Offerings

Human-Centered Leadership & Care-Centered Innovation

Katara McCarty is an award-winning founder, keynote speaker, and certified executive coach helping leaders and organizations rethink leadership, innovation, and organizational culture through the lens of care. Drawing from her experience building Exhale and Exhale Cares, she explores what becomes possible when we intentionally design care into the systems that shape our lives. Her work challenges audiences to build healthier people, stronger organizations, and more connected communities by treating care as essential infrastructure.

Keynotes I Workshops I Facilitation I Moderation

Keynotes

“Care Is Infrastructure: Why the Future of Leadership Depends on It”

What if care isn't a perk—but the infrastructure that determines whether people, organizations, and communities truly thrive?

The organizations best prepared for the future intentionally design for people, not just performance. Yet many of today's greatest workplace challenges, including burnout, disengagement, declining trust, and constant change, are symptoms of systems that have treated care as optional rather than essential.

Drawing from her experience building Exhale at the intersection of technology, culture, and well-being, Katara challenges leaders to rethink how organizations are designed. She demonstrates that care is not soft. It is strategic infrastructure that fuels innovation, resilience, trust, and sustainable growth.

Through compelling stories and actionable leadership practices, audiences discover how to build cultures where people and performance thrive together.

Audience Will Leave Able To:

See care as a strategic leadership advantage rather than simply an employee benefit.

• Strengthen trust, belonging, and well-being to improve organizational performance.

• Build resilient teams equipped to navigate change and uncertainty.

• Foster innovation by creating psychological safety and human connection.

• Lead with greater intention while balancing growth, purpose, and humanity.

Perfect For: Leadership Conferences • Executive Retreats • Corporate Events • Healthcare • HR • Education • Government • Women's Leadership • Innovation Conferences • Founders & Entrepreneurs

“The Cost of Carrying It All: Why Sustainable Leadership Begins with Caring for Yourself”

What if the greatest threat to your leadership isn't everything you're carrying—but believing you have to carry it alone?

Many leaders, especially women, have been conditioned to overperform, overgive, and push through at the expense of their own well-being. They become the dependable one, the fixer, and the person everyone turns to—until the weight becomes unsustainable.

In this deeply personal keynote, Katara challenges the belief that self-sacrifice is the price of success. Through authentic stories, practical tools, and meaningful reflection, she helps leaders rediscover that setting boundaries, embracing intentional pauses, practicing breathwork, and reconnecting with themselves are not acts of weakness—they are leadership practices.

When we care for ourselves first, we lead with greater clarity, resilience, presence, and impact.

Audience Will Leave Able To:

• Recognize the hidden costs of chronic overperformance.

• Identify beliefs and habits that lead to burnout.

• Practice simple tools to pause, breathe, and reset throughout the day.

• Build confidence to create healthy boundaries and advocate for personal well-being.

• Develop sustainable habits that support long-term leadership effectiveness.

Perfect For: Women's Conferences • Healthcare • Education • Employee Resource Groups • Leadership Conferences • Associations • Nonprofits • Corporate Wellness Events

Workshops

Looking for a more interactive experience?

Katara also facilitates engaging workshops that help leaders and teams move from inspiration to implementation. Sessions are customized to your organization's goals and provide practical tools participants can immediately apply in their work and lives.

Popular workshop topics include:

• Building Cultures of Care

• Human-Centered Leadership

• Sustainable Leadership

• Women's Leadership & Well-Being

• Organizational Well-Being

• Trust & Belonging

• Innovation Rooted in Humanity

Facilitation & Moderation

In addition to keynote presentations, Katara facilitates executive retreats, leadership off-sites, panel discussions, and fireside conversations that create meaningful dialogue and actionable outcomes.

Available for:

• Executive Retreat Facilitation

• Leadership Off-sites

• Fireside Chats

• Conference Moderation

• Panel Discussions

• Strategic Leadership Conversations

Executive & Leadership Coaching

Katara coaches leaders, founders, and changemakers navigating leadership, visibility, impact, and personal sustainability. Her work is especially grounded in supporting Black women moving through systems and spaces that do not always see or support them fully.

As a certified coach, founder, and facilitator, Katara blends reflection, strategy, emotional well-being, and leadership development to help clients build meaningful careers, organizations, and lives aligned with their values—without losing themselves in the process.