Richard Coles
Boards talk about mental health, grief, identity and inclusion, then default to the same procedural language when these subjects actually surface in the room. The result is awkwardness when a senior colleague is bereaved, silence when an employee comes out, and corporate scripts that no one believes. Organisations need voices that can hold these conversations in public without sentimentality or performance.
Richard Coles is a Church of England priest, broadcaster and bestselling author who speaks publicly about grief, faith, sexuality and second careers with a directness corporate audiences rarely encounter.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Richard Coles
- He is one of the very few public figures in Britain who can speak about bereavement, faith and sexuality in front of a corporate audience without the room flinching. Audiences trust him because he has lived each subject in public.
- Twelve years co-presenting BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live gives him the interviewer’s craft: he can host an awards night, chair a panel of executives, or turn a CEO conversation into something a room actually wants to listen to.
- He is a Sunday Times number one bestselling novelist, the writer of The Madness of Grief, and the inspiration for the BBC comedy Rev. The cultural recognition gets him in the door; the substance is why he is asked back.
- His pop-to-pulpit story (member of The Communards, “Don’t Leave Me This Way” at number one in 1986, then ordination as an Anglican priest) is the most genuinely unusual second-career narrative on the speaking circuit, and he tells it without nostalgia.
Biography highlights
- Co-presenter, BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, 2011 to 2023
- Church of England priest, ordained 2005; former vicar of Finedon, Northamptonshire
- Multi-instrumentalist in The Communards with Jimmy Somerville; UK number one with “Don’t Leave Me This Way” in 1986
- Author of twelve books, including the Sunday Times bestseller The Madness of Grief (2021) and the Canon Clement crime series, optioned by ITV
- Regular panellist on Have I Got News For You, QI, and Would I Lie To You?
- Inspiration and consultant for the BBC comedy Rev
Biography
“Don’t Leave Me This Way” was the best-selling single in the UK in 1986. The man playing the keyboards on it is now a Church of England priest, a Sunday Times bestselling novelist and one of the most recognisable broadcasters on British radio. Few public lives have travelled this far between chapters, and fewer still have done so with the same lack of edit.
Coles spent twelve years co-presenting BBC Radio 4’s Saturday Live, the long-form Saturday morning programme heard by more than two million listeners. The role made him a national interviewer: a priest who could draw a stranger out, hold a difficult moment on air, and make space for the kind of conversation British broadcasting often avoids. The Communards, the priesthood, the radio, the books, the dachshunds, the dance floor on Strictly: each chapter brought a new audience without losing the previous one.
The writing has become its own career. The Madness of Grief, published in 2021 after the death of his civil partner David, is a Sunday Times bestseller and one of the rare popular books on bereavement written from inside the experience rather than around it. The Canon Clement Mysteries, beginning with Murder Before Evensong in 2022, became a Sunday Times number one cosy crime series and an ITV drama starring Matthew Lewis.
For corporate audiences, the value is the combination most public figures cannot offer: a hosting craft built over twelve years of live radio, lived experience of the subjects organisations now want to discuss honestly (grief, faith, identity, sexuality, mental health), and a sense of timing that comes from working a microphone for three decades. The result is a speaker who can carry a black-tie dinner, a leadership offsite or a memorial event with the same register.
Key speaking topics
- Grief and bereavement in public life
- Faith, ethics and the modern workplace
- Identity, sexuality and being openly gay in public roles
- Reinvention and second careers
- The craft of conversation and interviewing
- Mental health and the inner life
- Public broadcasting and cultural commentary
Ideal for
- Awards ceremonies, gala dinners and milestone events seeking a host who can carry the room
- Leadership and culture conferences addressing grief, mental health, identity or inclusion
- Internal employee events tied to wellbeing, faith networks or LGBTQ+ programming
- Membership organisations and professional bodies booking a literary, cultural keynote
Audience outcomes
- A frank, unsentimental treatment of grief and bereavement that gives leaders language they can actually use at work
- A model of public conversation about faith and sexuality that does not retreat into either piety or politics
- A reframing of mid-career reinvention drawn from one of the most unusual second-career trajectories in British public life
- An event hosted or anchored with the timing, warmth and interviewing craft of a senior BBC broadcaster
Talks
A personal account of the journey from chart-topping pop musician to Church of England parish priest, broadcaster and novelist.
Key takeaways:
- A first-hand view of reinvention across radically different public roles
- An honest treatment of faith, doubt and identity in front of a general audience
- The cultural backdrop of 1980s Britain, the AIDS crisis, and the choices that followed
An account of parish life and public faith in contemporary Britain, written for audiences who are not necessarily religious.
Key takeaways:
- What parish ministry actually involves day to day
- How a religious vocation sits alongside broadcasting, writing and public life
- The role of ritual, ceremony and pastoral care in secular settings
A lighter after-dinner talk drawing on Strictly Come Dancing, broadcasting and the comedy of late-career exposure.
Key takeaways:
- The view from inside a national television event
- Reflections on visibility, vulnerability and self-deprecation in public life
- An after-dinner register suited to formal corporate audiences