Ed Jackson
Resilience is the quality organisations ask for most often and define worst. Leaders talk about it during a restructure, a product failure, a personal crisis inside a team, and mean something different each time. What employees actually want is a usable method for continuing to function, and contribute, when the ground has shifted and nothing about the next twelve months looks familiar.
Ed Jackson is a former professional rugby player and Sunday Times bestselling author whose work helps organisations build practical resilience in teams facing sustained pressure and change.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Ed Jackson
- He turns resilience from a slogan into a method. Jackson rebuilt movement, identity and career after a C6/C7 spinal injury, and the incremental decision logic he used is directly translatable to teams managing prolonged uncertainty.
- His credibility sits on two separate careers, not one. Professional rugby captaincy at England U16 and U18 level, followed by a second career as a Channel 4 Paralympics and rugby presenter, charity founder and author.
- He wrote the book, literally. “Lucky” (HarperCollins) became a Sunday Times bestseller and is the primary source text for his keynote material, not a marketing tie-in.
- His charity work is operational, not ornamental. Millimetres 2 Mountains, which he co-founded, delivers structured recovery programmes for people facing physical or psychological trauma, giving him a working frame for how individuals rebuild after rupture.
- The feature documentary “The Mountain Within Me,” released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in 2024, gives audiences a shared reference before he walks on stage, which shortens the distance between story and application.
Biography highlights
- Former professional rugby union No. 8 for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons.
- England captain at U16 and U18 level; part of the U18 Four Nations-winning squad.
- Author of “Lucky” (HarperCollins), a Sunday Times bestselling autobiography.
- Subject of “The Mountain Within Me,” a feature documentary distributed by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival.
- Co-founder of Millimetres 2 Mountains, a registered charity supporting survivors of physical and psychological trauma.
- Channel 4 presenter for the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, European Champions Cup rugby highlights, and Six Nations commentary.
Biography
In April 2017, a dive into a shallow swimming pool fractured the C6 and C7 vertebrae of a 28-year-old professional rugby player. The diagnosis was Brown-Sequard Syndrome. The prognosis was that he would not walk again. Within a year, he stood on the summit of Snowdon. That compressed span between medical certainty and physical fact is the working material of the keynote.
Before the injury, Jackson had already built a full career. He captained England at U16 and U18, won the U18 Four Nations in 2006, and played professionally for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons. The second career began from a hospital bed, and it has been more public. “Lucky,” published by HarperCollins, reached the Sunday Times bestseller list. The 2024 feature documentary “The Mountain Within Me,” released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment after premiering at Edinburgh International Film Festival, took the same story to cinema audiences.
Alongside the speaking and writing, he co-founded Millimetres 2 Mountains with his wife Lois and former England international Olly Barkley. The charity runs structured outdoor recovery programmes for survivors of physical and psychological trauma. This matters for corporate audiences because Jackson is not describing resilience from a single data point. He is watching the same process play out across other people, every year, and refining what actually works.
The Channel 4 broadcasting work, Paris 2024 Paralympics, Tokyo 2020, European Champions Cup, Six Nations, gives him a second professional register. He is used to speaking in front of cameras on live transmission to a national audience. For a corporate client that means a speaker who does not need to be managed on stage, and who has spent eight years refining how to make a recovery story useful to the person listening.
Key speaking topics
- Resilience under prolonged pressure
- High performance after adversity
- Team trust and captaincy
- Rebuilding identity through change
- Mental and physical recovery
- Goal setting under constraint
- Purpose and motivation
Ideal for
- Leadership offsites and all-hands events during periods of restructure or sustained change
- CHRO and wellbeing leads designing resilience and mental health programmes
- Sales kick-offs and commercial conferences where sustained performance under pressure is the theme
- Boardroom and executive team sessions on recovery, reputation and rebuilding after a difficult year
Audience outcomes
- A working definition of resilience grounded in specific recovery decisions, not abstraction
- A usable model for continuing to perform when long-term outcomes are uncertain
- Language for talking about setback, mental health and vulnerability inside a professional team
- A shared reference point that teams continue to discuss after the event
Videos
Testimonials
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Asia Pacific | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Europe | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Middle East & Africa | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| South America | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| United Kingdom | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US East Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| US West Coast | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
| Virtual | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |