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Speaker, 2024 TEDxCU
​Intern, Summit Wealth Management

For most people, speaking at a sold-out event in Macky Auditorium would be terrifying—but Kate Nam had been waiting for this opportunity to share her message.

Born and raised in Colorado, Nam was very involved in her high school. Then COVID hit, and like many students, she decided she was done with school and needed a break. After graduating high school, she took a gap year before college. “It was the best thing I could have done for myself,” she said.

She lived in Ireland for three months, backpacked around Europe, worked at P.F. Chang’s and completed a wealth advisory internship in Denver. Though she had always planned on going out of state for college, she ultimately decided that Leeds at CU was the place to be.

“I realized how much I liked the proximity to the people in my life,” she said. “I compared a lot of business schools when making my decision, and Leeds continued to stand out.”

Finding her voice

Nam was involved at CU from the get-go, from Leeds Scholars to the CU Rowing team. She had always enjoyed public speaking and the meaning that words can have on other people, so she applied to be a speaking coach for the 2023 TEDxCU event. She helped a Leeds senior prepare for the big day.

“It was such a fun experience for me,” she said. “It made me question, could I do this? Is being on that stage something that I want to do?”

Then last fall, Nam got the perfect idea for her own TEDxCU talk in the middle of the night. It was a metaphor of sprinting versus walking through life and how her own experiences played into it. She had always struggled with the urge to stay perpetually busy. But since she was constantly going, she never had a chance to sit down and question, ‘Who am I? What am I doing, and what do I want to do?’ Her gap year gave her the chance to do that.

She spoke on this at the TEDxCU Student Voices Competition, where she took first place and got the opportunity to be a featured speaker at the 2024 event.

“The motivation behind all this was how passionate I felt about what I was sharing,” she said. “I love storytelling, and TEDxCU was a unique avenue for me to do just that.”

“I wanted to convey in my speech that it’s okay to sit in silence with yourself, and that stillness in your life allows for reflection on yourself and the world,” she said. “I thought I was going to be nervous speaking up on that stage, but I was so passionate about what I was saying that I wanted everyone to hear it.”

“It made me question, could I do this? Is being on that stage something that I want to do?”

Kate Nam (Fin, Acct’26)

Furthering her journey

Though Nam’s time in the TEDxCU spotlight is past, she wants to help others find their voice through public speaking. She hopes to return to the event as a coach. In preparation, she is working as a teaching assistant for the Communication Strategy class at Leeds.

“Public speaking is so important in the business school,” she said. “Being able to do it confidently is really hard for some people, but there are many ways to stay present in the speech, combat your nerves and enjoy what you’re doing.”

As for her future after college, she’s torn between two career paths: business and the travel industry. She wants to find something that she loves and propel herself towards it. Regardless, she plans to use her voice for good.