumer loyalty, and drive innovation. Her career has been built on the contrarian belief that putting customers and purpose genuinely first is not a soft approach but the most effective revenue strategy there is.

Purpose as a Growth Engine

Varol’s experience scaling customer-centric and purpose-driven organizations has proven that companies that obsess over delivering real value outperform and outlast their competition. She spent over a decade at adidas leading global purpose initiatives before launching her consulting and speaking practice. Her work helps organizations move beyond performative corporate responsibility to embed purpose into their core business strategy in ways that drive measurable results.

Turning Purpose Into Competitive Advantage

Varol’s presentations challenge leaders to stop treating purpose as a marketing exercise and start using it as a strategic driver of growth, talent acquisition, and innovation. She has worked with organizations across industries seeking to align their values with their business objectives. Her keynotes deliver actionable strategies for using purpose and ESG to stand out in competitive markets, building customer loyalty through genuine value creation, attracting and retaining top talent through purpose-driven culture, and harnessing innovation by fully engaging employees around a meaningful mission.

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.