Marc Convey
Organisations talk about resilience as a workplace value, then reach for it only after a shock. Wellbeing programmes underwrite the language but rarely connect to how people actually recover from setback, fear, or visible difference at work. The gap shows up in retention, in trust, and in how teams respond when the next disruption arrives.
Marc Convey is a resilience speaker and burns survivor who helps organisations talk honestly about adversity, fear, and recovery in ways that connect to how people actually work.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Marc Convey
- A first-hand account of post-traumatic growth that gives audiences permission to discuss adversity, fear, and visible difference without sliding into clinical or HR-policy register.
- Years as a campaigner for Changing Faces, the UK charity for people with visible difference, which informs how he handles inclusion and self-image conversations inside organisations.
- A working life that crossed live poker broadcasting, video production, and non-profit leadership, which gives him commercial fluency when speaking to corporate audiences.
- A track record on charged platforms, including a suicide prevention evening at Brighton Dome for Baton of Hope, where he has delivered a keynote that holds an audience through difficult material.
Biography highlights
- Two-year voluntary campaigner with Changing Faces, the UK charity for people with visible difference.
- Keynote speaker at the Baton of Hope suicide prevention event at Brighton Dome.
- Client testimonial from Cristina Proietti, Head of Commercial Operations at WHSmith Travel.
- Former globally-travelled poker commentator across the live tournament circuit.
- Founder of his own video production business and operator of a non-profit focused on “working with purpose.”
- Writes the Substack “Making a Marc” and appears regularly on podcasts including “Man Up / Man Down.”
Biography
A fire at 14 left Marc Convey with burns that he carries today. The decision that followed shaped the rest of his life: refuse to be defined by the injury, and build the inner resources to face what came next. That choice now sits at the centre of his speaking work.
Before turning to the stage, he spent years commentating on live poker tournaments around the world. He then ran a video production company and built a non-profit focused on what he calls “working with purpose.” Each of those careers fed the next, and gave him the commercial language to address corporate audiences without losing the personal core.
His signature keynote, The Gift of Adversity, draws on that long road back. Audiences hear a specific story, not a generic message, and leave with a more grounded vocabulary for fear, recovery, and the meaning of difference. The work has reached charged platforms, including a Baton of Hope suicide prevention evening at Brighton Dome, and corporate floors at WHSmith Travel.
Beyond the stage he writes the “Making a Marc” Substack and serves a two-year campaigner role with Changing Faces, the UK charity for people living with visible difference. That campaigning work is what separates his content from the wider motivational category: he is in active service to a population whose lived experience he shares.
Key speaking topics
- Resilience and post-traumatic growth
- Adversity and recovery from setback
- Mental health and wellbeing at work
- Visible difference and self-image
- Fear, change, and personal transformation
- Authentic leadership and inner resources
- Team culture grounded in values
Ideal for
- CHROs and HR leaders programming mental health, wellbeing, or culture events
- Internal communications and culture leads commissioning all-hands or away-day keynotes
- Charities, healthcare bodies, and public service audiences working on suicide prevention or visible difference
Audience outcomes
- A direct first-hand account of trauma and recovery that gives audiences permission to talk honestly about adversity at work
- A more concrete vocabulary for fear, setback, and visible difference than wellbeing programmes typically offer
- Language and reference points that internal communicators can carry into culture and engagement conversations after the talk
- A confident sense that post-traumatic growth is achievable, anchored in a specific lived example rather than abstract claim
Talks
A first-hand account of recovery from a near-fatal fire at 14, used to reframe how audiences think about setback and fear.
Key takeaways:
- A vocabulary for adversity that is specific rather than abstract
- Practical observations on the inner resources that sustain long recoveries
- Why post-traumatic growth is achievable, drawn from lived experience
A talk on how to meet personal and organisational change without being overwhelmed by it.
Key takeaways:
- How to read change as a series of decisions rather than a single event
- Why the same disruption produces growth in some and paralysis in others
- The role of community and relationships in sustaining change over time
A session on the work of recognising, naming, and acting through fear.
Key takeaways:
- How fear behaves under pressure, in personal life and at work
- Why facing fear directly is more sustainable than managing around it
- Practical reframes drawn from his own recovery
A leadership talk that begins with inner resilience rather than external technique.
Key takeaways:
- Why self-awareness and emotional intelligence underwrite credible leadership
- How leaders model recovery and difference for the people around them
- The link between authenticity and team trust