Speaker Bio
Kate Davis is an award-winning comic, author and sought-after international keynote speaker who teaches audiences to “lighten up,” bringing them the balance and connectivity they lack in their busy lives. Her keynotes are grounded in two decades of research and development that have transformed the lives of her audiences.
Kate’s compelling insight and outspoken character provide a powerful combination to help organizations empower their staff with effective tools for managing stress and sustaining motivation. Through the proven health-building power of laughter, Kate inspires others to create moments of inclusivity, joy, and productivity in all areas of their lives. This work leaves people feeling energized, optimistic and equipped with practical tools to make real change and stay motivated.
Kate regularly appears on popular media channels, including TVO, Breakfast Television and CBC’s Radio One, and has been published in Today’s Parent Magazine, Reader’s Digest and more. She has also penned two books. Her first, “Breast-feeding Diaries,” won the iParenting Media Award. Her most recent book, “Second Best Mom – Stories, Tips and Okay Advice,” is now available on all platforms. In Kate’s podcast, “Humor in the C-Suite”, she interviews leaders, executives and business owners on how leaders use humour to create an extraordinary work culture.
Speaker Topics
The highest-performing teams in the country understand that real success comes from harnessing the collective strengths of every team member. What many leaders overlook, however, is that the secret ingredient to unlocking this potential is often laughter. Levity isn’t just a perk — it’s a powerful tool for connection, collaboration, and trust.
Kate Davis has partnered with hundreds of top-tier companies delivering a keynote that is not only hilarious but packed with actionable insights. Through her unique blend of comedy and research-based strategy, Kate doesn’t just talk about the power of humor — she shows it in action, engaging audiences with real-time demonstrations that are as entertaining as they are enlightening.
Many leaders walk into Kate’s sessions believing they need to be the strongest or most authoritative voice in the room. But the truth is, the most effective leaders are the ones who are relatable, emotionally intelligent, and present. In an era of rapid digital transformation and increasing workplace disconnection, those who can create authentic human moments — through humor and humility — are the ones who lead high-performing, connected teams.
Attendees will learn:
- How to de-risk humor and understand when and how to use it appropriately
- The key to building trust while honoring professional boundaries
- The four types of humor — and how to steer clear of the ones that backfire
- Ways to use humor to connect, even without telling a single joke
Audiences will leave this keynote energized, equipped, and inspired — with practical tools to build stronger teams, foster deeper connections, and create a culture where productivity and belonging thrive, all through the simple yet profound act of bringing more laughter into the workplace.
It’s never been easier to communicate and never been harder to connect. Between emails, virtual meetings, slack, social media, it’s no wonder that burnout, stress and loneliness are at all-time highs, and trust is at an all-time low.
Instead of hiring the latest strategic communications firm, or spending countless hours learning how to train AI bots to communicate for you, what if you could learn a few simple and easy tools to implement immediately that would drive connection and results?
Research shows that laughter and levity are some of the most powerful ways to build meaningful connections, increase trust, reduce stress, and enhance employee engagement and performance.
In this engaging and enlightening keynote, veteran comedian Kate Davis demystifies what makes us laugh and provides practical techniques for using humor to truly make an impression whether it’s with clients, customers, co-workers, family, or friends.
Audiences will leave with takeaways including:
-Specific examples and techniques to bring more levity into the workplace and how to de-risk humor
-Ideas they can implement immediately on how to use humor to build trust with clients and colleagues.
-Research and examples showing the power that humor has on human connection which inspires and motivates people to truly live to their fullest potential.
-How to harness the power of humor to create an extraordinary work culture and team collaboration
This keynote is good for any group that wants to empower their teams to improve their culture, grow sales, grow customers, or anyone who wants to improve their connections and most importantly anyone who wants to LAUGH!
The world is becoming more volatile, finding balance between our jobs, home, relationships with family, friends and co-workers can be challenging and overwhelming both in the workplace and home leading to stress, fatigue and low productivity.
So, we stretch in every direction trying to satisfy and take care of everyone but ourselves. What if there was a simple way to bring more balance into our lives that didn’t require over extending ourselves, our resources, and helped us be more present in our lives.
Humour can do just that.
Grounded in 2 decades of research and development this award-winning comic, teaches people how to lighten up and the power that humour and levity have on their day-to-day lives to create more Balance, stability and self-care.
Audiences will leave with takeaways including:
– Learning how to apply and use humour into their day-to-day life to keep them healthy, happy, and whole.
-They’ll learn practical techniques on how humour changes the chemistry of our brains and how to implement the benefits it has on stress management, human connection, and trust both at home and the workplace.
-They’ll learn what humor style they fit into and how use that to ease tension, create an innovative environment, and enhance communication.
– They’ll discover how humour and levity allow us to be more playful which leads to innovation and team collaboration.
-They’ll experience a great ab workout from laughing so hard.
It’s not about the next best joke it’s about lightening up and not taking ourselves so seriously and bring that to every area of our lives.
People, who attend Kate’s “Balancing Life with Humor” Keynote, leave with an understanding of practical techniques for refueling, rediscovering, and reengaging their true selves. Learning to use humour as an instrument of communication creates an atmosphere of compassion, caring, and increased productivity.
Kate’s Keynote “Out of My Mind…Back In Five” explores techniques of managing our mental health and gives practical ways of staying healthy and positive even through the toughest times. Kate’s inspiring, humorous and sometimes touching stories takes us on a journey about resilience and perseverance. How she found comedy and how it helped her discover self-worth, confidence and to fight the negativity in her own mind that was keeping her from living the life she deserved.
“Back In Five” explores the way we feel about ourselves and others, as well as our ability to manage our feelings and deal with everyday difficulties both at work and home.
From practical methods like how mindfulness can help us achieve self-awareness that has to power to affect all areas of our lives in a positive manner. Learning one-minute stress strategies that you can do at the office or home or breaking up the monotony with Rejuvenation 101 (That’s a long list). To the methods available to us for taking charge of our own mental health including: How we think about ourselves, being grateful, being in the present, sleep, diet, exercise to name a few. All these methods can ultimately boost our mood, build resilience and add to our overall enjoyment of life.
Audiences leave this keynote with the feeling that knowledge is power and that we all play a role in our mental health.
Testimonials
Kate was truly a hit. She conveyed many important messages to a group of women under stress by reminding them to incorporate things they love into their lives incrementally, to use their intuition, and to combat stress with laughter. Not only did she entertain these women with side-splitting stories with which every woman and mother can relate, she gave them a much needed shot of inspiration.
You wouldn’t believe how much impact your workshop had on me!!! I attended your workshop for U of T “Humour at Work”… I am changing my attitude and the way of thinking. From this point of view, I would like to say “thank you” for your outstanding speech about humour and what it may bring to people’s lives.
It was an absolute pleasure to have Kate Davis as part of our Professional Development activities. She brought humour, insight and optimism to our day. Many teachers commented that the opportunity to spend time with Kate as our keynote was a highlight unique to any other school-based PD they had attended. Kate’s dynamic personality was definitely an asset to her as she engaged the staff in trust-building exercises, which we hope to pursue further throughout the year.
We absolutely loved Kate’s presentation at both of our sites. She was personable and easy-going in our chat prior to the formal keynote address. I appreciated her relaxed approach when we were unable to provide both types of microphones at each site!! She truly practices and demonstrates what she “preaches” in her talk – taking everything in stride and LAUGHING about life’s ups and downs. We received great feedback from both audiences and I was really quite pleased with the events from beginning to end. I would highly recommend Kate!!
Kate was wonderful! The nurses had a great time (and you know we can sometimes be a tough crowd – we take ourselves very seriously!). Kate was warm and funny and engaged everyone in you presentation. Kate was very intuitive to who her audience was and I think by the time she left we felt we had made a friend! Thank you again for your support and please let Kate know we loved her!!
Kate did two sessions for Administrative Professionals Week for our Admin Team here at Holland Bloorview. Here topic ‘Humour in the Workplace & Work Life Balance’ really hit home with her audience. Using her own life experiences tempered with thoughtful tips from authors really helped to capture how important having balance in our lives really is. In a nutshell, Kate was enchanting, engaging and hilarious. I would definitely recommend her slant on this topic to other professional organizations.
Thank you once again for attending Gamma-Dynacare’s annual Symposium event this year and for your uplifting session. I think your key messages are very relevant. Most importantly, I think you struck a cord with our people – I don’t think I have seen them laugh this hard since I joined the company 9 months ago.
On behalf of the Tillsonburg District Chamber of Commerce, I want to thank you for agreeing to speak at our Awards of Excellence event. The feedback from our guests has been overwhelming. They LOVED you! So many people took the time to grab me after the event was over to tell me how much they enjoyed having you there, and what a great addition you were to our program. On Friday, I received tons of emails saying the same.
The feedback I received so far from staff was that her talk was the highlight of the day. Her witty banter and engaging dialogue was superb and the broken telephone exercise was a hoot. However, it was Kate herself that made a difference and like our M.C. Ray summed up ‘she is a real live wire’.
Thanks so much for making our event such fun. We all had a great time and certainly learned a thing or two from you. We were talking at lunch after you left and realized we were remiss in doing something for you. So we would like to give you your fourth standing ovation.
Your presentation certainly matched well with our Work/Life Balance theme of the AGM. As you could tell by the laughter, participants enjoyed your entertaining talk on “Balancing Life with Humour”.
…in no time had us all giggling and laughing. Her subject matter fit perfectly with the age and diversity of our group.
Thank you for an amazing presentation on Tuesday! When can most people say that they spent more than 3 hours laughing and learning? Rochester has a reputation as a conservative, dare I say “stodgy” place. You single-handedly took a wrecking ball to that! You’ve set the bar incredibly high for future presenters.
Good morning, Kate,
Hope your week is going well, so far!
I cannot thank you enough for taking the time to be with us and present at the HRCC Conference. Your presentation was nothing short of OUTSTANDING!! The energy in the room was pulpable, we could feel the positive vibes emanating off one another. Your keynote was the perfect way to kick off our conference, and it is exactly what we all needed after a 3 year hiatus from in-person gatherings. You made a lasting impression on everyone, and I am still receiving the most positive feedback from your session. You are HILARIOUS, truly!
It was our pleasure having you join us.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!
All the best
During her session, Kate’s unique blend of humor and insight provided a refreshing perspective that was much needed for our team, which had been facing significant challenges. Her ability to lighten the mood and make us laugh enabled us to see our circumstances in a new light, reducing stress and fostering a more positive and balanced outlook.
Kate emphasized the importance of maintaining a balanced perspective, both professionally and personally. Her strategies for incorporating humor into our daily routines were not only practical but also impactful. The positive effects of her presentation have been evident in our team dynamics and individual well-being. Kate has made a positive impact on our team. Her session was not just informative but transformative, and we are grateful for the valuable lessons she imparted. I highly recommend Kate to any organization looking to enhance their team’s resilience and overall outlook through the power of humor.
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