Preet Chandi
Senior leaders are running organisations through fatigue, isolation and decisions made on incomplete information. The pressure does not lift between crises; it compounds. The capability that matters now is composure under sustained strain, not heroic intervention in a single moment.
Preet Chandi MBE is a record-breaking polar explorer and former British Army Captain who helps organisations rebuild composure, self-belief and resilience in leaders running under sustained pressure.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Preet Chandi
- A verifiable record of decision-making under conditions most leaders will never face: solo, unsupported, 70 days on the Antarctic ice with no extraction option if a decision goes wrong.
- Two distinct authority sources in one speaker: 16 years as a British Army physiotherapist with operational deployments in Nepal, Kenya and South Sudan, and four Guinness World Records on Antarctic expeditions.
- Credibility on inclusion that is grounded in lived experience rather than commentary: the first woman of colour to ski solo to the South Pole, with an MBE for the expedition itself, not for advocacy work around it.
- A speaker leadership teams remember twelve months later. The Antarctic story is concrete, structured around preparation, setback and recovery, and lands in a register the board, the engineering function and the graduate intake all recognise.
Biography highlights
- MBE, 2022 Queen’s Birthday Honours, for her solo expedition across Antarctica.
- Four Guinness World Records on Antarctic expeditions, including the longest solo unsupported one-way polar ski expedition and the female speed record to the South Pole.
- Captain in the British Army, served 16 years as a physiotherapist with operational deployments in Nepal, Kenya and South Sudan.
- MSc in Sports and Exercise Medicine; trained Nordic skier and ultramarathon runner, including the Marathon des Sables.
- Author of “The Explorer’s Guide to Going Wild: Find Adventure Anywhere”, published with Hachette.
- Covered extensively by Guinness World Records, BBC, and the British Army; judge for Women in Defence UK Awards.
Biography
The hardest part of a solo polar expedition is not the cold. It is the absence of anyone else to confer with when a decision needs making and the cost of getting it wrong is your life. Preet Chandi spent 40 days alone on the Antarctic ice in 2022, then returned twice more, breaking records on each expedition.
She is one of nine women in history to ski solo to the South Pole and the first woman of colour to do so. Her subsequent expeditions set the record for the longest solo unsupported one-way polar ski journey, at 922 miles over 70 days, and the female speed record to the South Pole, completed in 31 days, 13 hours and 19 minutes. The records were ratified by Guinness World Records. The MBE, awarded in the 2022 Birthday Honours, was for the expedition itself.
The background underneath the expeditions matters. Preet served 16 years as a physiotherapist in the British Army, reaching the rank of Captain, with operational deployments in Nepal, Kenya and South Sudan. She holds an MSc in Sports and Exercise Medicine. The military discipline shapes how she frames what she did on the ice: planning, contingency, recovery, and the management of the mind when conditions remove every external prop.
Audiences get a serious account of how composure is built and held when help is not available. The story is unusual because it is verifiable at every step, and because Preet talks about the setbacks, the recalibration, and the days she wanted to stop, in the same plain register as the record-breaking finishes.
Key speaking topics
- Resilience under sustained pressure
- Self-belief and identity in high-stakes environments
- Decision-making in isolation
- Diversity and representation at the edges of endurance sport
- Preparation and contingency planning
- Recovery after setback
- Mental performance for senior leaders
Ideal for
- Leadership offsites where the cohort is fatigued from repeated change and needs a credible voice on composure.
- DEI and women’s leadership programmes wanting a speaker whose authority is anchored in achievement rather than commentary.
- Sales kick-offs, all-hands and conference openings where the brief is to set a tone of resolve without resorting to generic motivational content.
- Defence, healthcare and high-risk operating environments where the audience recognises military and clinical credibility.
Audience outcomes
- A specific account of how preparation, contingency and self-talk hold up under genuine isolation.
- A reframing of setback as a structured stage of any ambitious plan, not a deviation from it.
- Confidence that the standard reasons given for not starting something difficult are weaker than they sound.
- A vocabulary for talking about pressure, fear and recovery that senior teams can use without embarrassment.
- A story audiences can retell internally to colleagues, anchored to named records and named places.
Talks
A first-person account of the solo Antarctic expeditions, structured around what they revealed about preparation, decision-making and recovery.
Key takeaways:
- How composure is built before it is tested, not in the moment.
- Why the largest barriers to a difficult goal are almost always internal.
- What changes when you stop accepting other people’s definition of what is realistic.
A direct talk on representation, identity and the cost of being the first, drawing on Preet’s experience as the first woman of colour to ski solo to the South Pole.
Key takeaways:
- Why visibility matters more than slogans for the next cohort coming through.
- How to act before the environment is ready for you.
- What support structures actually make a difference for under-represented talent.