Jim McNeill
Jim McNeill has 38 years of creating expeditions, including 33 years of Polar expeditions. As a professional explorer he has worked with and advised many organisations including the UK Ministry of Defense and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.
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Jim McNeill's 2025 biography
About Jim McNeill
Jim has clocked up over 30 years of polar expeditioning; thousands of miles mostly on skis and dragging his world behind him, which has given him a huge breadth and depth of experience in surviving and working in extreme environments.
In 2001, Jim founded the “Ice Warrior Project” that gives “ordinary” people the chance to become polar explorers, achieving extraordinary feats of endurance for the betterment of humankind. His aim is to develop people, discover change and deliver it to global audiences in a way that engages others; fostering a better understanding of the world we live in.
Expert Areas
- Extreme Environment Safety
- Leadership
- training and Performance
- Team building and motivation
- Team Training
- Expeditions
- Survival
- Logistics
- Climate and other changes in the Polar Regions
- Emergency Planning
- Risk Management
- Sponsorship from the property side of things
Organisations Jim has worked with
- Consultant and Mentor to UK Ministry Of Defence
- Elected as Fellow Royal Geographical Society, FRGS – 1992
- Former Chair of the British & Western Europe Chapter of The
- Explorers Club
- Member of the American Polar Society
- Member of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society
- Ambassador for Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme since 2000
- Member of the Society for Human Performance in Extreme
- Environments
- VP Arctic Expeditions for the Sea Research Society
- Director of Arctic Expeditions for the Frozen Isthmuses
- Protection Campaign
- Member of the Captain Scott Society
- Friend of the Scott Polar Research Institute
- Ambassador for Hauser Bears charity
- Ambassador for Wolf Conservation
- Role Model for Inspired Life Organisation
Jim McNeill's 2025 talks & topics
Leadership
Leadership is all about the individual. Effective leadership is all about that individual performing. World-renowned explorer Jim McNeill has been developing and leading teams for the last 35 years, not only in the most extreme environments on earth but also in commerce, the military and the emergency services. Throughout his career, Jim has selected trained & led teams in situations where lives can be saved and lost and businesses succeed or fail on the quality of leadership and calibre of the team.
Motivation
When facing the most extreme conditions Mother Nature can deliver and your team are at the absolute limits of human endurance, physically & mentally shattered, how can you ask them for more and get it? As a renowned explorer and BBC guide, Jim knows a great deal about motivation, teamwork & pushing the boundaries of performance. He draws on 35 years of experience from the boardroom to the Polar Regions with some harrowing and some funny anecdotes to share his lessons on how to achieve optimum engagement and performance, whatever the external conditions.
Performance
Jim describes himself as having a passion for getting the very best performance out of everyone; individually or collectively as a team. Through his inspirational project, Ice Warrior Jim has trained many people from all walks of life and every echelon of society to become competent sea ice travelers and go on to accomplish extraordinary expeditionary feats. Combine this experience with his fire & rescue and his corporate training it is easy to see that he certainly has something more than useful to offer on the subject.
Climate Change
The subject of global climate change has moved on. It’s clear, it’s here! The Arctic has long been recognized as a barometer of what is going on and Jim’s Ice Warrior Project plays a crucial role in gathering the scientific raw data and in delivering the reality of climate change to its audiences around the globe. Having started his working life in 1980 measuring the environmental impact of agricultural practices, which included ground-breaking work on the depletion of the ozone layer, Jim has had an extraordinarily close relationship with the Arctic Region over the past quarter of a century and is exceptionally well qualified to talk first-hand about the changes he has seen. With reference to the repair of the ozone layer over Antarctica, Jim leaves us with a powerful message of hope and even a call to action!
Inspiration
Jim has only ever had one real fear in life, and that is wasting it! Speaking passionately, amusingly & completely openly, he takes his audience through his amazing adventures so far: from high powered business executive, scientist & cold war military man to the Royal Household & current modern day explorer. He is involved in many current BBC productions, including Frozen Planet and is founder of the inspirational Ice Warrior Project. Jim shares life-changing and amazing journeys of discovery from the most extreme environments on earth.
Life on Expedition……in the freezer!
Over the thirty years of Jim’s Polar expeditions, there must be only a few questions left that Jim hasn’t answered about what it is really like on a seriously extreme expedition. Having spent so much time in incredibly adverse conditions, Jim challenges the audience to come up with a novel one whilst flitting through an array of humorous mishaps, failures, accidents, near disasters and strange happenings.