Resilience & Stress Management

Why organisations work with Joy Poole Joy addresses a gap most leadership development programmes leave entirely open: not what leaders should do under pressure, but how they actually operate internally when clarity is scarce, the stakes are high, and the team is watching. Her background at Meta, in large-scale consulting environments, and across high-growth technology companies gives her a working knowledge of the specific pressures that senior audiences are navigating. As a credentialed executive coach with a practice built around leaders under sustained load, she brings a level of depth and practical tool-transfer that most leadership keynote speakers cannot replicate from the stage. The sailing narrative, crewing an ocean circumnavigation as part of a team, is not an adventure story bolted onto a leadership talk. It provides an environment in which the same principles about self-leadership under pressure have been tested and proven. Joy customises her engagements as a matter of principle. A leadership team at a fintech navigating rapid growth is not the same audience as a professional services firm managing restructuring, and she treats them accordingly. Biography highlights 20 years in senior sales, consulting and leadership roles across Google, Facebook/Meta, Capgemini, and Arthur Andersen Certified Professional Coach, Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC); Master Practitioner of the Energy Leadership Index; Transitions Dynamics Specialist Executive Programme certificates from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics Speaker at internal leadership forums for Meta and at industry conferences across technology, media, and financial services Completed a round-the-world sailing circumnavigation – her second parallel environment for testing how leaders perform when conditions are extreme Biography Senior leadership in fast-moving technology and consulting organisations teaches you a great deal about performance under pressure. It teaches you rather less about what is actually happening inside a leader while all of that performance is required. Joy Poole spent two decades at the centre of that tension in senior roles at Meta, Capgemini, and Arthur Andersen, before building a practice around the gap she identified. Her core argument is precise: when organisations face uncertainty, change, or sustained pressure, the variable that most determines leadership quality is not expertise or experience alone. It is how clearly and calmly a leader can operate within themselves; how they think when the picture is incomplete, how they make decisions when there is no clean answer, and how they show up for their teams while also carrying their own uncertainty. This is self-leadership, and she treats it as a practical capability, not a motivational concept. Joy holds executive credentials from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics alongside certification from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. She brings to the stage what most leadership speakers cannot: a decade of operational experience at genuine scale, combined with years of coaching senior executives through exactly the internal dynamics she speaks about. An unusual secondary proof point sits alongside her professional record. Joy is currently completing a round-the-world sailing circumnavigation; an environment that applies the same conditions her leadership audiences face, stripped to their essentials. The lessons from both settings reinforce the same argument: what determines performance under pressure is not position or preparation. It is the quality of self-leadership. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under pressure and uncertainty Decision-making in ambiguous conditions Composure and credibility under sustained organisational load Leadership during restructuring and change Confidence and presence for senior leaders Trust as a leadership capability Ideal for HR and L&D directors commissioning leadership development sessions for offsites, internal forums, or away-days during periods of significant organisational change: restructuring, reorganisation, or high-growth phases Executive and senior leadership programme managers looking for a session that is grounded and practical rather than motivational Senior leadership teams in technology, financial services, professional services, and consulting where pace and pressure are structural features of the environment Audience outcomes A clearer, more honest account of how they actually operate under pressure, not how they think they should operate Practical tools for improving self-leadership composure in high-stakes situations that can be applied immediately A reframe of uncertainty and incomplete information as conditions to be navigated rather than problems to be solved Greater understanding of how their own internal state affects team performance and organisational credibility A shared vocabulary for a leadership conversation that most organisations do not currently have language for

Why organisations work with Clare Kenny Her material starts from nervous system science: what sustained activation does to decision quality, and which working norms are producing it. As Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry she owned a strategy covering 9,000 employees globally, so she argues the business case for wellbeing investment at scale, not only the human one. Her grounding is behavioural science and leadership psychology, from MindGym and from YSC Consulting, now part of Accenture. She has a TEDx talk on addiction and stigma, and lived experience of burnout, anxiety, addiction, and late-diagnosed ADHD, so the material on pressure is not delivered at a distance from it. On neuro-inclusion she starts from the arithmetic: around one in five people are neurodivergent, and most workplaces are designed for one type of brain. Biography highlights Former Global Wellbeing Lead, Burberry: led global wellbeing strategy for a 9,000-person workforce Two decades in leadership and learning and development across Europe and Asia Former Head of Client Operations (Europe) at YSC Consulting, now part of Accenture, and Client Executive at MindGym, the behavioural science consultancy BSc in Psychology, University of Manchester TEDx speaker on addiction and stigma Clients include KPMG, Warner Bros Discovery, Channel 4, Novartis, Fidelity International, the Ministry of Justice, Specsavers, and the Harry Potter Studios Biography The ADHD diagnosis came at 40. The two decades before it involved extreme anxiety, emotional dysregulation, memory problems, addiction and overwhelm. Nobody suggested the obvious explanation, Clare Kenny included. She did not fit the picture most people carry of what ADHD looks like. Living with an unregulated nervous system and no account of why is what pushed her towards the neuroscience of performance. The professional grounding came first. A BSc in Psychology from the University of Manchester, then MindGym, the behavioural science learning consultancy, then senior director roles in leadership consultancy across Europe and Asia. At YSC Consulting, now part of Accenture, she ran client operations for Europe. As Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry she built and ran the wellbeing strategy for a 9,000-person global workforce. That in-house experience shapes where she puts the intervention: how leaders behave, how work is distributed, and when people are expected to be available. It is the starting point for her work with KPMG, Warner Bros Discovery, Channel 4, Novartis and the Ministry of Justice. Her current material is translation work, taking the science of stress and behaviour and turning it into changes a senior team can make the following Monday. Her TEDx talk, “We Need to Change How We See Addiction”, sits behind the lived experience she brings to it. The keynotes lean on Google’s Project Aristotle, which found psychological safety was the single most important factor in high-performing teams. She also works from a simpler fact: around one in five people are neurodivergent, and most workplaces are designed for one kind of brain. Key speaking topics Neuroscience of stress and performance Nervous system regulation and leadership Psychological safety in high-performing teams Burnout prevention and sustainable performance Neuro-inclusion and diversity of thought Late-diagnosed ADHD in the workplace Ideal for CHROs, people directors, and L&D leads resetting a wellbeing or performance strategy Executive teams and senior leadership offsites where burnout or sustained pressure is the presenting problem Leadership conferences and all-staff events on pressure, performance and workplace culture Culture change programmes, management development programmes, and inclusion events Audience outcomes How to identify the working norms in their own organisation that are keeping people in a stress response What a leader’s own regulation does to a team, and how to change it deliberately How organisations undermine psychological safety without meaning to, and the leader behaviours that rebuild it Why neuro-inclusion is a question of how the environment is designed, and where to start changing it Language for having honest conversations about mental health inside a high-performance culture

Why organisations work with Caroline Elliott Crisis decision-making earned in real avalanche rescues. Caroline has been on the team making the call when a four-year-old was buried under two metres of snow and the survival window was eighteen minutes. A rare set of named technical credentials inside a closed European emergency system: the only British woman fully qualified across French ski patrol rescue disciplines, the first British woman in a French Fire and Rescue mountain SAR dog handler unit, and a graduate of ENSA Chamonix. Direct experience of multi-agency coordination when none of the agencies have worked together before. Most leadership audiences understand the problem in theory; few have heard it explained by someone who has run it. Practical content on psychological safety and team performance, drawn from environments where the cost of getting it wrong is measured in survival rates. A track record of operating across language and cultural barriers inside a male-led emergency profession in France, told without standard motivational packaging. Biography highlights Only British woman to hold the full pisteur secouriste 2ème degré qualification, including avalanche bombing, NivoMétéo snow weather forecasting and avalanche dog handling. Graduate of École Nationale de Ski et d’Alpinisme (ENSA), Chamonix, 2011. First British woman to enter a French Fire and Rescue specialist mountain Search and Rescue dog handler unit (CGSR 64, Pyrénées-Atlantiques). Author of Fjord’s Mountain Mission (2021), the children’s snow safety book endorsed by the International Ski Federation (FIS). French edition published by Catherine Destivelle’s Les Éditions du Mont Blanc; the book is available in four languages. Holds the artificier qualification with ANENA (Association Nationale pour l’Étude de la Neige et des Avalanches) and the NivoMétéo qualification with Météo France. Founder of FjordSAR. Works as an international keynote speaker, snow safety educator, and risk management consultant for wintersports accidents. Represented at the Fédération Internationale des Patrouilles de Ski (FIPS) Conference, Riksgrenzen, 2024. Biography An avalanche call gives a rescue team about eighteen minutes. After that, survival rates collapse. Caroline Elliott has spent her professional life inside that window, working as a fully qualified pisteur secouriste in France and as an avalanche search and rescue dog handler with a specialist French Fire and Rescue mountain unit. That career is unusual on multiple counts. Caroline is the only British woman fully qualified across the French ski patrol rescue system, graduating from the École Nationale de Ski et d’Alpinisme (ENSA) in Chamonix in 2011. Alongside the patrol qualification, she holds artificier accreditation with ANENA, the French authority on controlled avalanche blasting, and NivoMétéo accreditation with Météo France. She was also the first British woman to enter a specialist French Fire and Rescue mountain SAR dog handler unit. What this profession teaches, and what makes it useful in a corporate setting, is the operating reality of high-stakes environments. Teams making the decisions are often working with incomplete information and across services that have never worked together. Communication has to be clear in two languages. Trust between strangers has to be operational before the rescue starts. For corporate audiences, Caroline translates those operating conditions into team performance terms, particularly composure under pressure and the communication discipline that holds when conditions deteriorate. Her illustrations come straight from the work. An early-morning controlled blast above a sleeping resort. A family rescue where the four-year-old came up alive after two hours under two metres of snow. A multi-agency operation where command authority had to be established in real time. Key speaking topics Leadership in high-pressure environments Crisis communication under stress Risk management and decision-making under uncertainty Multi-agency coordination in crisis Resilience in hazardous environments Psychological safety in high-stakes teams Women in male-led professional cultures Ideal for Leadership and operational teams in industries where decisions carry real risk, particularly emergency services, healthcare, energy, manufacturing, defence and insurance. Organisations preparing teams for restructuring, multi-agency programmes, or environments where cross-silo coordination has to work the first time it is tested. All-staff and conference audiences at events on resilience, crisis leadership, and team performance under pressure. Women-in-leadership programmes inside male-led professional cultures. Audience outcomes A specific picture of how decisions actually get made when time pressure is genuine, drawn from named operational scenarios rather than case study reconstructions. Concrete tests for whether their own team’s communication and coordination would hold when conditions deteriorate. A view of psychological safety as an operational variable, grounded in environments where it functions or fails in real time. Renewed energy and a different reference point for what “high pressure” actually means in their own work.

Why organisations work with Dr Sue Mitchell Her PEP framework gives leaders a portable and memorable model for navigating uncertainty – field-tested across sectors from global pharma to policing, and consistently recalled by participants months after delivery. Her background in evolutionary ecology – studying adaptive strategies across complex, dynamic systems – informs an analytical approach to leadership that goes beyond behavioural coaching, connecting individual mindset to systemic structures. She completed training with Peter Senge in Compassionate Systems Leadership, giving her work a rigorous intellectual foundation that distinguishes her from practitioners working from applied psychology or HR frameworks alone. Her concept of “inner sustainability” reframes resilience as a proactive leadership capacity rather than a reactive stress-management tool – a distinction that senior leaders in high-change environments find practically useful. Biography highlights PhD in evolutionary ecology; post-doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh and a Max Planck Institute, Germany Trained in Compassionate Systems Leadership with Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline Author, The Authority Guide to Engaging Your People (SRA Books) Founder and Director, Aeona Ltd; clients include EY, Lloyds Banking Group, Bayer, Gilead Sciences, Scottish Enterprise, and Police Scotland Fellow and former Regional President (Scotland, 2019–2020), Professional Speaking Association UK & Ireland Co-founder, IDG Edinburgh Resilience Hub – applying the Inner Development Goals framework to leadership and organisational change Biography When engagement falls and burnout rises, the root cause is rarely individual. It is usually a leadership culture that was built for stability and has not been redesigned for permanent disruption. Dr Sue Mitchell has spent two decades helping organisations close that gap. Her starting point is unusual. Before moving into coaching and leadership development, she was an evolutionary ecologist, with post-doctoral research at the University of Edinburgh and a Max Planck Institute in Germany. The discipline – studying how organisms sustain effective strategies across dynamic, interconnected systems – gave her a framework for understanding organisations that is structurally different from standard behavioural models. She later trained with Peter Senge in Compassionate Systems Leadership, deepening that foundation. That systems perspective runs through her proprietary PEP framework: a practical model for helping leaders maintain clarity, commitment and adaptability under pressure. It has been delivered across a client base that includes EY, Lloyds Banking Group, Gilead Sciences, Bayer, Scottish Enterprise, and Police Scotland. More recently, she co-founded the IDG Edinburgh Resilience Hub, bringing the Inner Development Goals framework – developed as a companion to the UN Sustainable Development Goals – into leadership and organisational practice. She is the author of The Authority Guide to Engaging Your People (SRA Books) and a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association UK & Ireland, where she served as Regional President for Scotland. Through Aeona, her Edinburgh-based consultancy, she works across keynote speaking, executive coaching, and multiday leadership development programmes. Key speaking topics Adaptable leadership Navigating change and uncertainty Employee engagement and sustainable performance Systems thinking in organisations Organisational resilience Inner sustainability and mindset Diversity, decision-making and team dynamics Ideal for Senior leadership teams navigating restructure, sustained organisational change, or rapid growth HR directors and heads of OD commissioning leadership development programmes or all-staff development events Organisations in professional services, financial services, life sciences, or public sector seeking structured leadership development programmes Mid-to-senior management cohorts where engagement, performance, and wellbeing are competing tensions Audience outcomes A portable framework (PEP) for managing their own mindset and their team’s behaviour through uncertainty and change Clearer understanding of how unconscious mental models shape decision-making under pressure – and how to intervene A common language for discussing change, resilience and engagement across a leadership group Practical tools for sustaining performance without trading off wellbeing Greater awareness of how organisational systems and structures – not just individual behaviour – drive or undermine engagement

Why organisations work with Sarah Furness The H.A.B.I.T.S. (Healthy Automatic Behaviours In Threatening Scenarios) formula gives leaders a structured, repeatable system for sustaining performance under pressure – not a set of principles, but a behavioural methodology built from combat aviation and formal human factors instruction. Her “Practise Scared” methodology reframes discomfort as a development mechanism directly addressing the conditions under which most leadership training fails to stick. Her argument in The Uni-tasking Revolution, that focus is a competitive performance variable that organisations are systematically destroying through multitasking culture, gives senior teams a specific, actionable lens for redesigning how work gets done. She brings an instructor’s precision, not only a practitioner’s story: she taught human performance and risk management at the Defence Academy of the UK, which means the frameworks she delivers have been built and tested in a formal training environment, not assembled retrospectively for a speaking career. Her status as the first female helicopter pilot to fly and lead UK Special Forces missions in Iraq is not a biographical detail, it is evidence of what her approach to fear, credibility, and inclusion in high-performance cultures actually looks like in practice. Biography highlights RAF Squadron Leader; approximately 20 years of service including operational combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan First female helicopter pilot to fly and lead UK Special Forces missions in Iraq Graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge University (Natural Sciences and Theology) Instructor in human performance and risk management at the Defence Academy of the UK, Shrivenham Creator of the H.A.B.I.T.S. (Healthy Automatic Behaviours In Threatening Scenarios) performance framework and the “Practise Scared” methodology Author of two Amazon no.1 bestselling books: Fly Higher and The Uni-tasking Revolution Founder of Well Be It, an executive coaching and leadership development practice (est. 2020) Qualified mindfulness coach and human factors facilitator; trained in cognitive behavioural techniques Biography Most performance under pressure research stays theoretical. Sarah Furness spent two decades testing it as a Cambridge-educated RAF helicopter pilot, then as a Squadron Leader leading combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, then as the first female pilot to fly and lead UK Special Forces missions in Iraq. That operational record informs everything she brings to organisations. But it is not the point of the work. The point is that she identified, in conditions of genuine risk, that resilience and performance under pressure are not instinctive. They are skills. And skills can be built. This observation – simple in articulation, significant in implication – is the foundation of her H.A.B.I.T.S. framework and her “Practise Scared” methodology, both of which sit at the centre of her leadership development work. Before founding Well Be It in 2020, Furness formalised that thinking as an instructor in human performance and risk management at the Defence Academy of the UK. That background gives her frameworks a rigour that distinguishes them from testimony alone: these are methods that were built in a professional military training environment before they were taken to the boardroom. Her two no.1 bestselling books, Fly Higher and The Uni-tasking Revolution, extend the argument into self-leadership and organisational focus respectively. Together, they represent a coherent intellectual position: that the gap between how capable leaders look and how they actually perform under pressure is a structural problem, and that closing it requires deliberate behavioural practice, not motivation. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure Resilience and mental performance Human factors in high-stakes decision-making Focus, attention, and uni-tasking as a performance strategy Psychological safety and growth culture Inclusive leadership and leading in the new era Decision-making and gut instinct under pressure Ideal for Senior leadership teams preparing for high-stakes change or transformation CHROs and L&D leaders building performance and resilience programmes Executive development audiences where the gap between visible capability and felt confidence is a recognised issue Organisations in sectors where pressure, speed, and accountability are structural features – professional services, financial services, defence, manufacturing, engineering Audience outcomes A clear understanding of why performance under pressure is a trainable skill, not a personality trait, with a framework for developing it Practical application of the H.A.B.I.T.S. formula and “Practise Scared” methodology to real workplace conditions A concrete argument for redesigning how attention and focus are managed at team and organisational level Greater leader confidence in decision-making under time pressure and ambiguity A reframe of fear, failure, and discomfort as development data rather than performance problems

Why organisations work with Anna Hemmings A high-performance specialist with a six-time world champion’s record behind her. Fifteen years coaching senior teams, with a method built as much on the psychology of performance as on sport. She has reached the top, lost it, and got back. Diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at her competitive peak and told she would not race again, she returned to win three more world titles. That comeback is how she teaches recovery as a performance strategy rather than a wellbeing exercise. Her focus is the repeat, not the one-off peak. She works on the behaviours and culture that let teams perform at the highest level and hold it year after year, which is the question most leadership teams actually face. Accredited delivery that runs past the keynote. As a qualified high-performance and leadership coach and an accredited Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team trainer, she takes leadership teams at IBM, Unilever, Novartis, Deloitte, and NatWest through masterclasses and team development. Biography highlights Six-time Marathon Kayak World Champion, including three consecutive titles from 2005 to 2007; Britain’s most successful female marathon kayaker. Two-time Olympian for Great Britain: Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008. MBE, 2010 New Year Honours, for services to sport. Founder and Managing Director of Beyond the Barriers, a high-performance consultancy she has run since 2009. Accredited High Performance and Leadership Coach and accredited Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team trainer. Has now spent as long developing senior leaders and teams as she spent competing, with clients including IBM, Unilever, Novartis, Deloitte, British Airways, and NatWest. Biography Reaching the top of a field is hard. Staying there, year after year, while the pressure becomes permanent, is harder, and it is the problem most leadership teams underestimate. It is also the one Anna Hemmings spent her sporting career solving in public. She won six marathon kayak world titles, three of them in consecutive years, and competed at two Olympic Games. The detail that matters most came in between. Diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome at her peak and told she might not race again, she came back to win three more world titles and qualify for Beijing 2008. She treats that comeback as evidence that recovery can be engineered as a performance strategy. The second half of her career has now run longer than the first. Since 2009 she has built Beyond the Barriers into a high-performance consultancy, coaching senior leaders and teams at IBM, Unilever, Novartis, Deloitte, and NatWest. Her method pairs what works at elite level with an applied reading of human behaviour and the psychology of performance. That is why it holds up with executives who have no interest in sport. She is an accredited high-performance and leadership coach and a Five Behaviours of a Cohesive Team trainer, so her work runs from keynote into masterclass and team development. She has now spent more years coaching leaders and teams than she spent winning titles, and that is the half of the story that earns her the room. Key speaking topics Achieving and sustaining high performance High-performance culture and world-class teams Resilience and performance under pressure Recovery and refocus as a performance strategy Mindset for thriving under constant demand Leadership and high-performing teams Ideal for Executive and leadership teams under pressure to perform at a high level and repeat it CEOs and senior leaders who have reached a peak and need to sustain it without burning out the team Sales and commercial leadership operating in demanding, target-driven cycles HR and L&D leads designing high-performance and leadership development programmes Audience outcomes What it actually takes to reach a high level and hold it, beyond a single peak The specific behaviours that separate the best teams from the merely good Recovery and refocus methods they can use under pressure, treated as a performance tool, not a wellbeing add-on A first-hand account of being written off at her peak and coming back, used as working material on how resilience is built Language for talking about high performance and its disciplines with their own teams

Why organisations work with Gopi Krishnaswamy He teaches the Search Inside Yourself method, the emotional-intelligence curriculum built and validated at Google, as one of the first certified SIY teachers in India. Audiences leave with a tested practice they can repeat, not a motivational hour on mindfulness. He reframes burnout as a flaw in how performance is designed. That shift hands senior teams a wellbeing problem they can act on, rather than one they quietly feel guilty about. His years as a managing director at IDEO let him speak to executives in the language of performance and judgement. That earns him a hearing with audiences who are usually sceptical of anything labelled wellness. His Inner OS framework gives leaders a repeatable model for holding composure under pressure. The session ends with a method they can keep using, built around his 3-5-5 model and SCORE protocol. Biography highlights Author of The Monk in the Corner Office (Penguin Business, 2025) and Creativity Unleashed (Bloomsbury), with a third book, The Inner OS, forthcoming in late 2026 Former Managing Director at IDEO, the Silicon Valley design firm behind Apple’s first mouse One of the first certified teachers in India of Search Inside Yourself, the emotional-intelligence programme developed at Google MBA from INSEAD Founder and CEO of Llama, a corporate mindfulness and wellbeing training organisation Has trained more than 100,000 people across five continents at organisations including Deloitte, BCG, McKinsey, and the Aditya Birla Group Biography IDEO built its reputation on designing how things work, from Apple’s first mouse onwards. One of its managing directors left that world to train in the Zen tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, and returned with a different design problem: the inner life of the people running organisations. That managing director is Gopi Krishnaswamy. He now trains senior leaders in what he calls the Inner OS, the mental and emotional system that governs how a person holds attention and judgement when the demands do not stop. It is the subject of his next book, The Inner OS, due in late 2026. His core claim is blunt. Burnout among capable leaders is usually a design problem, and almost no one trains the inner capacity that would hold performance together. Behind this sits a tested method. He is one of the first certified teachers in India of Search Inside Yourself, the emotional-intelligence programme developed and validated at Google, and he has taught its practices to more than 100,000 people across five continents. His clients include Deloitte, BCG, McKinsey, and the Aditya Birla Group. He makes the case in The Monk in the Corner Office, his 2025 Penguin book, which he positions as a performance manual for serious leaders. The conviction is personal. After an accident, doctors told him he would never ride a motorcycle again. He went on to become one of the first riders of a Harley-Davidson when the brand launched in India. Key speaking topics Sustainable high performance Leadership under pressure Emotional intelligence Mindfulness for leaders Resilience Mental conditioning for senior leaders Burnout prevention Ideal for CEOs, founders, and senior executives carrying sustained, high-stakes responsibility Leadership teams heading into intense periods such as restructures or rapid scaling CHROs and people leaders tackling executive burnout and retention at the most senior levels Conference and offsite audiences who want a substantive session on performance and wellbeing with a method behind it Audience outcomes A working model from the Inner OS framework for holding composure and clarity when the pressure does not let up Specific Search Inside Yourself practices for emotional regulation that leaders can use the same week The case for treating burnout as a fixable design problem, and the language to raise it with their own teams The methods elite performers use to train their minds, adapted for the demands of senior leadership

Why organisations work with Adam Markel Author of three books on resilience and culture, including the Wall Street Journal bestseller Pivot and Change Proof (McGraw-Hill), with Re-Culture (Post Hill Press, 2026) setting out the WORK WELL TOGETHER framework for rebuilding trust and connection in teams. Leadership audiences get a researched body of work, not a personal story repurposed as advice. Co-Founder and Chief Researcher of WORKWELL, where his work translates resilience research into measurable cultural inputs for senior teams. Operator credibility from 18 years as a trial attorney and a multi-year run as CEO of a professional training business; senior buyers get someone who has run a P&L, not only studied one. His formats are built for application. Drawing on the Re-Culture argument that culture forms through repeated shared practice, sessions are structured to move a leadership team to specific commitments while still in the room. Track record with operating businesses under pressure, including Medtronic and Jack in the Box, working with leadership audiences rather than only HR and L&D. Biography highlights Author of three books on resilience and culture: Pivot (Wall Street Journal bestseller), Change Proof (McGraw-Hill, 2022), and Re-Culture (Post Hill Press, 2026) Co-Founder and Chief Researcher, WORKWELL Host of The Change Proof Podcast TEDx speaker Former CEO of Peak Potentials/New Peaks, a professional training enterprise; previously an 18-year trial attorney Corporate engagements with operating businesses including Medtronic and Jack in the Box Biography Most senior leaders do not have a resilience problem in the wellness sense. They have a decision-quality problem. Repeated restructures, AI rollouts, and cost programmes compound, and the cost shows up in slower judgement long before it shows up in attrition. That is the gap Adam Markel’s work addresses. His framework, set out in Change Proof (McGraw-Hill, 2022), treats resilience as a capacity organisations build into how leaders work, not a personal trait. The earlier Pivot, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, traced the same logic across career and business reinvention. Both sit on top of his research practice at WORKWELL, where he is Co-Founder and Chief Researcher. Re-Culture (Post Hill Press, 2026) extends that work from the individual leader to the team. Its argument is that culture forms through what people repeatedly practise together, and it sets out a framework, WORK WELL TOGETHER, for rebuilding trust in organisations strained by constant change. That argument shapes how he runs a room: sessions are structured so a leadership team leaves with specific commitments it has agreed together. The credibility comes from a layered career. Eighteen years as a trial attorney, a multi-year run as CEO of the professional training business Peak Potentials, and seven seasons as an ocean lifeguard before any of it. That operator history is what senior audiences respond to, and it stays tested against current briefs through the Change Proof Podcast and engagements with operating businesses such as Medtronic and Jack in the Box. Key speaking topics Leadership resilience under sustained change Change Proof: building organisational capacity for uncertainty Re-Culture: designing culture through shared practice Workplace culture, trust, and engagement Leading through restructure and reinvention Burnout prevention in senior teams Ideal for CEOs and executive committees facing repeated change cycles CHROs and people leaders responsible for senior-team resilience Leadership offsites and annual conferences for operating businesses Transformation and change leads owning multi-year programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of resilience as an operating capacity, not a personal trait A diagnostic for where change fatigue is degrading senior decision quality Specific practices for recovery and renewal that fit inside a leader’s working week A frame for translating resilience research into culture and engagement decisions Language to use with their own teams about why this matters now

Why organisations work with Albert Riba A five-book catalogue spanning twelve years, from Mamut o Sapiens (2013) to Mamut o Humanoide (2025), gives clients a sustained body of writing to reference rather than a one-off keynote thesis. The Expansión column, monthly since September 2012, anchors his material inside the conversation Spanish-speaking executives are already reading. The combination of InPreneur (entrepreneurial culture inside corporations) and Sapiens Mindset (founded March 2019) gives him two distinct delivery vehicles for different client problems. Twenty-plus years of technology-sector operating experience, including a decade leading Kinetical Business and a partnership at Innova B2B, gives the mindset material commercial grounding rather than purely motivational framing. Bilingual English and Spanish delivery makes him particularly useful for Spanish, Latin American and pan-European leadership events where a regional voice is required alongside Anglo-American content. Biography highlights Founder of InPreneur and Sapiens Mindset (established March 2019) Author of five books including Mamut o Sapiens (2013) and Mamut o Humanoide (2025) Monthly opinion columnist in Expansión since September 2012 Twenty-plus years in the technology sector; former leader of Kinetical Business; partner at Innova B2B Regular radio contributor on Rac1, RNE R4, Catalunya Ràdio and Cadena Ser Catalunya Three master’s degrees in technology-related fields Biography The book Albert Riba is most associated with, Mamut o Sapiens, carries his argument in the title: organisations either adapt or they extinct themselves. Over the past twelve years he has extended that thesis across a five-book catalogue, from the 2013 original to Mamut o Humanoide: De la extinción a la IA in 2025. The books are in Spanish and circulate mostly through Spanish-language corporate audiences, but the underlying frame, entrepreneurial mindset applied to incumbent organisations, translates cleanly into English delivery. He runs two linked vehicles. InPreneur is his intrapreneurship advisory, focused on building entrepreneurial behaviour inside corporations, and Sapiens Mindset, founded in March 2019, delivers his keynote and coaching work on mindset and adaptation. Earlier in his career he led Kinetical Business for a decade and continues as a partner in the Innova B2B technology company, which gives the material its operating base. His public presence in Spain is longer-standing than his international bureau listing suggests. He has written a monthly opinion column in Expansión, Spain’s leading business daily, since September 2012, and contributes regularly to Rac1, RNE R4, Catalunya Ràdio and Cadena Ser Catalunya. His personal story of late academic start, three subsequent master’s degrees and a twenty-plus year technology career often shows up in his speaking work as a live illustration of the adaptation thesis. For Spanish, Latin American and European leadership audiences looking for a mindset and intrapreneurship voice with a published track record, a working corporate practice and a current column in Expansión, Riba sits inside a small group of regional thinkers who operate fluently in both English and Spanish. Key speaking topics Mindset and adaptation in the age of AI Intrapreneurship and entrepreneurial culture in established companies Change management and organisational transformation Digitalisation and corporate culture Resilience and burnout prevention Ancient and monastic practices applied to modern organisations Ideal for Spanish and Latin American corporate leadership audiences Pan-European events where a senior Catalan voice complements an English-language programme Technology firms and incumbents working on entrepreneurial culture and AI-driven change Leadership offsites and change programmes requiring a mindset-focused keynote Audience outcomes A working frame for adaptation and mindset change drawn from the Mamut o Sapiens and Mamut o Humanoide thesis Practical techniques for building entrepreneurial behaviour inside established organisations A Spanish-market view of digital and AI transformation A set of reference books and Expansión columns for internal follow-up

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 Karenjeet Kaur Bains She holds a Guinness World Record (42 bodyweight squats in a minute, set against a male equivalent of 34) and a Commonwealth gold, which gives her claims about pressure and preparation a weight that motivational speakers without competitive credentials cannot match. She is the first British Sikh woman to represent Great Britain at the European and World powerlifting championships, which makes her a credible voice on what representation actually costs and produces inside an institution. She qualified as an ACA Chartered Accountant and spent six years in audit at KPMG, so she speaks to professional services and corporate audiences in their own language rather than from outside it. She combines a primetime BBC platform as Athena on Gladiators with a serious athletic and professional record, which lands with employee networks, ERGs, and graduate populations in a way a single-track speaker rarely does. Biography highlights Commonwealth Powerlifting Champion; first British Sikh woman to represent Great Britain at European and World championships. Guinness World Record holder, most bodyweight squats by a woman in one minute (42 reps, 2022). ACA Chartered Accountant; six years at KPMG in audit before moving into charity finance. Athena on the BBC One reboot of Gladiators, broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. British Powerlifting Athlete of the Year, 2023 and 2024. Listed keynote speaker at the ICAEW Annual Conference. Biography Powerlifting is one of the smallest, most demographically narrow sports in Britain. The first British Sikh woman to represent Great Britain at the European and World championships is also a Commonwealth gold medallist and a Guinness World Record holder. That combination is what Karenjeet Kaur Bains brings into a room. Her route to elite strength sport ran through, not around, a professional services career. She qualified as an ACA Chartered Accountant, spent six years at KPMG in audit, and trained for international competition in the hours either side of a working day. The Guinness record (42 bodyweight squats in a minute, against a male equivalent of 34) was set in two weeks of preparation while she held a full-time charity finance role. Her account of how high performers actually structure their lives is grounded, not theoretical. Since 2024 she has appeared as Athena on the BBC One reboot of Gladiators, which has put her in front of a household audience without softening the technical seriousness of her sport. ICAEW lists her as a keynote speaker at its Annual Conference, and she has been recognised as British Powerlifting Athlete of the Year in 2023 and 2024. For HR, DEI and employee engagement leaders, the value is specific. She speaks to what it takes for someone visibly different to stay, perform, and be seen inside institutions that did not previously include her, and what employers, networks and managers can usefully do about it. Key speaking topics Representation and identity in elite environments Performance under pressure and recovery from injury South Asian women in sport and professional life Breaking cultural and gender stereotypes Resilience and the psychology of high performance Inclusive culture in professional services Ideal for CHROs, DEI leads, and employee network sponsors planning Heritage Month, IWD, or culture moments. Professional services firms briefing graduate, qualified-accountant, and women’s network audiences. Leadership and high-performance offsites looking for a credentialled athlete voice over a generic motivational one. Audience outcomes A grounded picture of what visible representation costs and produces inside an institution. A practical sense of how high performers structure preparation, recovery, and the routine work around a peak. Language for ERGs and managers on how to support employees who are first or only in their roles. A reframing of “strength”, physical and professional, that audiences can use in their own teams.

Why organisations work with Brian Burke He has run four NHL franchises and acted as the league’s chief disciplinarian, so the material on accountability, conduct, and hard personnel calls is drawn from decisions he actually made, not cases he studied. He built the Anaheim Ducks team that won the 2007 Stanley Cup and the U.S. squad that took Olympic silver in 2010, giving him a credible answer to how standards and culture translate into results. He co-founded the You Can Play Project after the death of his son Brendan, an inclusion initiative that became the operating standard for LGBTQ+ acceptance across professional sport. As first Executive Director of the Professional Women’s Hockey League Players’ Association, he has worked on institution-building inside a league designed from scratch, not just running established franchises. Harvard Law School training and five years as NHL Executive Vice President mean he speaks to the legal, governance, and reputational dimensions of leadership with specific authority. Biography highlights Juris Doctor, Harvard Law School, 1981 Captain of Providence Friars men’s ice hockey, NCAA (1976-77) NHL Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations, 1993-1998 General manager of Hartford Whalers, Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks (Stanley Cup, 2007), and Toronto Maple Leafs General manager, United States men’s Olympic hockey team, Vancouver 2010 (silver medal) Co-founder, You Can Play Project (2012) Inductee, U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, Class of 2023 Author, “Burke’s Law: A Life in Hockey” (Viking, 2020), with Stephen Brunt Executive Director, Professional Women’s Hockey League Players’ Association (2024) Biography The Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup in 2007 under a front office that had been rebuilt almost from scratch. Brian Burke was the general manager who rebuilt it. That pattern, inherit a struggling operation, set hard standards, make uncomfortable personnel decisions, has defined four decades of his career across Hartford, Vancouver, Anaheim, Toronto, Calgary, and Pittsburgh. Before any of that, he trained as a lawyer. Burke took a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1981, then spent five years inside the NHL league office as Executive Vice President and the chief disciplinarian for on-ice conduct. The legal training shows up in how he talks about leadership: precise about process, unsentimental about accountability, aware that every decision by a senior executive is a decision the organisation will have to defend. The work changed after his son Brendan, who was openly gay, died in a 2010 car accident. With his son Patrick, Burke launched the You Can Play Project in 2012 to end homophobia in sport. The initiative has since become the reference standard for LGBTQ+ inclusion across professional leagues, and the experience gave Burke an unusually direct perspective on how cultural change happens inside organisations built around a narrow definition of toughness. His 2020 memoir “Burke’s Law: A Life in Hockey,” co-authored with Stephen Brunt, was a number one Canadian bestseller. In 2023 he was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. In 2024 he took on the first executive directorship of the Professional Women’s Hockey League Players’ Association, a mandate to build institutional foundations for a league being designed in real time. Key speaking topics Leadership in high-performance sport Culture, conduct, and accountability inside elite organisations Inclusion and the You Can Play Project Decision-making under public scrutiny Building and running championship teams Governance and discipline in professional leagues Resilience and personal loss Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting conduct and accountability standards CHROs and chief culture officers working on inclusion in tradition-bound organisations Leaders running high-profile operations where decisions are reviewed in public Sports and entertainment businesses, and organisations that work closely with them Audience outcomes A concrete read on how senior leaders hold conduct standards when the easy move is to look the other way Specific examples of what it took to build a Stanley Cup-winning organisation and an Olympic medal-winning team A direct account of how the You Can Play Project changed LGBTQ+ inclusion across professional sport A sharper sense of how legal, reputational, and competitive considerations collide in senior personnel decisions Perspective from a leader who has made high-consequence calls under sustained public pressure and can explain the reasoning