Princess of Wales says ‘love is essentially the most important bond’ in heartwarming first public speech since her most cancers analysis – as she attends enterprise summit with Gareth Southgate

The Princess of Wales was confident as she made her first public speech since being diagnosed with cancer last year – while attending a workforce summit encouraging businesses to invest in early years programmes this afternoon, alongside football legend Gareth Southgate.

Elegant as ever in a chic grey suit from Roland Mouret, Kate, 43, shook hands with the former England manager, 55, for the event hosted by The Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood – a cause dear to her heart – held at the Salesforce Tower in London.

Sporting a white ruffled blouse, she gave assured opening remarks – and a made a point of thanking her team for their support during a difficult period which has seen her health impacted.

‘Good morning everyone. Thank you for being here today, I do hope you will find it interesting and insightful,’ she began.

‘We have got some fantastic speakers, thank you, to all of you for your time, support and commitment.

‘I would also like to take this opportunity to say thank you to Christian, who has led The Centre and built many of the relationships here today. Thank you Christian for holding the fort, particularly over the last couple of years.’

The princess continued: ‘My passion and the work of The Centre for Early Childhood, stems from one essential truth; that the love we feel in our earliest years fundamentally shapes who we become and how we thrive as adults.

‘Love is the first and most essential bond. But it is also the invisible thread, woven with time, attention and tenderness, through consistent, nurturing relationships, which creates the grounded and meaningful environments around a child.

‘It is this texture, the weave of love, which forms a child’s emotional world and becomes the foundation, the very fabric of resilience and belonging. 

‘The home should be the space where love, safety and rhythm enable a child to thrive.

‘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. ‘

She concluded: ‘At The Centre for Early Childhood, we believe that we must do all we can, to create the conditions for love to flourish. That is how we invest in our future.

‘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 the 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. 

‘You are here because you care, so thank you.’

Catherine unexpectedly stayed on several hours later than planned. 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,’ they added. 

The ‘Future Workforce Summit’ will see the launch of five new initiatives from major UK firms to help families with babies and young children, with the aim of reaching one million children in 2026. 

Kensington Palace said it was an important milestone for the Princess’s work to ‘inspire societal wide action to create a healthier, happier society transformed by our approach to early childhood’.

Kate welcomed Sir Gareth, broadcaster Mishal Husain, who hosted the event, and the keynote speakers ahead of the summit – including research psychologist Professor Marc Brackett, Harvard’s Professor Robert Waldinger and psychotherapist and author Philippa Perry.

She said it was important to have ‘different conversations’ about early childhood and noted that there was ‘lots of tangible action going on’. 

Elsewhere, Mishal expressed her hope that delegates would recognise that the summit was not simply about flexible working but the importance of early childhood.

‘It’s brilliant you have made it your mission,’ she told the Princess, who replied: ‘We all can be part of shaping a child’s life.’

And Sir Gareth said all of the speakers would be ‘provocative’.

Speaking on stage later, he said he was ‘very fortunate’ to have grown up in an environment built on trust and love, where he could fail and get things wrong.

He discovered, however, while working with footballers who did not have such a secure family background, that it can be ‘much harder’ to build trust.

‘With my players, I wanted to create an environment where they could fail,’ he explained. ‘We would reflect and review why, but they felt supported.

‘They could understand that we were working with them to make them the best they could be, and that’s what I had as a young player.’

He advised business leaders to ensure they ‘understand their people’ in order to get the best out of them, recognising that everyone is different.

The ex England manager also said he had done personality profiles for members of his team, which helped him to recognise why they behaved in certain ways.

Sir Gareth admitted that when he was younger he was often ‘catastrophising’ – using as an example the time he missed a penalty in the semi final of the 1996 UEFA Euros against Germany.

‘I missed a very famous penalty 30 years ago that night, and I was always thinking, ‘how do I ever recover from this? This is a public humiliation, right?’,’ he recounted.

‘I failed to execute a skill under pressure in front of half of the world so I didn’t know where I was heading with that.’

But he said that he worked through it ‘step by step’ and recognised that he had to go out and face people.

‘Talking to people that had been through similar situations, I was fortunate that I had some teammates that had been in that situation, so they could talk me through what they lived through, how it affected them, what might come further down the line.’

Catherine set up her Business Taskforce in March 2023 to galvanise business action on the issue.

Since then, Taskforce members Aviva, The Co-operative Group, Deloitte, Iceland Foods, IKEA UK and Ireland, The LEGO Group, NatWest Group and Unilever UK, have worked together to identify the scale of the opportunity and the role that business can play.

To date, work their organisations have delivered as part of the programme have reached more than half a million babies and young children.

Her rallying call to business leaders saw the princess urge business leaders to prioritise ‘time and tenderness’ alongside profit and success. 

It was her first major speech for two years but Catherine seemed even more confident in her delivery.

A source said: ‘This is a real insight into how the Princess thinks about early childhood, and her framing of love and connection.’

Catherine stepped back from public duties for several months as she underwent a course of gruelling chemotherapy treatment. In January she revealed she was in remission as she made a gradual return to public duties.

Her decision to address the large gathering of around 80 of the UK’s most influential business leaders summit on Tuesday was said to underline the importance she places on her work on early childhood.

A number of companies have taken part in initiatives as part of the taskforce. 

IKEA has partnered with local baby banks to ensure families have the essentials they need and launched a product range which raised money for the Baby Bank Alliance.

Meanwhile, the LEGO Group has donated LEGO®️ Education Build Me ‘Emotions’ sets to early years providers across every corner of the UK. The sets are designed to help children to explore their emotions in a playful way.

Elsewhere, Co-op has created a dedicated early childhood fund through its unique apprentice levy share service, Co-op Levy Share. With Taskforce funding, it has already supported more than 130 early years apprentices, as part of its commitment to raise £5 million over the next 5 years to create more than 600 apprenticeships.

Deloitte has funded more than 1300 early years teachers to undertake Teach First leadership qualifications.

Today’s event also marked The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood’s releasing a new report, titled The Human Advantage.

Prepared by Deloitte, it explores how ‘as AI increasingly handles technical tasks, competitive advantage will rely on human skills technology cannot replicate’ and ‘highlights survey findings which show that 81 per cent of business leaders believe there will be an increased need for human skills in the next 5-10 years’.

The findings will be used by the organisation in its mission to ‘engage with the business community and drive action and investment in the early years’.

Earlier this week, Kate has also opened up about the ‘unseen’ mental health battles during pregnancy in an emotional letter penned to a charity. 

The future queen has been patron of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) since 2022 and personally wrote the correspondence to coincide with their new photographic exhibition, This Is Also Motherhood, on display this week at Phillips in London. 

Signing the letter as ‘Catherine’ and using her royal monogram at the top, Kate opened up about the importance of championing those navigating perinatal mental health problems and having ‘love, hope, and compassion’ in doing so. 

The exhibition, created by artist Carolyn Mendelsohn, features 10 women with lived experiences, explored through portrait photography, still life and audio. 

Sharing Kate’s letter on Instagram, the charity said they were ‘honoured’ to have received it and hoped it would help ‘normalise’ conversations about mental health during early parenthood. 

The post was then liked by Kate and her husband Prince William‘s official Instagram account, @princeandprincessofwales.