Elizabeth Day

Why organisations work with Elizabeth Day

• A single, named thesis built over hundreds of long-form interviews on How to Fail, applied to the specific cultural problem of how teams talk about setbacks.
• Journalistic credibility from a decade at The Observer and a Young Journalist of the Year award, which gives her the interviewing range to draw substance out of senior internal speakers and panel guests.
• Literary authority confirmed by a Royal Society of Literature fellowship and a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller, which lifts her above the standard wellbeing-speaker field.
• A direct corporate track record with Google, Facebook, HSBC, JP Morgan, Netflix and Barclays, so the material has been tested on senior commercial audiences.
• Equally strong as keynote, fireside interviewer, or awards host, which makes her useful for events that need one trusted voice across multiple formats.

Biography highlights

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, elected 2024.
• Host and creator of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, with guests including Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Kate Winslet, Malcolm Gladwell and Gloria Steinem.
• Winner, Rising Star Award, British Podcast Awards 2019.
• Winner, Young Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards 2004; Highly Commended Feature Writer, 2012.
• Author of How to Fail, Failosophy, Friendaholic and Magpie, with Friendaholic entering the Sunday Times charts at No. 1.
• Host of BBC Radio 4’s Open Book since 2021; co-host of Sky Arts Book Club Live.

Biography

Most workplaces still treat failure as an event to be hidden. Elizabeth Day has spent years arguing, in print and on air, that the more useful question is what setbacks teach the people who admit to them. How to Fail, the podcast she launched in 2018, has built that argument into one of the most listened-to interview shows in the UK.

Her credibility for the topic is not motivational. It is journalistic. She trained on the Evening Standard’s Londoner’s Diary, moved to The Sunday Telegraph as a news reporter, and won Young Journalist of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. From 2007 to 2016 she was a feature writer at The Observer, picking up a commendation in the Feature Writer category at the 2012 Press Awards.

The literary record sits alongside the broadcasting one. Her novel Scissors Paper Stone won the Betty Trask Award; The Party became a Richard and Judy Book Club pick; Friendaholic entered the Sunday Times charts at No. 1. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024 and hosts BBC Radio 4’s Open Book.

For corporate audiences, the value is the translation. Google, Facebook, HSBC, JP Morgan, Netflix and Barclays have booked her to put failure, friendship and candour onto the table as workplace concerns rather than personal anecdotes. The interviews have produced a working vocabulary that senior teams can actually use when something goes wrong.

Key speaking topics

• Failure as a method for learning and recovery
• Workplace candour and psychological safety
• Storytelling and interview craft for senior leaders
• Friendship, connection and the social fabric of teams
• Vulnerability as a professional capability
• Resilience after setback
• Women, work and visibility

Ideal for

• CHROs and people leaders rebuilding engagement and trust after restructure or underperformance.
• Communications and internal events teams looking for a host who can interview senior leaders on the record without flattening them.
• Leadership development programmes for high-potential cohorts working on candour, feedback and self-awareness.
• Awards evenings and flagship conferences that need one credible voice across keynote, panel and host roles.

Audience outcomes

• A working vocabulary for naming and discussing setbacks at work without defensiveness.
• Specific, repeatable interview and conversation techniques drawn from years of long-form journalism.
• A clearer view of how candour and vulnerability function as team capabilities, not personality traits.
• Permission, modelled from named public figures, to treat early-career mistakes as data rather than damage.