Lucy Cooke
Best-Selling Author, National Geographic explorer and award-winning broadcaster
- Award-Winning Broadcaster & National Geographic Explorer: Zoologist and filmmaker with a Master’s from Oxford, who has made documentaries for BBC, National Geographic, and Animal Planet.
- Best-Selling Author & Gender Myth-Buster: Wrote Bitch and The Truth About Animals, both popular science books that challenge ideas about animal behavior and evolution.
- Sloth Advocate & Viral Storyteller: Created the Sloth Appreciation Society and made sloths famous through a TED Talk, viral films, and a best-selling book.
Full Profile
Lucy Cooke — Award-Winning Zoologist, Author & National Geographic Explorer
Lucy Cooke is an author, National Geographic explorer, and award-winning broadcaster with a Master’s degree in zoology from New College, Oxford, where she studied under Richard Dawkins. She is the author of four acclaimed books, including the recent best-seller and feminist paradigm-challenger Bitch: What Does It Mean to Be Female?, the New York Times best-seller A Little Book of Sloth and its sequel Life in the Sloth Lane: Slow Down and Smell the Hibiscus, and The Truth About Animals, which was shortlisted for the Royal Society Prize. Her works have been translated into 22 languages and adapted for international television, BBC radio, and the stage.
Drawing from her extensive expertise as a zoologist, Lucy explores what society and businesses can learn from the extraordinary biology and behavior of animals. Her work delves into themes such as gender and social dynamics, leadership and dominance, teamwork, and sustainability—revealing the surprising parallels between human and animal behavior.
A sought-after public speaker, Lucy engages audiences across a wide spectrum—from Harvard University to Birmingham ICC to Glastonbury Music Festival. She has collaborated with global corporations such as J.P. Morgan, Gartner, Deloitte, and Disney. In 2018, she was invited to speak on sloths and sustainability at TED Women and has been featured at festivals including Hay-on-Wye, Cheltenham Science and Book Festivals, Bath Book Festival, Edinburgh Science Festival, New Scientist Live, The Electric Picnic in Ireland, the G10 in Amsterdam, and the Heidelberg Science Festival.
As a broadcaster, Lucy has written, produced, and presented major prime-time documentaries for BBC, Channel 4, National Geographic, PBS, Animal Planet, and Discovery. She has also appeared in live programs such as Springwatch and The Beach Live for BBC. A regular panellist on popular radio shows including Sue Perkins’ Nature Table, The Infinite Monkey Cage, Woman’s Hour, and The Museum of Curiosity, Lucy’s Power of… series was recently released as an audiobook titled The Evolutionary Edge on Audible.
Lucy’s pioneering research and thought-provoking perspectives have earned her a fellowship at Durham University. Her book Bitch has been added to the curriculum of numerous international universities, leading to invitations for Lucy to lecture at prestigious institutions including Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Mount Holyoke, Chicago, Stockholm, Oxford, Cambridge, UCL, Newcastle, and Durham.
Talks
Wolves were the original animal hierarchy, with an alpha male on top. However, the “alpha” model of leadership was never real, it was based on a biased view of animal behaviour and discounts the teamwork that embodies wolf society.
In this inspirational talk, Lucy gives a tour of cutting-edge research into the animal kingdom and explains how and why the most successful animal societies don’t thrive on dominance. She also draws on parallels with some of world’s most successful, and unsuccessful leaders, and shares the essential leadership lessons (honed by 3.5 billion years of evolution) to help you lead well and build successful teams.
Sloths have a bad rap. Being named after a deadly sin has done nothing for their PR. But nature’s slow coaches have been around for over 60 million years, outliving flashier species like the sabre-toothed tiger. As the founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society, Lucy takes inspiration from the Sloth, along with many of Nature’s other great survivors.
In this fascinating talk, Lucy shares the work and life lessons learned from the vast array of species in the animal kingdom, to help create a better, happier, and thriving workforce.
The octopus is a master of innovation, which is why they have been on the planet for over 330 million years. Ultimately, the key to success is not strength but adaptability, and in an era of rapid change — AI, economic shifts, climate crises— embracing flexibility, innovation, and collaboration is key.
In this talk, Lucy explores lessons from nature’s greatest survivors, from problem-solving urban raccoons to cooperative meerkats, as these pioneering toughies not only offer inspiration but also the perfect antidote to future-proofing success.