Zoe Harrison
Senior teams do not lose composure in the easy moments. They lose it after a setback, when the pressure is public, the clock is short, and the next decision sets the tone for everyone watching. Most leaders have read about how to hold a team together in those moments. Very few have done it, repeatedly, with the result visible the same evening.
Zoe Harrison is an England rugby international and 2025 Women’s World Cup winner who works with leadership teams on composure, decision-making and team behaviour under high public pressure.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Zoe Harrison
- A current, contracted international whose authority on performance under pressure is live, not retrospective. She kicked four conversions in the 2025 World Cup final the same year she walked into the room.
- The fly-half perspective on team performance: the position responsible for game management, tempo and the next decision after a mistake. Translated for senior leaders who own the equivalent calls inside their organisations.
- Saracens-era discipline was brought into a corporate setting. Two consecutive Premier 15s titles and the dominant club culture of that period sit behind her view of what a winning team actually looks like day to day.
- A serious England career built through visible setbacks, including a period out of the starting side before returning to win the World Cup. Useful for audiences whose recent story is recovery, not uninterrupted success.
Biography highlights
- 65 caps for England; 242 international points.
- Starting fly-half for England at the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, won by the Red Roses against Canada (33-13).
- Saracens Women regular since 2016-17; Players’ Player of the Season in her first senior year.
- Started the 2018 and 2019 Premier 15s finals, scoring two tries in the 2019 final.
- 2019 Six Nations Grand Slam winner with England; full-time England contract from January 2019.
- Trained through the Hartpury AASE Girls Rugby Programme; Sports Rehabilitation and Exercise studies at Middlesex University.
Biography
The Red Roses won the 2025 World Cup at Twickenham against Canada. Zoe Harrison started at fly-half and kicked four conversions in the final. That detail matters because the fly-half is the position that runs the game, sets the tempo, and makes the next call after a mistake. It is the closest on-field equivalent to the role a senior leader plays inside their organisation.
Harrison has been a Saracens first-team regular since 2016-17, named Players’ Player of the Season in her debut senior year. She started both the 2018 and 2019 Premier 15s finals and scored two tries in the 2019 win. England honoured her with a full-time contract in January 2019 and a Six Nations Grand Slam followed that year. Across 65 caps, she has scored 242 international points.
Her authority for corporate audiences is built on a specific kind of experience. She has held the playmaker role in a sustained winning culture at Saracens, lost and regained the England starting shirt, and stood over the kicking tee in a World Cup final. That arc is more useful to senior teams than an uninterrupted highlight reel, because most boardrooms now operate after a setback rather than before one.
She is most credible on what a fly-half actually does: read pressure, pick the next play, hold the team’s composure when the score has just moved. Translated for a leadership audience, that is the practical content of self-leadership and team behaviour in moments where the cost of the wrong call is public.
Key speaking topics
- Performance under pressure
- Team behaviour in high-stakes environments
- Composure and decision-making in the next moment
- Elite team culture and standards
- Resilience after setbacks
- Women in elite sport and the changing professional game
Ideal for
- Senior leadership teams entering a high-visibility year (IPO, restructure, public scrutiny)
- Sales and commercial conferences where the audience owns the next-call decisions
- All-company kickoffs anchoring a year on standards, behaviour and pace
- Networks and ERGs centred on women in leadership and performance environments
Audience outcomes
- A clear picture of what composure looks like in practice, drawn from the position on the pitch responsible for it.
- Specific language for the moments inside a team where the next decision sets the tone, and how an elite environment handles them.
- A working definition of standards in a winning team that is not generic, drawn from a sustained Saracens and England culture.
- An honest account of losing form and regaining it at the highest level, useful for teams whose recent story is recovery.