Keely Cat-Wells

Why organisations work with Keely Cat-Wells

• She has built and sold the category. C Talent, the agency she founded in 2018, was acquired by Whalar in 2022 and remains the largest exit of a Disabled-led talent business in the sector.
• Her current company, Making Space, gives leaders an operating model rather than a manifesto: an employer-backed training and acquisition platform with reported lifetime earnings gains of more than $1.1M per learner.
• She speaks from inside the boardroom conversation, not next to it. As a Presidential Leadership Scholar, Obama Leader USA, and Forbes contributor, she carries credibility with executive audiences who are tired of generic DEI framing.
• She connects representation in media to talent strategy in the workforce, drawing on a roster that has placed Disabled creators in projects including The Last of Us, Avatar, and The Hunger Games.

Biography highlights

• Founder and CEO, Making Space, a venture-backed talent acquisition and learning platform for Disabled professionals.
• Founder of C Talent, acquired by Whalar in 2022.
• Co-founder, Making Space Media, with a first-look deal at Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine.
• 2025 Presidential Leadership Scholar, 2025 Obama Leader USA, inaugural Gloria Steinem Fellow.
• L’Oreal Paris 2025 Women of Worth, Forbes 30 Under 30, Diana Award, One Young World Entrepreneur of the Year 2022.
• Forbes contributor on disability, entrepreneurship, and inclusive workforce strategy.

Biography

The Disabled talent pool is one of the largest underused labour markets in the global economy. Most companies do not have a working strategy for reaching it. Keely Cat-Wells builds the infrastructure that closes that gap.

She founded C Talent in 2018 after disability discrimination ended an early career in performing arts. The agency grew into the most prominent home for Deaf and Disabled creators in entertainment, placing talent in The Last of Us, Avatar, and The Hunger Games before being acquired by Whalar in 2022. It remains the largest exit of a Disabled-led talent business in the industry.

Making Space, founded in 2023, is the operator-led answer to a different question: how do enterprise employers actually hire and retain Disabled professionals at scale. The platform pairs employer-backed training with talent acquisition, and closed a $2M pre-seed round led by Beta Boom in 2024. Its Ascend program reports projected lifetime earnings gains of more than $1.1M per participant.

Cat-Wells writes for Forbes, sits on disability-focused boards, and was named the youngest Presidential Leadership Scholar in the program’s history. Her recognitions include the Diana Award, Forbes 30 Under 30, L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth, and Gloria Steinem Fellow. The credentials matter, but the harder evidence is the line item her work creates on a hiring scorecard.

Key speaking topics

• Disability and workforce strategy
• Hiring and retaining Disabled professionals
• Inclusive talent acquisition platforms
• Representation in media and entertainment
• Building and scaling mission-led ventures
• Hidden disabilities in the workplace
• Founder experience in inclusive entrepreneurship

Ideal for

• CHROs and heads of talent acquisition rebuilding disability hiring strategy
• Chief diversity and inclusion officers moving from awareness work to operational outcomes
• Boards and ELTs reviewing workforce, ESG, and human capital reporting
• Media, entertainment, and creative leaders accountable for on-screen and off-screen representation

Audience outcomes

• A clearer view of where disability inclusion programmes break in practice and what to fix first.
• Specific tactics for sourcing, onboarding, and retaining Disabled professionals at enterprise scale.
• A founder’s view of how to translate inclusion strategy into measurable economic outcomes.
• Language and evidence senior leaders can use with their own boards on disability as a workforce issue.