Alex Payne
Brands have spent a decade chasing reach through influencers without a clean way to measure what the spend buys them. The bridge between marketing intent and credible voice is still mostly relationship-led, opaque, and hard to scale. Most senior leaders running a brand do not have a working operating view of how the influencer market actually clears.
Alex Payne is a broadcaster and brand-influencer marketplace founder who helps organisations sharpen how they communicate, host major moments, and think about influence as a commercial channel.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Alex Payne
- A working operator’s read on the brand-influencer market through The Room, the marketplace business he co-founded in 2017, rather than commentary from outside the category.
- Ten-plus years presenting live for Sky Sports built the practical communication discipline he teaches to senior leaders: clarity under time pressure, listening on camera, holding a room.
- A safe pair of hands for high-stakes hosting at scale, with named credits including HSBC, Heineken, the World Rugby Awards and the NSPCC.
- One of British rugby’s most recognisable broadcast voices, useful for organisations whose audiences sit in or adjacent to that world.
Biography highlights
- Led Sky Sports’ rugby union coverage for more than ten years and hosted the channel’s Rugby Club studio show.
- Presenter across Sky Sports News and Sky News, with additional credits in tennis and poker coverage.
- Co-founder of The Room, a marketplace tech business connecting brands and influencers, launched in 2017.
- Co-host of The Good, The Bad and The Rugby with James Haskell and Mike Tindall, a UK number-one Apple podcast with a 2024 book and live tour.
- Hosting credits for HSBC, Heineken, Help for Heroes, NSPCC, the World Rugby Awards and the RPA Awards.
Biography
The brand-influencer market still clears through relationships and gut feel more than through any agreed operating model. That is the gap Alex Payne walked into when he co-founded The Room in 2017, a marketplace tech business built to connect brands and influencers on terms both sides could measure.
Before that, and still alongside it, he spent more than a decade as the lead presenter of Sky Sports’ rugby union coverage. He fronted the channel’s Rugby Club studio show and presented across Sky Sports News and Sky News, including tennis and poker assignments. The studio years gave him a working communication discipline that he now teaches to senior leaders.
He co-hosts The Good, The Bad and The Rugby with James Haskell and Mike Tindall. The show debuted at number one on Apple Podcasts in the UK and has expanded into live arena tours and a 2024 book. His event-hosting roster includes HSBC, Heineken, Help for Heroes, NSPCC, the World Rugby Awards and the RPA Awards.
Payne is most useful to organisations as a host who knows how influence works on the inside. He has built a business in the category, sat behind a camera through ten years of live broadcast, and run rooms for some of the largest sponsoring brands in British sport.
Key speaking topics
- Brand and influencer marketplaces
- Communication under pressure
- Media training for senior leaders
- Sport, sponsorship and audience
- Live event hosting and moderation
Ideal for
- Marketing and brand leaders rethinking influencer spend
- Sponsorship and partnership teams in sport, lifestyle and consumer brands
- Senior leaders preparing for media-facing moments
- Awards ceremonies, conferences and client events needing a credible host
Audience outcomes
- A clearer view of how the brand-influencer market actually clears, from someone running a marketplace inside it.
- Practical adjustments to how senior leaders show up on camera and on stage.
- A working sense of what makes communication land in high-pressure live settings.
- For hosted events, a steady tempo and named credibility with sport-adjacent audiences.
Talks
A communication session drawn from a decade of live broadcast, focused on the practical mechanics of listening, presence and connection in professional settings.
Key takeaways:
- How active listening changes the quality of senior conversations.
- The role of non-verbal signals in trust and credibility.
- Empathy as an operating skill, not a soft attribute.