Amar Latif

Why organisations work with Amar Latif

• He has spent twenty years running an inclusion business that makes commercial sense. Traveleyes pairs blind and sighted travellers worldwide and has twice been voted Best Accessible Holiday Company at the British Travel Awards, in 2019 and 2020.
• His corporate CV gives him credibility with a board. Before founding Traveleyes he was Head of Commercial Finance at BT, and he makes the commercial case for inclusion in the language a board expects to hear it in.
• The lived experience is specific and substantial. Amar has retinitis pigmentosa and lost 95% of his sight by 18, and has spent his career building and running an organisation inside that constraint.
• Mainstream media recognition earns audience attention before he speaks. Regular BBC presenter, first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK, and appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship.

Biography highlights

• Founder and Chief Executive of Traveleyes, the world’s first commercial tour operator pairing blind and sighted travellers on group holidays worldwide; established 2004.
• Appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship.
• President of The Ramblers, Britain’s largest walking charity, since April 2023; patron of SeeAbility and of the Rafiki Thabo Foundation.
• Inaugural recipient of the Stelios Disabled Entrepreneur Award (2007), presented by Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou in partnership with Leonard Cheshire Disability.
• Presenter across BBC and Channel 4, including Beyond Boundaries, River Walks (Royal Television Society Yorkshire Best Single Documentary, 2019), Travelling Blind, Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul, How to Get Fit Fast; first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK (2020).
• BSc (Hons) Mathematics, Statistics and Finance, University of Strathclyde; former Head of Commercial Finance at BT.

Biography

Traveleyes was founded in 2004 on a single commercial insight: that blind and sighted travellers could be paired on the same group holiday, with sighted guests receiving discounted travel in exchange for describing what they see. Twenty years later, the company has twice been voted Best Accessible Holiday Company at the British Travel Awards, and the insight has held up.

Amar Latif built the business after leaving a role as Head of Commercial Finance at BT. The route from commercial finance into inclusive travel is unusual, and it gives him the language to make the commercial case for inclusion to a board.

The authority on resilience comes from a specific set of circumstances. Amar has retinitis pigmentosa and had lost 95% of his sight by 18. After a BSc in Mathematics, Statistics and Finance at the University of Strathclyde, he trained as an accountant and worked his way up to Head of Commercial Finance at BT before founding Traveleyes.

A parallel broadcasting career runs across BBC One, BBC Two and Channel 4, including Beyond Boundaries, Travelling Blind, Pilgrimage: The Road to Istanbul, How to Get Fit Fast, and his appearance as the first blind contestant on Celebrity MasterChef UK. He was appointed OBE in the 2023 King’s Birthday Honours for services to the visually impaired and entrepreneurship, and serves as President of The Ramblers, Britain’s largest walking charity.

Key speaking topics

• Inclusive leadership
• Disability inclusion as commercial strategy
• Entrepreneurial resilience
• Risk and decision-making under constraint
• Customer experience in underserved markets
• Purpose-driven organisations

Ideal for

• Chief People Officers, CHROs and heads of diversity, equity and inclusion
• Boards and executive teams building the commercial case for inclusion
• Entrepreneurship and innovation forums
• Customer experience and service design leaders

Audience outcomes

• A commercial case for inclusion built to hold up in a board or CFO conversation
• Specific examples of how inclusion shapes service design and customer experience in underserved markets
• A reset on how to think about risk when there is no stable precedent
• A narrative that changes how senior audiences talk about inclusion back in the business