Speaker
Kathy Bero’s remarkable recovery from stage 4 inflammatory breast cancer and a high-grade tumor in her head and neck took her advocacy work into a whole new arena. She is an award-winning author, speaker, Jikiden Reiki practitioner, Reiki master teacher, certified integrative health and cancer coach, and accredited handler of a pet-therapy team, changing the way we look at chronic disease.
Kathy’s award-winning book E.A.T.: An Unconventional Decade in the Life of a Cancer Patient with foreword written by Larry Mullen, Jr. founder of U2 is an inspirational memoir drawn from the 18 journals she kept during her battle with two rare and aggressive cancers. Despite taking advantage of everything her hospital had offered, Kathy’s body was failing, leaving her no choice but to embrace mindfulness, meditation, Reiki, food as medicine, and other healing modalities.
Her remarkable recovery caught the attention of Harvard University’s NEER study, examining individuals who had unexpected success battling cancer. Kathy works with clients across the globe and her approach to healing just for today inspires individuals worldwide living with chronic illnesses ranging from cancer and MS to heart disease and autoimmune disease. Now, more than 20 years later, she remains cancer free.
Kathy’s professional work has ranged widely to include leadership roles in environmental advocacy, facilitation, and consultation along with women’s leadership development in the U.S and abroad through programs sponsored by USAID, UNEP, and the Kellogg Foundation. She served on the Advisory Board for the Angiogenesis Foundation, executive-produced film projects, including the two-time Emmy award-winning documentary Worth Fighting For: People Protecting the Great Lakes narrated by James Taylor, and has been recognized nationally for her significant contributions in environmental education, including the national award-winning campaign It’s All Connected and Great Lakes In My World curriculum. In 2009, Kathy founded NuGenesis, Inc., a nonprofit that taught more than 10,000 people how to use food as medicine with the help of 900 volunteers, three full-time staff, and eight contracted dietitians and educators.
Kathy’s writing has been published in a variety of science-based technical documents and newsletters for state, federal and international governments along with national organizations. She’s had articles published by Gannett-USA Today, American Hiker, and WorldWIDE News.
Her forthcoming book Heal Just For Today:A Simple Daily Path to Beat Chronic Disease through Food, Calm, and Connection is the practical companion to her memoir, teaching how an integrative approach done mostly at home can succeed without breaking the bank.
Expertise
Award-Winning Author
Keynote Speaker
Integrative Health Coach
Accredited Handler of Pet Therapy Team
Reiki Master Teacher
Emmy Award-Winning Executive Producer
Cancer Survivor & Harvard NEER Study Subject
Kathy is available for keynotes, workshops, panels, podcast appearances, media interviews, corporate wellness engagements, and clinical consulting. She is equally at home on a conference main stage, retreat, university symposia, or virtual summit. Each topic listed below is grounded in credible science and Kathy combines science, lived experience, and compassion in a way that leaves people genuinely changed.
Ideal for: corporate wellness; lifestyle medicine; medical practitioner continuing education; nutrition, mental health, and public health conferences; wellness summits; cancer survivor events; faith communities; and patient, caregiver, health system, and hospital chaplaincy programs. She is well-suited for conservation and sustainability summits.
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Kathy introduces audiences to the three pillars of integrative healing — food as medicine, stress management, and spiritual development — and shows how simple, attainable daily choices lead to sustainable lifestyle changes.
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Kathy reframes eating as one of the most powerful healing practices available to us. She cuts through the noise of fad diets, supplement marketing, and influencer health advice.
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Stress is a biological force that reshapes the gut, suppresses the immune system, and opens the door to chronic disease. Kathy translates the science of the gut-brain axis, cortisol, and epigenetics into plain language, then delivers a practical toolkit of simple, evidence-based practices audiences can use in that moment to shift their nervous systems into the healing mode of calm connection.
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A diagnosis can leave patients feeling like passive recipients of care. Kathy’s own experience — battling two cancers while her doctors dismissed her integrative choices — gives her unique authority to coach audiences on how to engage their medical teams, ask better questions, seek complementary support, and take charge of their healing. It’s practical, empowering, and deeply compassionate.
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Kathy raised two young daughters through her decade of treatment and recovery and speaks to the unique challenges of parenting through serious illness with honesty, humor, and hard-won wisdom.
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Kathy takes an inclusive approach to accessing your inner healer by tapping into your intuition. Reiki, Acupuncture, Healing Touch (TT), Qigong and other energy-based healing modalities are demystified as she references the growing body of evidence-based research.
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With forty years of environmental advocacy and two cancer diagnoses shaped in part by environmental factors, Kathy is one of the few speakers who can connect the dots between ecosystem and personal health. She draws on the latest science, connecting environmental toxins and chronic disease to deliver a talk that is uplifting and actionable.
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Chronic stress costs U.S. employers an estimated $300 billion annually in lost productivity, absenteeism, and healthcare costs. Kathy brings her healing framework into corporate and institutional settings, helping leadership teams and their people understand the physiology of burnout and equipping them with simple, sustainable tools to restore resilience without expensive programs or rigid protocols.
Kathy’s Credentials
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1992-present. Experienced speaker who presents to diverse audiences from 20 to 2000+. International engagements across health, environment, government, corporate and nonprofit sectors.
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Certified Integrative Health & Cancer Coach (Centre for Advancement in Cancer Education).
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Jikiden Reiki Practitioner (Jikiden Reiki Institute, Kyoto, Japan), Western Reiki Master Teacher
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Animal-Assisted Accredited Pet Therapy Team Handler
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Angiogenesis Foundation, Boston
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United States, Canada, Russia, Poland, South Africa
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Founder, CEO & President; 900 volunteers, 10,000+ served.
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Harvard NEER Study – exceptional cancer responder.
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Two-time Emmy award-winning documentary narrated by James Taylor Worth Fighting For: People Protecting the Great Lakes and Protecting Special Places: Persevering the Great Lakes
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40+ years: Alliance for the Great Lakes, Ice Age Park & Trail Foundation (now Ice Age Trail Alliance), 1,000 Friends of Wisconsin, Great Lakes United and creator of the national award-winning environmental multi-media education campaign It’s All Connected.
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Spring Hill Farm, Dodge County, WI (1998-2015); grew approx. 70% of her family’s food.
