Ben Campagna
Most organisations are asking more of their people than the human nervous system is built to give for long periods. Leaders, in particular, run on chronic stress cycles that show up in attrition, quality issues and quiet disengagement long before they appear in formal wellbeing data. The organisations that do best are not the ones that mandate the most wellness programmes; they are the ones that understand recovery, nutrition and stress physiology well enough to design work differently.
Ben Campagna is a Swiss performance coach and speaker who helps leaders and teams build sustainable performance by treating stress, recovery and physical health as core operating disciplines rather than wellness add-ons.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Ben Campagna
- His training combines psychology and sports sciences, both at the University of Lausanne, with applied nutrition, neurolinguistic programming and neurobiology of addiction; that mix lets him address mental and physical performance as a single system rather than two separate briefs.
- A decade of practitioner experience, including seven years of corporate coaching and consulting, means his material has been calibrated in one-to-one work with senior leaders before it reaches the conference stage.
- His background in K1 and Thai boxing at competitive level gives him first-hand authority on stress physiology and recovery that translates well to audiences used to thinking in performance terms.
- Keynotes are delivered in both English and French, which is useful for pan-European and Swiss-based audiences running leadership programmes in more than one language.
- Named corporate engagements with organisations including Philip Morris International make him a credible voice in front of large internal audiences and not only wellness-specialist rooms.
Biography highlights
- Swiss international speaker and executive performance coach, based in Switzerland
- Degree in Psychology and Sports Sciences from the University of Lausanne; additional study in nutrition and sports performance at the same institution
- NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner (Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Los Angeles); certified Life and Motivational Coach (INEMLA, Los Angeles)
- More than a decade as a practitioner; seven-plus years of corporate coaching and consulting
- Former K1 and Thai boxing competitor; black belt in Ninjutsu
- Delivers sessions in English and French
Biography
The performance conversation most organisations need is not about motivation. It is about how to carry chronic stress for long periods without losing judgment, health or people. Ben Campagna’s work is built around that question. He is a Swiss executive performance coach and speaker who has spent more than a decade working with leaders and teams on sustainable performance under real pressure, first as a practitioner and then in front of corporate audiences.
His academic base is at the University of Lausanne, with degrees in psychology and sports sciences and additional training in nutrition and sports performance. On top of that sit certifications in NLP at practitioner and master level from the Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in Los Angeles, life and motivational coaching from INEMLA, and coursework on the neurobiology of addiction with the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The range is unusual in a wellbeing speaker and is what allows him to link psychological patterns to physical outcomes in a way clients can act on.
The early career was lived in combat sports. He competed in K1 boxing and Thai boxing and holds a black belt in Ninjutsu, which gave him direct exposure to the stress, recovery and physical-preparation regimes his corporate work now draws on. His first keynote was at age 20, his first international corporate event at 24, and he has been working with senior leaders for more than seven years.
Campagna’s sessions are not wellness theatre. They use specific frameworks on chronic stress, regeneration, nutrition physiology, movement and the psychology of change, and are delivered in English and French. For leadership teams, HR functions and wellbeing sponsors looking for a speaker who takes physiology as seriously as mindset, he sits in a narrow category of practitioners who can hold both ends of the conversation in one session.
Key speaking topics
- Chronic stress, recovery and sustainable high performance
- Burnout prevention in corporate leadership
- Resilience, self-mastery and emotional regulation
- Nutrition, movement and their effect on cognitive performance
- Psychology of behaviour change in high-pressure environments
- Mental health and wellbeing at work
Ideal for
- Leadership off-sites and executive programmes focused on sustainable performance rather than generic motivation
- HR, chief wellbeing officer and people functions building structured burnout-prevention strategy
- High-pressure sectors (financial services, tech, healthcare, sport) where senior teams are running hot
- Pan-European and bilingual audiences requiring French and English delivery
Audience outcomes
- A clearer understanding of how chronic stress operates physiologically and psychologically, and why standard wellness interventions often miss it
- Specific techniques for recovery, sleep, nutrition and movement that senior leaders can adopt without overhauling their schedule
- A working vocabulary for discussing mental health and burnout risk inside their own teams
- Practical steps for embedding stress-aware habits into leadership routines rather than relying on one-off programmes
Talks
A session on how leaders sustain output over years rather than quarters, built around stress physiology and recovery.
Key takeaways:
- The physiological difference between acute and chronic stress, and why this changes the intervention
- Specific daily and weekly recovery practices tested in one-to-one executive coaching
- A structured approach to regeneration that does not depend on removing workload
An applied session on how high-performers use pressure rather than avoid it.
Key takeaways:
- The distinction between stress that builds capability and stress that depletes it
- Mental and physical techniques for recovering state quickly under time pressure
- Examples from combat sport and corporate coaching of stress mastery in practice
A session on why most behaviour change efforts fail and what replaces them.
Key takeaways:
- The psychological patterns that cause high performers to relapse into destructive habits
- A structured approach to durable change drawn from NLP, behavioural psychology and neurobiology
- Practical prompts for a leader running change in their own life and their team
A session for leaders working under chronic criticism, visibility or high-stakes decision environments.
Key takeaways:
- Techniques for preserving judgment under sustained pressure
- How to recognise early signs of cognitive and emotional depletion
- Routines for protecting mental bandwidth in visible leadership roles
A session on how eating patterns affect decision quality, energy and mood.
Key takeaways:
- The neurochemistry of common eating patterns in high-performing professionals
- A more useful model than willpower for changing food behaviour
- Specific adjustments leaders can make that affect cognitive performance within weeks
A session on how physical movement reshapes mental state and cognitive performance.
Key takeaways:
- How specific types of movement affect stress physiology, mood and focus
- A practical view of what a leader actually needs from exercise to function well
- Simple protocols usable by busy senior professionals without specialist support