The Princess of Wales gave her first speech since her cancer diagnosis at a major event today – where she also revealed a recent big change
Profitability and positive impact not incompatible, Kate tells business leaders
The Princess of Wales marked a major milestone in her return to royal duties following her cancer diagnosis today. It came as Kate visited the City of London today, where she attended a summit hosted by her Royal Foundation to drive action and investment in the early years development of children.
There she gave her first speech in two years – her first since her health challenges – where she called on business leaders to prioritise “time and tenderness just as much as productivity and success”. The future queen has been making a gradual return to public duties since completing a course of chemotherapy last summer, and in January she announced she was in remission.
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And as she enters a new phase when it comes to her public duties, it seems Kate has also made a change to beloved jewellery – sporting a four-ring stack on her left hand. As well as wearing a dove grey suit by Roland Mouret, she also wore four very sentimental rings all on the same finger – mixing up her usual jewellery.
First, she wore her Welsh gold wedding ring, which she has almost never been seen without since her wedding day in 2011. Next on her finger was her priceless blue sapphire engagement ring that once belonged to her late mother-in-law, Princess Diana.
When she first returned to royal duties following her chemotherapy treatment, Kate swapped the sparkling piece of jewellery for a sapphire eternity ring, which was first spotted in a video in 2024 when she and William congratulated Team GB for their performance at the Paris Olympics. But now it seems she has taken to combining both pieces in her stack, while adding to it another eternity ring, thought to have been a gift from William following the birth of Prince George in 2013.
It comes as Kate has been carrying out a range of public duties from attending Trooping the Colour to supporting her charities during her cancer journey and has recorded a number of video messages, but has yet to undertake a major overseas foreign tour.
During her speech today at the summit, Kate told guests her passion for promoting early years, described in the past as her “life’s work”, stemmed from the “essential truth” that “the love we feel in our earliest years fundamentally shapes who we become and how we thrive as adults”.
She went on to say: “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. As business leaders you will face the daily challenge of finding the balance between profitability and having a positive impact. But the two are not and should not be incompatible.”
Kate’s Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood, founded in 2023 to galvanise business action, hosted the event which featured taskforce members such as Richard Walker, executive chairman of Iceland Foods, and Dame Amanda Blanc, Aviva group chief executive.
The taskforce produced a report last year recommending a range of interventions, from creating a culture inside and outside firms that prioritises childhood to supporting parents with greater resources and flexibility in the workplace, and stated the nation could benefit from an estimated ÂŁ45.5 billion through investment in early childhood.
The princess ended by saying: “Every child deserves respect and safety, and everyone who cares deserve recognition and appreciation. Every act of care creates community because we are all essentially weavers of that same fabric. 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.”
She was due to leave the event at Salesforce Tower after a private lunch but decided to stay for the afternoon session when taskforce member chief executives discussed what their firms were doing to promote early years. A source said: “She feels passionately about the work the Business Taskforce is doing to place early childhood at the heart of the business community.
“She stayed on this afternoon to hear more about how current taskforce members are inspiring some of the biggest businesses in the UK to make change too.”
Former England football manager Sir Gareth Southgate took part in a discussion about his own personal development and his coping mechanisms when under pressure during his career as a footballer and national coach.
He spoke about his famous penalty miss in the semi-final of Euro 96 against Germany and how he thought afterwards: “How do I ever recover from this? This is a public humiliation. I failed to execute a skill under pressure in front of half the world.”
But it was a process of “small steps towards recovering your confidence”, and he talked to teammates who had been through similar experiences who provided a support mechanism.
