Guest speaking and keynotes
Retirement Speaking and Keynotes
Your programme covers the money.
Someone needs to cover the person.
That's Kara's slot.
Kara Packman speaks at financial and retirement conferences, adviser events, fund roadshows and employer forums on what actually happens to a person when work ends — identity, routine, purpose, life at home and staying connected. Keynote, breakaway, panel or workshop slot, nationally.
Why book this talk
The slot your programme is missing.
Financial and retirement conferences answer one question well: will there be enough money? Kara answers the one delegates go home still carrying — what happens to the person when the work stops.
Financial planning answers “will I have enough?” It does not answer who someone is once the title goes, what a Tuesday looks like without work in it, where purpose comes from, how life at home shifts, or what happens when the colleagues who were the social circle are suddenly gone.
Kara’s session sits comfortably alongside the financial content rather than competing with it. Advisers and fund representatives keep the money conversation; delegates get the part nobody else on the programme covers — and it is usually the part they talk about afterwards.
The approach is practical and human, not clinical: better questions, honest conversation and a clear sense of what to do next.
Talk topics
What Kara speaks about
The identity gap after a career
Decades of being the person who did the job, and then the title goes. Who am I now, and where do I still count?
The first year nobody warns you about
Why the diary, the routine and the sense of being needed unravel long before the money does — and what steadies them.
Prepared financially, not emotionally
For employers, advisers and fund trustees: what your members are not prepared for, and what a duty of care looks like beyond the pension.
Who am I when I'm no longer what I used to do?
Kara's signature talk on identity, purpose, contribution and the better questions retirement gives people room to ask.
Formats
Built to fit your programme.
Content is tailored to who is in the room — advisers and planners, fund trustees, HR and wellbeing teams, or members and delegates approaching retirement themselves.
30 to 45 minutes
Keynote
A main-programme slot that lands the emotional side of retirement alongside the financial content.
45 to 60 minutes
Breakaway session
More interactive, with guided reflection and room for delegates to ask the questions they don't ask publicly.
As programmed
Panel contribution
The non-financial voice on a retirement panel, alongside planners, product providers and fund representatives.
Half day or longer
Workshop slot
The What Now? material adapted to your programme when you want delegates working, not only listening.
Speaking fees are quoted per engagement, based on format, audience size and travel. Kara travels nationally.
Who books Kara
- Retirement fund conferences and trustee events
- Financial adviser, broker and planner gatherings
- Employer, HR and employee wellbeing forums
- Member roadshows and pre-retirement briefings
- Associations, professional bodies and interest groups
Kara Packman — Master Neuro Linguistics Programming Practitioner. Facilitator of The What Now? Workshop, run nationally, most often in Johannesburg and Pretoria, and of the five-day luxury retirement retreat for executives and long-service staff.
Invite Kara to speakSessions are practical personal development, not therapy, counselling or clinical opinion, and nothing presented is financial advice.
Invite Kara to speak
Tell us about your event.
Send the date, the city, who will be in the room and the slot you have in mind. We'll come back with a shaped session and a fee. No obligation.
Save Kara’s details to your phone (QR code)