Employee Wellbeing

Why organisations work with Clare Kenny Her role as Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry, responsible for a strategy covering 9,000 employees globally, gives her credibility with CHROs and operational leaders alike. She built the business case for wellbeing investment at scale, not just the human one. Prior career at YSC Consulting (part of Accenture) and MindGym grounds her frameworks in leadership psychology and behavioural science, not wellness trends or personal experience alone. Her TEDx talk reframes addiction as a spectrum behaviour present in most high-performance cultures, shifting the conversation from individual stigma to a risk organisations are actively creating through their own culture. Her work on ADHD and neuroinclusion moves beyond awareness. She helps organisations identify the specific leadership and structural conditions that enable neurodivergent talent to perform, and the ones that quietly prevent it. She moves wellbeing from a programme organisations fund to a behaviour leaders practise. That shift is what determines whether culture actually changes. Biography highlights BSc in Psychology, University of Manchester Former Global Wellbeing Lead, Burberry: led the global wellbeing strategy for a 9,000-person workforce Former Head of Client Operations (Europe), YSC Consulting (part of Accenture), leadership advisory Former Client Executive, MindGym, behavioural science learning and development consultancy TEDx speaker on rethinking addiction as a spectrum issue present in high-performance environments Clients include Warner Bros Discovery, KPMG, Ministry of Justice, Channel 4, Specsavers, Fidelity International, Avanade, and HSBC Biography At Burberry, the global wellbeing strategy covered 9,000 employees across multiple continents. Building that infrastructure required a specific kind of credibility; part organisational psychology, part leadership consultancy experience, and a willingness to name what most organisations actively avoid. Clare Kenny holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Manchester and built her professional foundations at MindGym, a behavioural science learning and development consultancy. She moved into leadership advisory at YSC Consulting (part of Accenture), running client operations across Europe. That sequence; psychology, behavioural science, leadership consulting, shapes how she approaches wellbeing as an organisational systems problem, not a personal one. Her most defining role was Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry, where she designed and ran the company’s wellbeing strategy across its global workforce. That experience directly informs her current work with organisations including KPMG, Warner Bros Discovery, Channel 4, and the Ministry of Justice, where her focus is on psychological safety, neuroinclusion, and the leadership behaviours that create or undermine mentally healthy cultures. Clare also speaks from personal experience of ADHD, addiction, anxiety, and grief. Her TEDx talk reframes addiction as a spectrum behaviour recognisable in most high-performance environments: not a personal failing confined to a few. That willingness to name what organisations routinely avoid is what makes her work function as more than awareness-raising. It becomes a credible basis for sustained culture change. Key speaking topics Psychological safety and workplace mental health Neuroinclusion and ADHD at work Sustainable leadership under pressure Addiction and numbing behaviours in high-performance cultures Wellbeing strategy and culture transformation Leadership resilience Ideal for CHROs and people directors designing or resetting a wellbeing strategy Senior leaders and executive teams navigating burnout or culture health HR and organisational development teams in professional services, media, financial services, and retail Organisations building neuroinclusive cultures or addressing gaps in psychological safety Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of why wellbeing strategies fail to shift culture – and what actually changes leader behaviour Practical tools for recognising and responding to psychological safety issues at team level A reframed understanding of neurodivergence and addiction as organisational conditions, not individual ones Confidence to have honest leadership conversations about mental health in high-performance settings Specific practices for sustaining performance without burning people out

Why organisations work with Helen Lawal Clinical credibility that few wellbeing speakers match: 15 years as an NHS GP, MRCGP, and a postgraduate qualification in nutrition, so the science in the room is hers, not borrowed. A rare specialism in ADHD and AuDHD in women, shaped by a private practice focused on nutrition and sustainable behaviour change for this group. Named ambassador for ADHD UK and trainer on the National Autism Training Programme, so the neurodiversity content is informed by advocacy and training work, not a topic pick-up. Television presenting experience on Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped and How to Lose Weight Well, which translates into a speaker who can hold a large room and explain science without losing it. Lived experience as a late-diagnosed AuDHD woman, which grounds the work in something buyers trust more than a deck. Biography highlights NHS GP with 15 years of clinical experience, MRCGP, MBBS (Hull York Medical School), BSc Sport and Exercise Science (University of Leeds), DFSRH, MNutr. Celebrity Ambassador for ADHD UK (charity number 1188365). Trainer on the National Autism Training Programme. Presenter on Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped; co-presenter of How to Lose Weight Well with Dr Javid Abdelmoneim. Runs a private practice supporting ADHD and AuDHD women with nutrition, eating habits, and sustainable health behaviour change. Media contributor across BBC, ITV’s This Morning, Steph’s Packed Lunch, and BBC Radio Leeds on women’s health, nutrition, and neurodiversity. Biography Most corporate wellbeing content still assumes a neurotypical employee. For the quarter of any workforce that is neurodivergent, and especially for the women diagnosed in their thirties and forties after years of being told they were simply disorganised, the standard advice lands badly. That gap is where Dr Helen Lawal’s work sits. She came to it through clinical practice. Fifteen years as an NHS GP, MRCGP-qualified, with a medical degree from Hull York Medical School and a first degree in sport and exercise science from Leeds, gave her the grounding. A postgraduate qualification in nutrition and a specialism in ADHD turned it into a defined practice area. She now runs a private service for ADHD and AuDHD women focused on eating, energy, and sustainable behaviour change, the areas where standard GP time runs out. The public-facing side has been built in parallel. She presents Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped and co-presents How to Lose Weight Well, work that has trained her to explain food science and weight management to a mainstream audience without losing the evidence base. She is a Celebrity Ambassador for ADHD UK and a trainer on the National Autism Training Programme, which keeps the neurodiversity content anchored in advocacy and training, not marketing. For an organisation, the value is a speaker who can talk credibly to HR, DEI, and wellbeing leads about what actually helps neurodivergent employees, particularly women, and who can do it in a register that works for an all-staff audience as well as a clinical one. Key speaking topics ADHD and AuDHD in women Neurodiversity in the workplace Nutrition and eating behaviour Women’s health and hormones Sustainable weight management Neuroaffirming health and wellbeing Health communication and behaviour change Ideal for HR, DEI, and wellbeing leads designing neuro-inclusive programmes Employee networks and ERGs focused on women’s health, neurodiversity, or both Healthcare, pharma, and insurance organisations briefing clinicians and communicators Conferences and internal events that need a clinician who can present to a non-clinical audience Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how ADHD and AuDHD present in women, and why late diagnosis is common Specific, evidence-based guidance on nutrition and eating behaviour for neurodivergent adults Language and framing for neuroaffirming conversations at work A realistic view of what sustainable behaviour change looks like, separate from diet-industry claims Practical signals managers and HR can use to support neurodivergent colleagues

Why organisations work with Natalie Johnson The CultureJourney™ framework gives senior teams a working model for how culture is actually produced, organised around three named levers: energy, connection, and courage. Combines a science foundation in human performance and resilience with three decades of corporate performance coaching. Few speakers in this space work from both traditions. Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator licensed by Brené Brown’s organisation, which means buyers can book her for a keynote and for the full leadership programme from a single practitioner. Track record with organisations where performance under pressure is the basic operating condition, including NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, Johnson & Johnson, Deloitte, and Ascension Healthcare. Biography highlights Co-founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Vidl Work, the consulting and keynote firm she leads Co-author of Leading the Culture Journey: Elevating Everyday Actions to Create Extraordinary Workplaces (Wiley, August 2026) Co-creator of the CultureJourney™ framework, used to guide culture transformation inside client organisations Performance Coach with the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator licensed by Brené Brown’s organisation, and a Wellcoaches® Certified Coach BSc in Human Performance and Nutrition; MSc in Wellness Promotion Co-host of the Energy, Connection & Courage at Work podcast Biography Most organisations describe their culture in terms they cannot define. Engagement scores climb and wellbeing budgets grow each year, yet senior teams still cannot explain why some groups sustain high performance while others burn out. This is the gap that the CultureJourney™ framework was built to close. Natalie Johnson developed it with her team at Vidl Work, the firm she co-founded and now leads as Chief Visionary Officer. The framework treats culture as the product of three working systems: how leaders elevate energy, how teams prioritise connection, and how leaders choose courage. The thinking is set out in Leading the Culture Journey, her 2026 book with Rebecca Johnson, published by Wiley. Her authority on the topic comes from a combination of training that few culture speakers share. Johnson holds a BSc in Human Performance and Nutrition and an MSc in Wellness Promotion. She is a Wellcoaches® Certified Coach, a Performance Coach with the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute, and a certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator. The Dare to Lead credential licenses her to deliver Brené Brown’s full leadership programme inside client organisations. Her client list spans organisations where performance under pressure is the basic operating condition: NASA, the U.S. Department of Defense, Johnson & Johnson, Deloitte, Ascension Healthcare, and the American College of Surgeons. She also sits on the board of the Kidney Cancer Association and is a member of the International Women’s Forum. Key speaking topics Workplace culture and culture transformation Human performance and energy management Trust and courageous conversation in teams Resilience and sustainable high performance Employee wellbeing as a performance lever Dare to Lead leadership development Ideal for Chief executives and senior leadership teams setting culture as a strategic priority CHROs and Chief People Officers running culture, engagement, and wellbeing portfolios Cross-functional teams operating under sustained change cycles: post-merger integrations, restructures, transformation programmes Leadership teams in high-pressure operating environments such as healthcare, defence, and regulated industry Organisations running Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead programme that want a licensed facilitator with deep performance science background Audience outcomes A working model for culture that names where it gets built and where it breaks down Language for linking employee wellbeing and engagement spend to commercial performance A method for holding the courageous conversations that team trust depends on, drawn from Dare to Lead Approaches for managing human energy and recovery at both individual and team level

Why organisations work with Ben McBean He turns disability inclusion from a compliance topic into a human conversation audiences keep having after the session ends. His recovery from catastrophic injury gives mental health and resilience messaging a weight that consultants and clinicians cannot replicate. As presenter of ITVX’s “For Crown and Country,” he has a documented public-facing body of work on race and the British Armed Forces, which makes him credible for DEI briefs that demand more than personal story. He has spoken to Chelsea FC, Lloyds Bank, JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Vodafone, and Citigroup, so he reads corporate rooms with the same ease he reads public ones. He is comfortable with young audiences, employee resource groups, and senior leadership sessions, which lets a single booking do work across an organisation. Biography highlights Former Royal Marine, 40 Commando, medically discharged in 2010 after an IED injury in Helmand Province. Overcoming Adversity winner at The Sun Military Awards 2009 for becoming the first double amputee to finish the London Marathon. Outstanding Global Achievement Award at Britain’s Best Award 2008, presented by the Prime Minister. Rotary Young Citizen Award, 2012. Presenter, “For Crown and Country,” ITVX Fresh Cuts, 2023. Corporate client list includes Chelsea FC, Lloyds Bank, JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Vodafone, and Citigroup. Biography An IED exploded near Kajaki Dam, Helmand Province, on 28 February 2008. Ben McBean lost his left arm and right leg and was flown home on the same aircraft as Prince Harry, who later called him the “real hero” of that flight. He was twenty years old. A year later he finished the London Marathon in six hours and twenty minutes, the first double amputee to complete the course. He did it again the following year, faster. The Sun Military Awards recognised him for Overcoming Adversity in December 2009. What McBean does for organisations now grew out of what happened after the marathons. He spent years speaking in schools, at veterans’ events, and inside companies that were trying to make inclusion and mental health feel real rather than performative. In 2023 ITVX asked him to present “For Crown and Country,” a Fresh Cuts documentary on the contribution of Black British servicemen and women, which extended his platform from personal testimony into commissioned social history. Corporate audiences at Chelsea FC, Lloyds Bank, JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Vodafone, and Citigroup have booked him for the same reason. A policy document can tell a workforce that difference is welcome. A room full of people who have just listened to McBean walks out knowing what that looks like when it is tested. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion in the workplace Mental health and recovery from trauma Resilience after catastrophic setback Diversity, equity and inclusion Veterans’ experience and reintegration Race and representation in institutional settings Ideal for DEI leads, CHROs, and employee resource group sponsors designing inclusion programming with real behavioural reach. Wellbeing and mental health leads running Mental Health Awareness Week, wellbeing conferences, or post-crisis staff events. Learning and development teams building resilience content for managers and frontline staff. Armed Forces charities, veterans’ networks, and public sector employers convening on race, service, and belonging. Audience outcomes A sharper read on how disability and difference are actually experienced inside a team, not how policy says they should be. Permission to talk about mental health and recovery in direct language, without workplace euphemism. A human reference point audiences return to when their own setback, illness, or loss arrives. Renewed conviction that inclusion is a behaviour practised in meetings, not a statement published on an intranet.

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

Why organisations work with Sylvia Marusyk A practising occupational therapist, not a wellness coach, which gives wellbeing content credibility with EHS, operations and unionised audiences who routinely dismiss soft programming. Thirty years of clinical work translated into language that holds a room of utility engineers, nurses, municipal workers and aerospace technicians, not only an HR audience. A repeatable session catalogue covering stress, engagement, respectful conduct and self-health, with named talks that buyers can match to a specific workforce problem. Author of Testing Positive: 365 Days of Calm Through Chaos, written through her own cancer diagnosis, which gives the wellbeing material lived authority rather than borrowed theory. Track record across Manitoba Hydro, Great-West Life, City of Winnipeg, Transport Canada, Health Canada, StandardAero and the Manitoba Nurses Union, so buyers can see the work has held up across regulated, industrial and public sector environments. Biography highlights Founder and owner of MindBody Works Inc., a Canadian workplace health and wellness consultancy. Registered occupational therapist with more than 30 years of practice in health, safety and workplace wellbeing. Author of Testing Positive: 365 Days of Calm Through Chaos, a daily guide written after her cancer diagnosis during the pandemic. Host of the Trigger with Sylvia Marusyk podcast and former host of the Happy Hour with Sylvia radio programme. Speaking and training clients include Manitoba Hydro, Great-West Life, Transport Canada, Health Canada, City of Winnipeg, StandardAero, Manitoba Nurses Union and CAPPA. Signature programmes include Surviving to Thriving, Stressed to Kill, Happy Hour Begins at 9am, Respectfully, Up Yours! and Rules of Engagement. Biography Wellbeing budgets have grown for a decade, yet absence, burnout and turnover keep rising. The problem is not awareness. It is that most workplace health content sits a long way from the physical and cognitive reality of the people actually doing the work, which is precisely the gap Sylvia Marusyk has spent her career closing. She trained as an occupational therapist and has practised in the field for more than thirty years. That clinical grounding shapes everything she does on stage: the body and the brain treated as a single working system, stress described in biochemical and behavioural terms, prevention framed as an operational discipline rather than a lifestyle choice. As founder of MindBody Works Inc., she has built a Canadian workplace health consultancy around that approach. Her session catalogue is unusually concrete for the wellbeing category. Stressed to Kill unpacks the physical, cognitive, emotional and environmental components of stress. Surviving to Thriving offers self-health tools that hold up under pressure. Respectfully, Up Yours! turns psychological safety into a behavioural conversation, and Rules of Engagement tackles retention and engagement. The book Testing Positive: 365 Days of Calm Through Chaos, written through her own cancer diagnosis, supplies the personal spine to the clinical content. The credibility shows up in who books her. Manitoba Hydro, Great-West Life, Transport Canada, Health Canada, the City of Winnipeg, StandardAero and the Manitoba Nurses Union have all put her in front of audiences that are unforgiving of generic wellness talk: engineers, nurses, municipal staff, aerospace technicians. That is the market she has built her work for. Key speaking topics Workplace stress and burnout prevention Employee wellbeing and mental health at work Occupational health and injury prevention Respectful workplace culture and psychological safety Employee engagement and retention Resilience and self-health practices Workplace happiness and work-life conflict Ideal for CHROs, heads of wellbeing and EHS leaders rebuilding stress, absence and injury programmes Operations and safety leaders in utilities, healthcare, aerospace, manufacturing and municipal services Union and member organisations commissioning content for frontline and clinical workforces HR and culture leads addressing respectful conduct, engagement and retention in fatigued teams Audience outcomes A clinical understanding of how stress affects the body, brain and behaviour at work Specific self-health practices audiences can apply during and after the working day Language for naming and addressing disrespectful conduct without escalating it A sharper sense of where wellbeing programmes are working and where they are theatre Renewed energy and humour in rooms that often arrive defensive about wellbeing content

Why organisations work with Dan Edwards He has actually led a large public-sector workforce through a sustained cultural rebuild, including pandemic-era disruption, rather than describing the work from a consultancy seat. His talks come with named, road-tested models, the 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts among them, that translate cleanly out of education into any large operational workforce. He is one of the few credible male voices speaking publicly about psychological safety and male mental health in front-line teams, through his MENtal Health talk. The delivery is performer-grade. He has a stand-up and stage background that keeps a senior audience with him through difficult material on wellbeing and morale. His creative business, 52 Stone Film, is built around employment pathways for underrepresented groups, which gives him direct operating experience of inclusion as a workforce outcome rather than a values statement. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of 52 Stone Film, a Leicester-based TV and film production company built on filmmaking and education. Former Principal of a large inner-city primary school in Leicester; prior Executive school leadership roles. Drama teacher background in inner-city secondary schools; entered teaching as a mature trainee via night school after leaving school with two GCSEs. Speaker at the SSAT Primary Conference 2021 on leading a school community through the coronavirus pandemic. Host of two podcasts, Dan Edwards Has Questions and A Quiet Night’s Sleep. Stage performer and writer; “The Sound of Muzak” was nominated for the Audience Choice Award at the 2024 Leicester Comedy Festival. Biography Large workforces have absorbed five years of change, and the cultural cost is now visible in engagement scores, sickness data, and middle-management churn. Edwards spent the worst of that period running a large inner-city primary school in Leicester, holding a staff body and parent community together when the national playbook for leadership had stopped working. That job, and the executive school leadership work that followed, is the substance behind his keynote material. The 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts are not theoretical frameworks; they are the models he built to keep a school improving while wellbeing was collapsing. The translation into corporate settings is direct, because the underlying tension, leading people through sustained pressure without burning them out, is the same. Edwards now runs 52 Stone Film, a Leicester production company with a deliberate mandate to build employment pathways for underrepresented groups. That gives him a second, current operating vantage point on culture, inclusion, and creative discipline inside a working business, which keeps the talks from drifting into nostalgia for the education world. The delivery is the differentiator at the senior end. A stand-up and theatre background, including a 2024 Leicester Comedy Festival nomination for “The Sound of Muzak”, means his keynotes on staff mental health and male psychological safety land in front of audiences that have heard the standard wellbeing pitch too many times. Key speaking topics Organisational culture and staff wellbeing Authentic and humane leadership Male mental health and psychological safety at work Creativity and innovation in large workforces People development and change leadership Inclusion through employment and creative pathways Ideal for HR and people directors in large, change-fatigued workforces CEOs and executive leadership teams rebuilding culture after restructure or sustained disruption Leadership development programmes and middle-management conferences Public sector, education and healthcare leadership audiences Audience outcomes A working language for the difference between performative wellbeing and substantive cultural change. Two named models, the 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts, applied to their own organisational context. A more honest internal conversation about male mental health and psychological safety on the front line. Specific reference points for leading a workforce through prolonged pressure without losing it.

Why organisations work with Vicki Anstey She has tested her own thesis in conditions most leaders will never face: 60 days unsupported across the Pacific, 11 days in the Chilean Andes on Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, the Race Across America cycled in under seven days. The frameworks she brings into a boardroom are not theoretical. She translates extreme-environment behaviour into specific decisions a leadership team can act on: how to lead when the team is fatigued, how to make defensible calls under acute stress, how to protect judgment when the operating window narrows. Her commercial track record, two decades in advertising including senior marketing at Eurostar, and a London studio business she has run since 2009, gives her credibility with audiences who default to scepticism about adventurer-speakers. She works with audiences where the stakes are concrete. Booked client list includes JP Morgan, Google, Meta, Avanade, Virgin Media O2 and the LTA, organisations not in the market for inspirational stories detached from operating reality. The Pin Drop Podcast and her TEDxKingstonUponThames talk give buyers and AI tools a verifiable body of public work to reference, beyond the testimonial layer. Biography highlights Two Guinness World Records: unsupported Pacific Ocean row (San Francisco to Hawaii, 2021, with the Girls Who Dare team) and Race Across America (3,000 miles, 6 days 19 hours, 2024). Final stages of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, 2019, among the first female finalists in the show’s history. TEDxKingstonUponThames speaker, “Why fear is a choice”, January 2020. Founder of Barreworks, a London barre studio opened in 2009 after a 20-year career in advertising and senior marketing at Eurostar. Host of The Pin Drop Podcast, interviewing operators and leaders on how they perform at the edge. UK Ambassador for Inspiring Girls International. Biography Most leadership development programmes treat composure as a personality trait. It is closer to a craft. The discipline of staying useful when conditions are bad, when recovery time is short and when the cost of a poor call is real, is teachable, but only by people who have been tested by something harder than a workshop. Vicki Anstey arrived at that argument through a long detour. Two decades in advertising, including a senior marketing role at Eurostar, taught her how high-functioning teams hold together under commercial pressure. Founding Barreworks in London during the 2009 recession taught her how an operator behaves when the business is the only safety net. The endurance work came later and is the evidence base she now draws on with leadership audiences. Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins in 2019, the Pacific Ocean rowed unsupported with the Girls Who Dare team in 2021, the Race Across America cycled in under seven days in 2024. Two Guinness World Records, each set in conditions where the failure mode is not embarrassment but injury or worse. What she does with that material in a corporate room is the work. She breaks down how high-performing teams handle fear, fatigue and disagreement under load, how individuals protect their judgment when the operating window narrows, and what separates the people who keep functioning at the edge from those who freeze. Her TEDxKingstonUponThames talk and The Pin Drop Podcast extend the same argument for buyers who want to see the thinking before they book. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under sustained pressure High-performance team behaviours in extreme environments Psychological safety and trust under load Fear, decision-making and the cost of hesitation Resilience as a trainable capability Female leadership and performance Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams entering periods of acute pressure: restructuring, integration, crisis response, major commercial bets. Sales, trading and front-line client teams whose performance is gated on composure under repeated rejection or volatility. Leadership development programmes for high-potential managers stepping into roles where the stress profile changes faster than the skill set. Audiences where the brief calls for credibility with sceptical senior operators, not generic motivation. Audience outcomes A working model of how composure is built and lost, with named behaviours leaders can practise rather than aspire to. Specific tactics for protecting decision quality when teams are fatigued or fearful. A concrete view of what high-performing teams do differently when conditions deteriorate. An honest account of failure, recovery and the actual cost of operating at the edge, drawn from named expeditions rather than generic anecdote.

Why organisations work with Eleanor Mills She has built the most detailed evidence base in the UK on ABC1 women aged 45 to 60, including partnership research with HSBC on midlife female entrepreneurs and with Accenture on the economic power of women over 45. She names a category most boardrooms still treat as a footnote, the “Queenager”, and gives employers and brands a working vocabulary for talent retention, marketing strategy and product design aimed at this group. She has 22 years of editorial authority at The Sunday Times, including running the magazine when it won Supplement of the Year at the 2018 Press Awards, which gives her communications work with senior leaders genuine craft behind it. Her book, Much More to Come (HarperCollins, 2024), turns midlife transition into a leadership story about reinvention after redundancy, divorce and caring responsibilities, the same pressures organisations are failing to design around. She convenes a 50,000-strong community at Noon, which means her insight is continually refreshed by the audience itself, not drawn from a one-off study. Biography highlights Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Noon (noon.org.uk), launched 8 March 2021. Former Editorial Director of The Sunday Times and Editor of The Sunday Times Magazine, 1998 to 2020. Chair of Women in Journalism, 2013 to 2021. Author of Much More to Come (HarperCollins, 2024), a Sunday Times bestseller; co-editor of Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs (2005). Recipient of the International Alliance for Women World of Difference Award (2012); editor of the Press Awards Supplement of the Year (2018). Research partnerships with HSBC (Fearless and Thriving) and Accenture (The Rise of the Queenager). Biography The most economically active female demographic in Britain is also the one most likely to leave senior roles before reaching the top. Women aged 45 to 60 hold disposable income, household decision-making power and decades of operating experience, yet employers and consumer brands consistently underestimate both their commercial weight and their willingness to stay. This is the gap Eleanor Mills has spent the last five years documenting. After 22 years at Times Newspapers, including running The Sunday Times Magazine when it won Supplement of the Year at the 2018 Press Awards, she left in March 2020 and founded Noon on International Women’s Day 2021. Noon is now a 50,000-strong community and a research platform, with partnership studies for HSBC on midlife female entrepreneurs and Accenture on the economic power of women over 45. Her book Much More to Come (HarperCollins, 2024) extends that argument into the territory of reinvention. It draws on her own redundancy and the pressures her readers describe: menopause, divorce, empty nests, caring for elderly parents, second careers. The book reframes midlife as a productive stage organisations should design around, not write off. For a senior buyer, the value is precise. She gives a board the vocabulary, the data and the editorial sharpness to act on a workforce and consumer segment most strategy decks treat as a rounding error. Key speaking topics Women in midlife as a talent and consumer category Retention of senior women through menopause and caring years Reinvention after redundancy and career disruption Marketing and brand strategy for women over 45 Personal storytelling in leadership communication Resilience in transition Ideal for CHROs and talent leaders designing retention strategies for senior women CMOs and brand leaders targeting the over-45 female consumer Boards reviewing DEI and culture beyond entry and mid-career pipelines Leadership programmes for women navigating career and life transitions in their forties and fifties Audience outcomes A working definition of the Queenager category and what makes it commercially distinct Specific intervention points where organisations lose senior women, and what changes the curve Evidence drawn from named partnership research with HSBC and Accenture, not generic DEI argument A reframing of midlife transition as a leadership and reinvention story rather than a wellness theme

Why organisations work with The Tempest Two A two-handed delivery rooted in shared, verifiable experience. Most resilience content is told solo. The duo dynamic, including dialogue and disagreement on stage, lands as conversation rather than lecture. The Atlantic row, Patagonia ultra-triathlon and El Capitan ascent are all self-funded, self-organised expeditions started without the relevant skills. The lesson on agency is structurally different from a story told by a former soldier or elite athlete. Operating discipline behind the talks. Through Dose, the same lessons are productised into workplace programmes for clients such as Nike, BNY Mellon, IBM and Airbnb, so a keynote can sit inside a wider engagement rather than ending at the closing slide. Tonal range commercial buyers actually want. The act works on a sales kick-off stage, an EMEA marketing conference or an internal wellbeing day without code-switching, which is rare in the adventure-speaker field. Biography highlights 3,000-mile unaided ocean row from the Canary Islands to Barbados, completed in 54 days, with no prior rowing or sailing experience. World-first ultra-triathlon across Patagonia in 2017: 1,600km cycle, 65km Huemul Circuit run, 100km stand-up paddleboard descent of the La Leona river. Winter ascent of Mont Blanc and El Capitan summit in Yosemite, the latter on roughly 18 months of climbing experience. Co-founders of Dose, a workplace wellbeing company working with Nike, BNY Mellon, IBM and Airbnb among others. Keynote clients include Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan, Heineken, Vodafone, Red Bull, Dropbox, Tesco, Waitrose & Partners, NatWest and Gymshark. Hosts of The Tempest Two Pod on adventure, mindset and performance. Biography Two friends in marketing jobs decided to row the Atlantic. Neither had sat in a rowing boat. Fifty-four days after leaving the Canary Islands, James Whittle and Tom Caulfield reached Barbados, having met the first hurricane to form in the Atlantic in fifty years on the way. The story matters because the starting point was ordinary, which is the point of every keynote that has followed. What came next was a deliberate run of self-organised expeditions: a winter ascent of Mont Blanc, a climb of El Capitan, a London-to-Sahara motorbike ride, and a self-styled world-first ultra-triathlon across Patagonia stitching together a 1,600km cycle, the 65km Huemul Circuit and a 100km paddleboard descent of the La Leona river. None were undertaken with the relevant elite credentials beforehand. That gap, between what they could obviously do and what they did anyway, became the working material. In 2018 they built Dose, a workplace wellbeing and performance company, around the same idea. Resilience and growth mindset are taught not as motivational concepts but as practices for teams under load. Clients include Nike, BNY Mellon, IBM and Airbnb. The keynote and the operating business reinforce each other; an event can lead to a programme rather than a one-off morale lift. The act sits in a specific commercial niche. It is not pure adventure inspiration, and it is not corporate consulting in disguise. It is a two-person performance for the part of an organisation that has heard the resilience message before and stopped listening, told by two people who keep proving the premise on themselves. Key speaking topics Growth mindset Resilience under pressure Team performance and trust Operating outside the comfort zone Embracing risk and failure Courage-based leadership Workplace wellbeing and engagement Ideal for CHROs and heads of employee engagement designing resilience and wellbeing programmes that need a credible opening moment. Sales, marketing and commercial leadership running annual kick-offs that need energy without slipping into hype. Culture and L&D leads looking for keynote content that can be extended into team workshops rather than ending at applause. Founder-led and high-growth companies whose teams are carrying sustained pressure and need a shared language for it. Audience outcomes A working definition of growth mindset that survives contact with a hard week back in the office. Specific habits the duo use to prepare for, push through and recover from extended pressure, transferable to a team context. A reframing of failure and risk that gives more junior staff permission to act with higher agency. A shared reference point across a team that lasts beyond the event, often picked up by Dose programming where it follows.

Why organisations work with James Whittle A first-person account of decision-making after 54 days of unsupported ocean rowing, three days on the wall of El Capitan, and a world-first Patagonia triathlon, drawn on directly rather than borrowed from research. A deliberate “started from zero” frame that lands with workforces who are tired of being shown ex-special-forces or Olympic-medallist case studies and find them remote. A track record of repeat work with Nike, Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan, Heineken and Airbnb, which gives buyers reassurance that the material survives a senior corporate audience. A second business, Dose, built around translating expedition lessons into ongoing workplace wellbeing programmes for clients including BNY Mellon and IBM, so the keynote sits inside a wider intervention rather than a one-off appearance. A speaking partnership with Tom Caulfield that allows two-handed delivery, useful for offsites and team experiences where a single-voice keynote would not hold the room. Biography highlights Co-founder, The Tempest Two, the speaking and adventure partnership with Tom Caulfield. Co-founder, Dose, a workplace wellbeing company working with Nike, BNY Mellon, IBM and Airbnb. Rowed the Atlantic unsupported, Canary Islands to Barbados, 3,000 miles in 54 days, with no prior rowing experience. World-first ultra-triathlon across Patagonia: 1,600km cycle, 65km mountain run, 100km stand-up paddleboard descent of the La Leona River. Climbed El Capitan in Yosemite, encountering Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell on the wall. Speaking client list includes Google, Nike, Airbnb, JP Morgan, Microsoft, Heineken, Red Bull and Vodafone. Biography The honest version of resilience is not a poster on an office wall. It is what someone does on day forty of an Atlantic crossing when the water-maker has failed and the next port is still two weeks away. That is the territory The Tempest Two have spent the better part of a decade walking into on purpose. The duo, James Whittle and Tom Caulfield, started with no rowing experience and crossed 3,000 miles of ocean in 54 days. They followed it with a world-first ultra-triathlon in Patagonia and three days on the granite face of El Capitan. The pattern is deliberate: pick a discipline neither of them has practised, give themselves enough runway to learn it, and put the result in front of a corporate audience as material on how ordinary people make hard decisions under load. That positioning is what gives the work its commercial weight. Most adventure speakers come from a military or elite-sport background that audiences quietly discount as unreachable. The Tempest Two reject that framing on principle, which is why their keynote travels into rooms at Nike, Google, Microsoft, JP Morgan and Heineken without losing the audience halfway through. Whittle’s second business, Dose, takes the same lessons and converts them into structured workplace wellbeing programmes for clients including BNY Mellon, IBM and Airbnb. The keynote is the front door; the operating model behind it is closer to a sustained intervention on team energy and recovery than a one-time motivational booking. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained pressure Decision-making in degraded conditions Team performance on long-duration projects Risk and the comfort zone Wellbeing as a performance variable Adventure-led leadership development Ideal for HR and people leaders running offsites focused on team energy and recovery Sales and commercial leadership conferences where the brief is grit and momentum, not strategy content Programme leads on long-duration transformations who need to address fatigue head-on Senior all-hands events that need a non-corporate voice to shift the register Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how a small team makes decisions when the original plan has stopped working A vocabulary for resilience that does not collapse into platitude A reset on the difference between high-effort discomfort and actual risk A reason to look at recovery and energy management as a leadership concern, not a personal one

Why organisations work with Maisie Summers-Newton A defended Paralympic title is a rare proof of consistency. She won double gold at Tokyo 2020, then did it again at Paris 2024 in the same two events, three years later. Her 200m individual medley SM6 world record, 2:56.68, was set under maximum pressure at her first Paralympic Games. That is the kind of result organisations want to understand when they talk about delivering at the moment that counts. She speaks credibly on disability and visible difference from a position of public authority, not advocacy alone. The MBE was awarded for services to swimming, and her platform on achondroplasia and language reaches audiences that DEI presentations rarely do. She runs a parallel career as a primary school teacher. That dual life gives her something most elite athletes do not have on a stage: a working perspective on time, attention, and what consistent performance looks like outside the pool. Biography highlights Paralympic gold medallist in the 200m individual medley SM6 and 100m breaststroke SB6 at Tokyo 2020, defended both at Paris 2024. World record holder in the SM6 200m individual medley (2:56.68, Tokyo 2020). MBE for services to swimming, 2022 New Year Honours. Gold medallist, Commonwealth Games Birmingham 2022, 100m breaststroke SB6. Multiple World Para Swimming Championship golds across 2019, 2022 and 2023. Graduate of the University of Northampton; works as a primary school teacher alongside elite competition. Biography Defending a Paralympic title is harder than winning the first one. The race is the same length, but everything around it has changed: expectation, public attention, and the slow accumulation of three years of training against people who have studied your last performance. Maisie Summers-Newton did it twice at Paris 2024, retaining her 200m individual medley SM6 and 100m breaststroke SB6 titles from Tokyo 2020. The Tokyo wins were already remarkable. She set a world record of 2:56.68 in the 200m medley on her Paralympic debut, having broken her first world record at 15. The Paris defences happened with a different kind of pressure on her shoulders, the kind that asks whether the first set of results were a moment or a method. The answer turned out to be a method. Her platform is broader than the medal table. She was appointed MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to swimming, and has used her public position to speak directly about achondroplasia, language and how visible difference is treated in everyday settings. She graduated from the University of Northampton and works as a primary school teacher, a working life that sits unusually close to the audiences she addresses. What organisations get from her is rarely framed as theory. It is a working account of what it takes to perform when the result is binary and public, and an honest perspective on inclusion from someone who lives it rather than presents on it. Key speaking topics Composure and performance under pressure Defending success and sustaining high performance Goal setting in long-cycle, high-stakes environments Resilience through setback and injury Disability inclusion and lived experience Language, visibility and difference at work Team dynamics in elite environments Ideal for Senior leadership and high-performance teams preparing for a defining year or event HR, DEI and ERG audiences focused on substantive disability inclusion rather than awareness alone Sales, commercial and delivery teams working to a binary, deadline-driven target Conferences and internal events seeking a credible voice on resilience supported by named results Audience outcomes A concrete picture of what consistency under pressure looks like over a multi-year cycle, not a single performance. A first-person account of disability inclusion that audiences can take back into team conversations. A clearer sense of how elite preparation translates into routine choices about time, attention and recovery. A more honest reading of what resilience requires when results are public and binary.