Founder of Kindness Factory — on recovery, resilience and the practical mechanics of changing what's around you.
Kath Koschel was a professional cricketer in her early twenties before two separate accidents and serious injuries took her career and most of her independence. The years she spent rebuilding — physically, mentally and in terms of what she would do with the rest of her life — produced the Kindness Factory, the not-for-profit she founded and now runs nationally and internationally.
Her speaking is warm, direct and refreshingly free of the heroic-comeback framing the story might suggest. She talks practically about the small daily choices that built her recovery, the kindness she received from strangers along the way, and the kind of organisational culture that genuinely supports people through hard chapters.
For event organisers, Kath is a strong fit for wellbeing programs, leadership events, education conferences, women's events and any in-house program where the brief is to combine an extraordinary personal arc with substantive content on culture and resilience.
Kath Koschel is a keynote speaker based in New South Wales who speaks on inspiration, mental health & wellbeing and motivation. Book through Executive Speakers Australia.
What if we thought about mental health in the way that we thought about physical health? Just like physical fitness, mental fitness is pivotal to all human development; informing our performance and our mindset whilst also aiding our ability to connect with others effectively. Mental fitness underpins the foundation to a life well lived, in and out of the workplace.
Alarming statistics now show us that mental health related concerns are a global issue with depression, anxiety and even suicide rates rising dramatically from 2023 to 2024.
So how do we address these worrying trends that threatens to cripple the ability for humans to live happily, perform effectively and work together well?
In the Mental Health: Building and Sustaining Mental Fitness keynote, Kath unpacks what mental fitness means and how to effectively manage it with her mental health framework, backed by evidence-based strategies including:
* Self awareness as a foundation for growth and moving through to self- acceptance.
* Growth through adversity and change – How to grow through what we go through.
* Linking gratitude, humour and kindness to mental health and fitness.
* How to cultivate community and conversation through connection and belonging.
* How to build resilience, optimism and agility.
In an age where technology is taking over, 43% employees don’t feel a sense of connection to their co-workers, 38% don’t trust their co-workers, and 22% don’t even have one friend at work. 70% of employees are disengaged from their jobs—with disengagement at a record high. Employee disconnection leads to lower productivity and lower rates of retention.
Creating a workplace of belonging and kindness is proven to aid better mental health, as well as increasing profitability, productivity, high performance and retention. It’s good for your people and good for your business.
Employees who experience high levels of belonging, psychological safety and kindness at work have greater resilience, well-being and personal and professional growth. They experience a 56% increase in job performance and 170% increase in employer promotor score, and better-connected employees save large organizations millions per year.
Kath can also make this keynote bespoke to your workplace by working with you in the leadup to understand your specific needs and then addressing them via 4 of 12 common themes that can be addressed to better your companies culture via an evidence based framework of kindness; collaboration, compassion, empathy, gratitude, humour, humility, honesty, mindfulness, positivity, perspective, Self-acceptance and trust.
Key takeaways:
* Learn 4 ways to increase psychological safety in the workplace.
* How to foster higher levels of psychological safety in your team.
* How to deepen trust and build high-value relationships with co-workers, customers, and clients.
* How to build an inclusive culture.
* Bringing collaboration back post Covid.
Change is a reality for all and it comes at us in many ways. But be careful, history shows that only a small number of change strategies succeed. Your people will enable it, or obstruct it.
Kath knows what it takes to support change in an organisation. Having high instances of change in both her personal and professional life, Kath now helps organisations around the world to adapt to the new, pushing progress forward and into the now and future through a proven framework of gratitude, perspective and kindness.
Kath will build a bespoke offering with key and actionable takeaways for the audience to implement immediately to overcome resistance, manage the change process and land on key messages for your business.
Key takeaways:
* Key steps to implementing change and how best to manage it.
* Providing perspective to overcome resistance to the change process.
* How to create and navigate opportunity in the change process.
* How to bring choice to periods of change.
* Adopting a resilience mindset in the face of change.
Kath proved to be a brilliant start to our conference - on point messages, highly emotional but incredible story to tell and to listen toDeniliquin Primary Principals Association
Kath Koschel was fantastic, engaging and inspiring. Not a dry eye at the conference!George Weston Foods Limited (GWF)
Kath Koschel was informative and insightful. It was a pleasure to have Kath speak at our IWD event and provide an uplifting story on her life journey. It really reiterates you can be the change you wish to see in the world!City of Casey
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