THE Princess of Wales’s business launch was all white on the night as she stepped out in an £1,490 Alexander McQueen jacket.
Kate, 41, urged business leaders to champion social and emotional development as she took her ‘life’s work’ helping transform the under-5s to the City of London.
Speaking at NatWest’s HQ, she said it was time to think “radically” in order to create a workforce that is “resilient, flexible and able to work through differences with each other”.
Kate added: “The healthy development of our children relies on healthy adults.”
The Princess has assembled influential business leaders in Britain for a new taskforce that will back her early years initiative.
Nine global firms, including Unilever, Ikea, Aviva, Deloitte, Co-Op and Lego, have already signed up and it is hoped that many more will join.
It is considered the next chapter in the Princess’s Shaping Us campaign, which was launched in January and aims to raise awareness of the critical importance of the first five years of a child’s life.
Kate told the business leaders: “We need the ability and capacity to be self-aware enough to manage our own behaviours and actions, in order to build meaningful relationships with each other.
“We need the ability to manage things like stress and conflict, to be adaptable to change and stay motivated when faced with challenges.
“This comes from our social and emotional skills, the foundations of which are laid in childhood.”
Kate’s taskforce had agreed to reconvene in the autumn.
Sir Ron Kalifa, a trustee of The Royal Foundation and a non-executive director of the Court of Directors to the Bank of England, said afterwards: ”there was “an awful lot of momentum and interest in the issue of early childhood.
He added: “What we’re trying to do is to get business to understand the significance of the role that they play within the wider ecosystem.
“And what we’re going to do is to find a way to translate the words about social and emotional skills into business language.
“The only reason it will work is if it’s measurable. This is an ambitious programme.”
