James Davies

Why organisations work with James Davies

• He brings elite sport recovery practice directly into the office: the same posture, mobility and recovery principles used with Team GB track and field athletes at Rio 2016, translated for people sitting at desks.
• He treats physical wellbeing as measurable behaviour change, not inspiration. Audiences leave with specific stretches, ergonomic fixes and microbreak routines they can run the next morning.
• His client work with Hugo Lloris, Marcus Smith and performers in music and television gives him a credible way to talk about performance under pressure without drifting into motivational abstraction.
• As author of the Sunday Times bestseller “Body” (HarperCollins), he has already distilled his method for a general reader, which makes the keynote version land quickly with mixed corporate audiences.
• His patronage of STAMMA and his own experience of stammering give the session a personal register when the brief calls for resilience or human story, without the profile depending on it.

Biography highlights

• Founder and CEO of Rising Health, a London-based osteopathy and performance practice established in 2009.
• Team therapist for Team GB track and field athletes at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
• Sunday Times bestselling author of “Body: Simple Techniques and Strategies to Heal, Reset and Restore” (HarperCollins, 2022).
• Trained as an osteopath at the British School of Osteopathy; earlier study in massage and sports injuries at the London School of Massage.
• Patron of STAMMA, the British Stammering Association.
• Clinical base at the South Kensington Club, London; client work spans Premiership football, international rugby, Olympic athletics, music and television.

Biography

Most corporate wellbeing talks leave people nodding and then returning to the same chair, the same screen, the same tight shoulders by Thursday. Davies works the other way round. His starting point is the body in front of him, and a short list of things that actually change how it feels.

That practical bias comes from two decades of hands-on clinical work. He trained as an osteopath at the British School of Osteopathy, founded Rising Health in 2009, and built a client list that runs from Premiership footballers and Olympic track and field athletes to performers who cannot afford to be injured before a tour. In 2016 he was selected as a team therapist for Team GB at the Rio Olympics.

The same method is now available to general readers. His book “Body: Simple Techniques and Strategies to Heal, Reset and Restore” was published by HarperCollins in 2022 and reached the Sunday Times bestseller list. It is a recovery manual written for people who do not have a physio on call, which is exactly the audience most organisations are trying to reach when they commission a wellbeing keynote.

He is also Patron of STAMMA, the British Stammering Association, and speaks openly about his own stammer when a brief calls for a resilience thread. The clinical substance stays the primary reason buyers bring him in: a clinician who can stand in front of five hundred employees, give them three things to do on Monday, and have them feel the difference by the end of the week.

Key speaking topics

• Workplace physical wellbeing and pain prevention
• Posture, ergonomics and desk-based health
• Recovery habits from elite sport
• Sustainable performance under pressure
• Sleep, stress and physical resilience
• Movement and mobility for sedentary workforces

Ideal for

• HR, People and Wellbeing leaders commissioning a credible physical health keynote for a wider wellbeing programme
• Internal communications and employee experience teams running conferences, offsites or return-to-office events
• Leadership and high-performance teams in sales, trading, consulting or law where sustained intensity is the job
• Event organisers looking for a practical clinical voice alongside mental health and nutrition speakers

Audience outcomes

• Specific daily habits for posture, mobility and microbreaks that work in an office or at home
• A clearer sense of how elite athletes structure recovery, and which parts of it translate to desk work
• Confidence to spot early warning signs of back, neck and shoulder strain before they become absence
• A short, memorable set of techniques for sleep, breathing and stress discharge
• A personal story about stammering that gives resilience content a human anchor when the brief calls for it