Motivation och inspiration speakers

Why organisations work with Ed Jackson He turns resilience from a slogan into a method. Jackson rebuilt movement, identity and career after a C6/C7 spinal injury, and the incremental decision logic he used is directly translatable to teams managing prolonged uncertainty. His credibility sits on two separate careers, not one. Professional rugby captaincy at England U16 and U18 level, followed by a second career as a Channel 4 Paralympics and rugby presenter, charity founder and author. He wrote the book, literally. “Lucky” (HarperCollins) became a Sunday Times bestseller and is the primary source text for his keynote material, not a marketing tie-in. His charity work is operational, not ornamental. Millimetres 2 Mountains, which he co-founded, delivers structured recovery programmes for people facing physical or psychological trauma, giving him a working frame for how individuals rebuild after rupture. The feature documentary “The Mountain Within Me,” released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in 2024, gives audiences a shared reference before he walks on stage, which shortens the distance between story and application. Biography highlights Former professional rugby union No. 8 for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons. England captain at U16 and U18 level; part of the U18 Four Nations-winning squad. Author of “Lucky” (HarperCollins), a Sunday Times bestselling autobiography. Subject of “The Mountain Within Me,” a feature documentary distributed by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Co-founder of Millimetres 2 Mountains, a registered charity supporting survivors of physical and psychological trauma. Channel 4 presenter for the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, European Champions Cup rugby highlights, and Six Nations commentary. Biography In April 2017, a dive into a shallow swimming pool fractured the C6 and C7 vertebrae of a 28-year-old professional rugby player. The diagnosis was Brown-Sequard Syndrome. The prognosis was that he would not walk again. Within a year, he stood on the summit of Snowdon. That compressed span between medical certainty and physical fact is the working material of the keynote. Before the injury, Jackson had already built a full career. He captained England at U16 and U18, won the U18 Four Nations in 2006, and played professionally for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons. The second career began from a hospital bed, and it has been more public. “Lucky,” published by HarperCollins, reached the Sunday Times bestseller list. The 2024 feature documentary “The Mountain Within Me,” released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment after premiering at Edinburgh International Film Festival, took the same story to cinema audiences. Alongside the speaking and writing, he co-founded Millimetres 2 Mountains with his wife Lois and former England international Olly Barkley. The charity runs structured outdoor recovery programmes for survivors of physical and psychological trauma. This matters for corporate audiences because Jackson is not describing resilience from a single data point. He is watching the same process play out across other people, every year, and refining what actually works. The Channel 4 broadcasting work, Paris 2024 Paralympics, Tokyo 2020, European Champions Cup, Six Nations, gives him a second professional register. He is used to speaking in front of cameras on live transmission to a national audience. For a corporate client that means a speaker who does not need to be managed on stage, and who has spent eight years refining how to make a recovery story useful to the person listening. Key speaking topics Resilience under prolonged pressure High performance after adversity Team trust and captaincy Rebuilding identity through change Mental and physical recovery Goal setting under constraint Purpose and motivation Ideal for Leadership offsites and all-hands events during periods of restructure or sustained change CHRO and wellbeing leads designing resilience and mental health programmes Sales kick-offs and commercial conferences where sustained performance under pressure is the theme Boardroom and executive team sessions on recovery, reputation and rebuilding after a difficult year Audience outcomes A working definition of resilience grounded in specific recovery decisions, not abstraction A usable model for continuing to perform when long-term outcomes are uncertain Language for talking about setback, mental health and vulnerability inside a professional team A shared reference point that teams continue to discuss after the event

Why organisations work with Ed Stafford He has done something measurable that no one else has done. The 860-day Amazon walk gives every resilience argument he makes a verifiable ceiling, not a rhetorical one. His military service, from Sandhurst to command in South Armagh, grounds his leadership content in operational judgement rather than motivational framing. He speaks credibly to risk tolerance and expedition planning, including how small, slow decisions compound into outcomes that look inevitable only in retrospect. His Discovery and Channel 4 work, from Left for Dead to 60 Days on the Streets, means he brings on-camera narrative discipline, useful for plenary sessions that need pace. Biography highlights First person recognised by Guinness World Records to walk the Amazon River from source to sea, 860 days, completed August 2010. National Geographic Adventurer of the Year 2010; European Adventurer of the Year 2011. Former captain, British Army. Commissioned into the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment after Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Served in Northern Ireland. Author of Walking the Amazon and Naked and Marooned, both published under Penguin Random House imprints. Presenter of Discovery series Naked and Marooned, Marooned with Ed Stafford, Into the Unknown, Left for Dead and First Man Out. Presenter of Channel 4’s 60 Days on the Streets, a three-part documentary on homelessness in Manchester, London and Glasgow. Biography The Amazon had never been walked in full when Ed Stafford set off from the Peruvian coast in April 2008. Twenty-eight months later, having covered more than four thousand miles on foot through Peru, Colombia and Brazil, he arrived at the Atlantic. Guinness World Records recognised him as the first person to do it. The expedition is the obvious credential, but the useful one for organisations is what it took to sustain: a decision framework applied every day for 860 days, under physical duress, logistical collapse and team change. That discipline did not come from adventure. It came from Sandhurst, a commission into the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, and command responsibility in South Armagh before he was 25. Between military service and broadcast, Stafford led conservation and community expeditions in Belize, Guatemala and Borneo, worked as a UN contractor in Afghanistan, and set up a BBC Natural History Unit base in the Guyanese rainforest. His television work, including Discovery’s Naked and Marooned, Left for Dead and First Man Out, and Channel 4’s 60 Days on the Streets, has turned the same operating instincts into filmed case studies in judgement under scarcity. National Geographic named him Adventurer of the Year in 2010. He was awarded European Adventurer of the Year in Stockholm the following year. For leadership audiences, the value is not the record. It is a working account of how composure, planning and willingness to reset a plan mid-execution hold up when the environment refuses to cooperate. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Decision-making in ambiguous environments Resilience and recovery after setback Risk tolerance and expedition-grade planning Team dynamics in remote and hostile conditions Performance when conditions refuse to stabilise Ideal for Leadership offsites where senior teams are preparing for a period of operational uncertainty CEO and executive-committee sessions on risk appetite and decision discipline Transformation programmes where stamina, not strategy, is the binding constraint Awards, conference plenaries and all-hands events that need a credible human story with operational substance Audience outcomes A sharper picture of how experienced operators actually decide when information is incomplete A usable vocabulary for discussing risk tolerance and pacing on long, hard initiatives Specific, named examples of when to hold a plan and when to break it A reset on what resilience looks like in practice, distinct from how it is marketed

Why organisations work with Eddie Jones Thirty years of head-coach experience at the top of international sport, tested against the sharpest public scrutiny three national rugby unions can apply. A working account, set out in his 2021 book “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, of how to raise standards, rebuild confidence, and hold a team accountable when results are not yet on the board. Authored the single most studied upset in modern rugby: Japan’s 34-32 win over South Africa at the 2015 World Cup, the “Brighton Miracle”, built over three years of culture and conditioning work. World Rugby Coach of the Year 2017, after leading England to a Grand Slam and a record run of consecutive Test wins. A rare speaker who has built and rebuilt teams in three different national cultures (Japanese, Australian, English) and can translate between them for executive audiences. Biography highlights Head coach of England 2015 to 2022: first non-British coach, two Six Nations titles, 2016 Grand Slam, 2019 Rugby World Cup final. World Rugby Coach of the Year, 2017. Head coach of Japan 2012 to 2015, re-appointed December 2023. Head coach of Australia 2001 to 2005, leading the Wallabies to the 2003 Rugby World Cup final. Head coach of the ACT Brumbies, Super Rugby champions 2001. Technical adviser to the Springboks’ 2007 Rugby World Cup-winning squad. Author of “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby” (Macmillan, 2021) and “My Life and Rugby: The Autobiography” (Macmillan, 2019). Biography Japan beat South Africa 34-32 in Brighton in September 2015. The squad had been together three years, trained to a schedule their opponents would not recognise, and made the late call to turn down a draw for a winning try. The head coach was Eddie Jones. That match is the cleanest single case study in his career, but not the only one. Jones has held senior head-coach roles with Japan, Australia, and England, reached two Rugby World Cup finals, served as technical adviser to a third World Cup-winning team, and won a Super Rugby title with the Brumbies in 2001. The through line is not a single style. It is a method for taking on teams that are underperforming relative to their resources, setting a higher standard than the group thinks it can meet, and holding it. His 2021 book, “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, makes that method explicit. It draws on the 2015 Japan campaign, the 2016 England turnaround, and the failures in between to argue that elite performance is a daily discipline of selection, feedback, and standard-setting, not a product of talent or motivation. Jones was named World Rugby Coach of the Year in 2017 after leading England to a Grand Slam and a run of consecutive Test wins second only to the All Blacks. For a senior audience, the value is in the translation. Three national cultures, three turnarounds, one argument about how leaders behave when the team is not yet winning. That is what he brings into a room. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure and public scrutiny Building and turning around elite teams Standards, accountability, and high-performance culture Decision-making in compressed time frames Cross-cultural leadership across international organisations Talent development and succession Ideal for Boards and executive committees leading a turnaround or performance reset CEO and C-suite offsites on standards and accountability CHRO and people leaders working on high-performance culture at scale Sales and commercial leadership teams operating in competitive, results-measured environments Audience outcomes A clearer view of what separates elite teams from good ones in day-to-day behaviour Specific examples of how standards are set, reinforced, and recovered when they slip A model for leading through scrutiny without losing the team Practical reference points from three national turnarounds, not one Language for talking to executives about accountability without euphemism

Why organisations work with Edvard Moser He gives an audience the rarest credential in the field, a Nobel Prize in medicine, attached to a discovery they can picture in one image: the brain runs an internal positioning system, built from grid cells he and May-Britt Moser identified in 2005. When DeepMind trained a neural network to navigate, it spontaneously reproduced the grid cells he discovered. That makes him a credible voice on the question every leadership team now faces: how close are machines to the way real intelligence actually works? His lab is still publishing frontier results, including a 2025 paper in Science on how the brain carves a continuous stream of experience into separate memories. A decade after the prize, the work is still moving. The brain circuits he mapped, in the entorhinal cortex, are the first to break down in Alzheimer’s disease. For audiences in health, pharma, and longevity, his work sits at the origin of one of medicine’s hardest problems. Biography highlights Shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, with May-Britt Moser and John O’Keefe, for discovering the brain’s positioning system. Discovered grid cells in the medial entorhinal cortex in 2005, the finding that defined the prize. Founding Director of the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience at NTNU, and co-founder of four Norwegian Centres of Excellence. Foreign member of the Royal Society, and of the US National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine. His discovery was independently echoed by AI: a DeepMind network trained to navigate reproduced grid-like representations, published in Nature in 2018. His lab continues to publish in Science and Nature, with a 2025 paper on how the brain organises memory. Biography In 2018, a neural network built at DeepMind taught itself to find its way through a virtual space. No one had told it how. To solve the problem, it spontaneously produced the same hexagonal firing patterns that Edvard Moser had found in the brains of rats thirteen years earlier. The machine had reinvented the grid cell. Those grid cells are the reason Moser shared the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Working with May-Britt Moser, he identified neurons in the entorhinal cortex that fire in a regular grid as an animal moves, giving the brain an internal coordinate system. Together with the place cells found earlier by John O’Keefe, they form what is often called the brain’s GPS. The discovery opened a wider programme. Moser’s lab at the Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience, which he founded and directs at NTNU, now studies how the brain encodes space, time, and memory together. A 2025 paper in Science showed how it slices a continuous stream of experience into discrete events we can later recall. The same entorhinal circuits are the first to fail in Alzheimer’s disease, which gives the work a direct line to one of medicine’s hardest problems. Moser’s path was not the obvious one. He grew up on the west coast of Norway, took a first degree in psychology, and built his research from a standing start at a young university in Trondheim. From there he founded four national Centres of Excellence, the Kavli Institute among them, and was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society and the US National Academies of Sciences and Medicine. The brain is still the only system that has produced general intelligence, and he works on the actual cells that do it. Key speaking topics The brain’s positioning system Memory and how it forms Biological and artificial intelligence The neuroscience of space and time Grid cells and spatial navigation The brain in health and in Alzheimer’s disease The path to a Nobel Prize Ideal for AI, data science, and R&D teams curious about the biological intelligence their models are reaching toward Healthcare, pharmaceutical, and longevity organisations working on memory, ageing, and Alzheimer’s Innovation and technology audiences interested in how the brain’s intelligence compares with the artificial kind Flagship conferences and leadership summits seeking a Nobel laureate a non-specialist audience can follow Audience outcomes A clear, jargon-free picture of how the brain represents space, time, and memory A grounded sense of how far artificial intelligence still sits from biological intelligence, and where the two genuinely meet Why Alzheimer’s disease takes hold in the brain’s navigation circuits, decades before the first symptoms A first-hand account of how a Nobel-winning discovery actually unfolded

Why organisations work with Ellie Simmonds She speaks to inclusion from inside the experience, not from a research deck. Teams hear what belonging actually requires, from someone whose career was built in environments that were not designed for her. Her documentary work, including the BAFTA-winning “Finding My Secret Family”, gives her a vocabulary for difficult conversations about disability, identity and adoption that most speakers do not have. She brings elite high-performance credibility alongside the inclusion content. Audiences get eight Paralympic medals and the discipline behind them, without the detachment of a pure sports keynote. She is a working BBC Sport broadcaster, so she handles panels, Q and A and hosting at a professional standard, not as a one-off favour. Biography highlights Five Paralympic gold medals across Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016; eight Paralympic medals in total across four Games Appointed MBE in 2009 aged 14, the youngest recipient of the honour at the time; promoted to OBE in 2013 for services to Paralympic sport BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year, 2008 Subject and presenter of “Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family” (ITV, 2023), winner of the BAFTA for Single Documentary, 2024 First contestant with dwarfism on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, series 20, 2022 Broadcaster for BBC Sport, including Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and Paris 2024 Paralympics Biography At thirteen, Simmonds was the youngest British athlete at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics and left with two gold medals. The story could have ended as a prodigy footnote. Instead it became the first chapter of a fifteen-year career across four Paralympic Games, eight medals, and a public role that has stretched well beyond the pool. What made her visible beyond sport was the clarity with which she has always spoken about living with achondroplasia. The discipline that produced the medals is the same discipline she brings to conversations about difference, adoption and what inclusion actually asks of institutions. Her 2023 ITV documentary “Finding My Secret Family” followed her search for her birth mother and surfaced the historical attitudes to disability that shaped that adoption. It won the BAFTA for Single Documentary in 2024. She retired from competition after Tokyo 2020 and has built a second career as a broadcaster with BBC Sport, including coverage of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the Paris 2024 Paralympics. She was the first contestant with dwarfism on Strictly Come Dancing in 2022, a piece of visibility she treated with the same seriousness as her racing. For corporate audiences, the value is specific. She offers a first-person account of what inclusion feels like when it works and when it does not, backed by the credibility of an elite career and the communication range of a working broadcaster. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and belonging in the workplace High-performance mindset and sustained excellence Resilience under public scrutiny Adoption, identity and family Representation in sport and media Managing transition out of an elite career Ideal for Chief People Officers and DEI leads building inclusion programmes that need more than policy language Employee resource groups focused on disability, neurodiversity or family and adoption Leadership development audiences looking at performance over a long career Organisations marking International Day of Persons with Disabilities, International Women’s Day or similar moments with substance Audience outcomes A first-person account of what daily inclusion requires, from someone who has navigated it in elite and public settings A clearer sense of how high performance is sustained across a decade and a half, and what falls away when it ends A vocabulary for talking about disability and difference at work without defaulting to either discomfort or platitude Language for leaders on representation that goes beyond visibility metrics

Why organisations work with Elliot Barnes-Worrell A first-hand account of how inclusion plays out inside institutions known for being difficult to enter: the RSC, the National Theatre, the Almeida, and the BBC. Academic standing alongside the performance career. Guest lecturer at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Brown and Howard, with a published interest in race and representation in Shakespeare. A writer-director’s view of how creative cultures actually commission and back new voices, drawn from his own films The Works (BBC) and DIGGING (Film4). Range across keynote, masterclass and panel formats, with a tone that works for senior corporate audiences and for early-career and graduate populations inside the same organisation. Biography highlights Royal Shakespeare Company company member, 2013 to 2014, with roles in Henry IV, Richard II and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Horatio in Hamlet at the Almeida Theatre; Henry Straker in Man and Superman at the National Theatre. Screen credits include ITV’s Jericho and Van der Valk, Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, Dolittle, and Black Mirror: Hotel Reverie. Writer and director of The Works (BBC, 2016) with Ralph Fiennes, and DIGGING for Film4, premiered at the London Film Festival. Guest lecturer at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Brown and Howard universities. Alan Bates Award (Actors Centre); Sir John Gielgud Award (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama). Biography Most institutional inclusion work fails on the same question. Once a new voice is in the room, does the institution actually let it shape the work, or does it ask the voice to fit in quietly? Barnes-Worrell has spent his career inside the institutions where that question is hardest to dodge: the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, the Almeida and the BBC. He trained at the BRIT School and at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, where he graduated with the Sir John Gielgud Award, and went on to win the Alan Bates Award at the Actors Centre. As an actor his stage work includes Horatio in Hamlet at the Almeida and Henry Straker in Man and Superman at the National Theatre, alongside an RSC company year covering Henry IV, Richard II and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. On screen he has appeared in ITV’s Jericho and Van der Valk, in Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle, in Dolittle, and in Black Mirror: Hotel Reverie. In 2016 he moved into writing and directing with The Works for the BBC, featuring Ralph Fiennes, and later wrote and directed DIGGING for Film4, which premiered at the London Film Festival. That second body of work gives him a working view of how creative organisations decide which voices to back, and on what terms. He also lectures inside the universities most associated with the canon he interrogates: Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Brown and Howard, with a particular line of work on race and representation in Shakespeare. For corporate audiences, that combination of practitioner credibility and academic standing lets him discuss inclusion as a question of craft and culture, not slogans, in front of senior leaders who have become wary of both. Key speaking topics Inclusion as a cultural and creative discipline Race and representation in Shakespeare Storytelling and business communication Confidence and composure in high-scrutiny settings Talent development and emerging voices Mental health and wellbeing for performers and creative teams Ideal for Chief People Officers and Heads of DEI rebuilding inclusion programmes after a period of fatigue or political pressure Early-careers, graduate and apprenticeship leads designing development programmes for new entrants Internal communications and leadership development teams using storytelling as a working skill Universities, business schools and arts institutions running cross-disciplinary events on culture and representation Audience outcomes A clearer view of where institutional inclusion efforts stall, drawn from someone who has worked inside the institutions most cited as case studies. Specific language for talking about race and representation without resorting to either compliance script or political signalling. A practitioner’s account of how creative confidence is built, tested and sustained under public scrutiny. A storytelling vocabulary that internal communicators and leaders can use in their own work.

Why organisations work with Emma Willis Two decades of live presenting across every major UK broadcaster, plus Netflix, develops a capacity to read a room under pressure and adapt in real time that most available hosts simply do not have. That composure is the product. Her six-series run on Big Brother (2013-2018) required managing emotionally unpredictable situations live, on camera, with no preparation time. Her skill set (firm pacing, genuine empathy, zero visible panic) is directly transferable to panel discussions, live Q&As, or award presentations that do not go to plan. The W Channel’s “Delivering Babies,” for which she trained and qualified as a Maternity Care Assistant, won the Broadcast Digital Award for Best Popular Factual for three consecutive years. It is evidence that when she commits to a subject, the result is award-winning rather than merely competent. Her appointment to BBC Radio 2’s Saturday lunchtime slot from January 2026, taking over from Zoe Ball, reflects the institutional trust that comes with consistently delivering at the highest level of British broadcasting, a validation that is straightforward for senior buyers to cite. As a Prince’s Trust ambassador, she brings an existing, public relationship with purpose-driven work to occasions where charitable giving or social commitments are part of the event’s agenda. Biography highlights Broadcast presenter since 2002; major credits across the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Netflix Main host of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 5 (2013-2018) Presenter of The Voice UK (2014-present), initially BBC One then ITV; also hosted The Voice Kids UK Co-host of Love Is Blind: UK alongside Matt Willis, Netflix (2024) BBC Radio 2 Saturday lunchtime presenter from January 2026 Broadcast Digital Award for Best Popular Factual, three consecutive years (Delivering Babies, W Channel) Prince’s Trust ambassador Former fashion model; campaigns for Gap, Chanel, and Samsung; editorial work for Marie Claire, Elle, and Vogue Biography Live occasions are unforgiving. A host who is technically capable but emotionally disconnected leaves the room cold; one who is warm but underprepared leaves it chaotic. Emma Willis has spent more than two decades navigating both risks: across reality television, talent competitions, factual documentary, entertainment, and radio, formats as different from each other as any two occasions a programme director might need to anchor. Her television career began at MTV in 2002 and expanded through Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 5, 2013-2018), The Voice UK (BBC One then ITV, 2014-present), The Circle (Channel 4), and Love Is Blind: UK (Netflix, 2024, with her husband Matt Willis). Each format demanded a different register: firm management of contestants under pressure, warmth with young singers, curiosity about social dynamics, empathy in emotionally complex moments. The consistency across all of them is not a personality trait, it is a professional discipline. In 2019, Willis trained and qualified as a Maternity Care Assistant for the W Channel’s “Delivering Babies” series, working real shifts in a real maternity ward, not observing as a celebrity. The series won the Broadcast Digital Award for Best Popular Factual for three consecutive years. The project illustrated something her broadcast career had long implied: a genuine capacity to be present on the subject’s terms, not her own. From January 2026, she presents BBC Radio 2’s Saturday lunchtime slot, one of the most scrutinised appointments in British broadcasting. She is a Prince’s Trust ambassador. Her early career as a fashion model, with campaigns for Gap, Chanel, and Samsung and editorial work for Marie Claire, Elle, and Vogue gives her a credible platform to speak on fashion, personal style, and media at occasions where those subjects are part of the agenda. Key speaking topics Live broadcast presenting and audience connection Fashion, personal style, and public image Resilience and personal reinvention Authenticity in public and professional life Charitable work and purpose-driven engagement Career development and life transitions Ideal for Awards ceremonies, gala dinners, and internal celebration events Brand launches and consumer-facing occasions Charity fundraisers and purpose-led events Fashion, lifestyle, and consumer industry conferences Audience outcomes An occasion that is paced, emotionally responsive, and memorable rather than merely completed A sense that the room was hosted for the people in it, not managed at them Consistent energy and composure across a full live programme, including unscripted moments Confidence in the platform from the moment the event begins Where relevant, personal insight on resilience, authenticity, and life in the public eye that participants can apply beyond the occasion itself

Why organisations work with Erik Wahl A live speed-painting keynote that converts creativity from an abstract value into a visible act on stage, giving leaders a shared reference point they can take back into the business. A thesis grounded in two trade-published books, Unthink (Crown, 2013) and The Spark and the Grind (TarcherPerigee, 2017), that argues creativity is a discipline, not a personality trait. A client list that reads as validation for risk-averse buyers: Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, London Business School. TED2012 selection and a keynote slot at Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year, signalling that the content stands up in front of rigorous business audiences. A philanthropic record of over USD 1.5 million raised through art auctions, which gives the performance a credible backbone beyond corporate entertainment. Biography highlights Author of Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius, Crown Business / Random House, 2013. Named CEO Reads Book of the Year. Author of The Spark and the Grind: Ignite the Power of Disciplined Creativity, TarcherPerigee, 2017. Selected speaker for TED2012: Full Spectrum. Keynote speaker at Ernst and Young’s World Entrepreneur of the Year and Entrepreneur Magazine’s Growth Conference. Clients include Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, London Business School. Raised over USD 1.5 million for charitable causes through art auctions including One Fund Boston, Linda’s Voice, and Miracle-Ear Foundation. Biography Creativity is the one capability most organisations claim to prize and systematically suppress. Erik Wahl spent eight years inside a corporate firm, rising to partner, before the dot-com collapse made that point unavoidable. He rebuilt his working life around the question: why is the thing everyone says they want the hardest thing for companies to actually do? The answer became a two-book argument. Unthink: Rediscover Your Creative Genius, published by Crown in 2013, took the position that creativity is a recoverable discipline, not a fixed trait, and was named CEO Reads Book of the Year. The Spark and the Grind, published by TarcherPerigee in 2017, extended the thesis into the operational layer: how leaders pair inspiration with the unglamorous work of sustained execution. The keynote is where the argument becomes legible. Wahl paints live on stage, usually a recognisable face such as Steve Jobs or Michael Jordan, while making the case that organisations need to rebuild the muscle their systems quietly erode. The format has carried him to TED2012 and to client rooms at Disney, Microsoft, AT&T, FedEx, ExxonMobil, Ernst and Young, XPrize, and London Business School. It is also how he has raised over USD 1.5 million for charity through auctioned work, including One Fund Boston and Linda’s Voice. What he gives a leadership audience is not motivation. It is a disciplined case for why the innovation strategy on the wall keeps failing, and a visible demonstration of the capacity the room has forgotten it has. Key speaking topics Disciplined creativity in large organisations Innovation capacity and execution Creative leadership Change and reinvention Peak performance and creative discipline Storytelling and business communication Ideal for CEO, COO, and strategy leaders running innovation or transformation mandates Sales and commercial leadership conferences opening a new growth cycle Talent and learning leaders building creative capability at scale Annual kick-off audiences where the brief calls for a sharp creative reset rather than a process lecture Audience outcomes A concrete argument for why creativity is a business discipline, not a personality asset Language and imagery leaders can reuse back in the business to frame innovation conversations A direct experience of what creative risk looks like when it is executed, not described A set of practical habits drawn from The Spark and the Grind for pairing ideas with sustained execution

Why organisations work with Erik Weihenmayer A first-hand operating model for making decisions without full visibility, drawn from summiting Everest and kayaking 277 miles of Grand Canyon whitewater rather than from theory A tested argument about rope-team leadership: how trust, role clarity, and communication protocols hold a team together when one member’s judgement has to carry the rest A named framework, the No Barriers Life, backed by a published book and a working nonprofit, not a single keynote built around a single mountain Credibility with audiences who have heard every generic resilience talk, because the proof points are specific, verifiable, and unusual: Everest, the Eight Summits, Leadville 100 on a tandem, Colorado River source to sea Biography highlights First blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, May 25, 2001; featured on the cover of Time magazine that June Completed the Seven Summits in 2002 and the Eight Summits in 2008 with Carstensz Pyramid Kayaked the full 277 miles of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River in 2014 Co-founder of No Barriers USA, serving people with disabilities, veterans, youth, and caregivers Author of “Touch the Top of the World,” published in 9 languages, and co-author of “No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon” with Buddy Levy Recipient of an ESPY Award, Nike’s Casey Martin Award, and the Helen Keller Lifetime Achievement Award Biography The path down Everest is more dangerous than the path up. On the descent in May 2001, Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind climber to summit the mountain, was moving on a rope team whose margin for error had effectively closed. The instruction he had been given by expedition leader Pasquale Scaturro on the way home set the next two decades of his work: do not let Everest be the greatest thing you ever do. What followed was not a sequence of stunts. It was the construction of an argument about how teams operate when the environment does not cooperate. The Seven Summits by 2002, Carstensz Pyramid in 2008, the Leadville 100 mountain bike race on a tandem in 2010, and in 2014 the full 277-mile kayak descent of the Grand Canyon with blinded Navy veteran Lonnie Bedwell. Each expedition is a case study in role assignment, communication discipline, and trust allocation under degraded information. The intellectual output sits alongside the physical one. “Touch the Top of the World” was published in twelve countries and nine languages and became the basis of a documentary that won first prize at 21 international film festivals. “No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon,” co-written with Buddy Levy, took an Honorable Mention at the 2017 National Outdoor Book Awards and a 2018 Colorado Book Awards finalist spot. “The Adversity Advantage,” co-written with Paul Stoltz, moves the same material into an explicit business register. In 2005, Weihenmayer co-founded No Barriers USA, a nonprofit that now works with veterans, youth, people with disabilities, and full-time caregivers. It is where the speaking work connects back to a working practice: the No Barriers Life is not a slogan, it is the operating code the organisation teaches and the argument the book defends. Key speaking topics Decision-making under incomplete information Rope-team leadership and trust allocation The No Barriers Life as an organisational operating code Resilience as a team discipline, not an individual trait Innovation and problem-solving under constraint Inclusive leadership and diverse-ability teams Navigating reinvention after a defining achievement Ideal for Executive teams preparing for high-stakes decisions where the data will not be complete in time CHROs and culture leads building resilience and belonging into the organisational operating model, not bolting it on Leadership offsites for transformation, integration, or turnaround programmes Veteran-heavy, disability-community, or inclusion-focused audiences where lived authority matters Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for how to lead a mixed-ability, mixed-experience team through a decision with partial information Named protocols from expedition practice that transfer directly into executive decision rooms A sharper sense of the difference between individual grit and team discipline, and why resilience only compounds when it is built into the team Permission to treat constraint as a design input rather than a deficit A concrete reference point, the No Barriers Life, that leaders can carry back into their own language

Why organisations work with Estefania Cervantes She speaks from a documented turnaround, not a tagline. She lost her leg at 18 mid-degree, completed her studies at Universidad Iberoamericana, and built a registered Mexican civil association that delivers prosthetics and rehabilitation. Ampuvalia gives her a working operator’s vocabulary. Audiences hear from someone who has had to fund, govern, and scale a small organisation, which translates resilience into language a senior team recognises. Her book “Actitud Que Trasciende” gives Spanish-speaking audiences a structured account of recovery and reinvention they can hand to teams afterward, rather than a one-off keynote moment. She holds the 2015 Premio Ibero-Bremond-FICSAC Compromiso Social, an institutional recognition from a serious Mexican university, not a self-issued award. She has lived the inclusion conversation from the disability side without making it a compliance lecture, which is what most internal DEI programmes are quietly looking for. Biography highlights Founder of Ampuvalia, a Mexican civil association providing physical therapy, prosthetics, and peer support to the limb-loss community since 2015. Author of “Actitud Que Trasciende”, a Spanish-language book on rebuilding life and identity after limb loss. Recipient of the Premio Ibero-Bremond-FICSAC Compromiso Social, awarded by Universidad Iberoamericana. Featured climber on the 2019 ROMP Cotopaxi expedition, documented in the Merrell-produced short film “In Her Shoes”. Graduate in International Business Administration, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City. Bilingual speaker in Spanish and English, with a Latin American operating base that is uncommon on bureau rosters at this level. Biography A car accident in Mexico City interrupted a second-semester business student’s degree and removed her right leg. The student returned to Universidad Iberoamericana, finished her programme, and four years later registered Ampuvalia as a civil association to fund prosthetics and rehabilitation for other amputees in Mexico. That sequence of facts is the spine of her credibility. The work since has been operational rather than purely autobiographical. Ampuvalia coordinates physical therapy, prosthesis fitting, and peer-support sessions, the unglamorous middle of disability recovery that public storytelling usually skips. Her Spanish-language book “Actitud Que Trasciende” treats limb loss as a problem of identity and decision-making, not a story of triumph, which is what makes it usable inside coaching engagements. Universidad Iberoamericana awarded her the Premio Ibero-Bremond-FICSAC Compromiso Social in 2015 for that work, and the 2019 ROMP ascent of Cotopaxi placed her in the Merrell-produced documentary “In Her Shoes” alongside other amputee climbers. These are the named credentials. The reason to put her in front of a senior team is that she can describe, in operating terms, what it took to keep functioning when the original plan was no longer available, and translate that into something a leadership audience can use the next morning. Key speaking topics Resilience after acute personal setback Reinvention of identity and purpose Disability inclusion in Latin American workplaces Founding and running a mission-led nonprofit Executive coaching grounded in lived recovery Bilingual leadership for Spanish and English audiences Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads commissioning substantive disability inclusion content for Latin American or bilingual workforces Latin American leadership conferences and Spanish-language internal events Sales kick-offs and annual conferences seeking a credible resilience anchor speaker Executive coaching programmes in Mexico and the wider Spanish-speaking region Audience outcomes A working definition of resilience that survives contact with a real organisational setback A first-hand account of disability inclusion told without compliance language A model for how a small, mission-led organisation gets built and funded in Mexico A bilingual perspective that lands with Spanish-first audiences without translation flattening

Why organisations work with Dame Evelyn Glennie A first-hand demonstration of how attention works when sound is felt rather than heard, drawn from a 40-year career as the first full-time solo percussionist in musical history. A leadership argument grounded in lived practice: composure, recovery and attention as trainable behaviours, not personality traits. Author of “Listen World!” and Founder of The Evelyn Glennie Foundation, whose mission is to teach the world to listen across business, education, healthcare and the arts. Three GRAMMY recognitions, the Polar Music Prize (2015), the Leonie Sonning Music Prize (2023), Companion of Honour (2017) and DBE; credentials that earn the room before she opens it. Workshop and keynote formats road-tested with corporate teams on internal communication, customer responsiveness and team cohesion. Biography highlights First person in history to build and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. Three-time GRAMMY recipient, including the 1989 award with Sir Georg Solti and Murray Perahia and a 2002 win with Bela Fleck. Companion of Honour (2017), DBE (2007), OBE (1993). First percussionist to receive a DBE. Polar Music Prize laureate, 2015. First percussionist to receive the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, 2023. Chancellor of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen; President of Help Musicians. TED speaker (“How to truly listen”), author of “Listen World!”, and Founder of The Evelyn Glennie Foundation. Biography Most leaders treat listening as a courtesy. For Glennie it is a working method, developed across four decades of performing music she could not hear in the conventional sense. Profoundly deaf from childhood, she trained herself to read vibration through her hands, feet and body, and built a career as the first full-time solo percussionist in musical history. That practice is what corporate audiences engage with. The Royal Academy of Music graduate has performed in more than 60 countries, commissioned over 200 new works, and led 1,000 drummers in the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony directed by Danny Boyle. The technical achievement is unusual. The transferable insight is the discipline behind it: attention as a whole-body act, repeatable under pressure. Her authority on the subject is institutionally backed. Three GRAMMY recognitions, the Polar Music Prize, the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, a Damehood and the Companion of Honour sit alongside the Chancellorship of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and the Presidency of Help Musicians. The book “Listen World!” and The Evelyn Glennie Foundation, established in 2023, take the same argument into schools, hospitals, sport and business. In a leadership keynote she translates this directly. How a team senses what is happening before it can be measured. How a leader steadies a room. How sustained attention, not louder communication, is what shifts behaviour at scale. Key speaking topics Listening as a leadership discipline Attention and presence under pressure Resilience and reinvention after personal shock Communication and team cohesion Inclusive leadership and difference as capability Creativity, craft and sustained excellence Ideal for Boards and executive committees defining their own communication standards CHROs and culture leaders rebuilding internal listening practices Senior leadership offsites focused on composure, attention and decision-making Customer experience and frontline leadership audiences working on responsiveness Audience outcomes A working definition of listening as an active leadership behaviour, not a soft skill A more honest read of how attention is spent in their own meetings and decisions Specific cues from a non-verbal craft they can apply to communication with teams and customers A reframing of personal adversity and reinvention as repeatable practice A clearer view of how presence and composure shape what a team will follow

Why organisations work with Farah Nanji A working framework for high-pressure performance built from a decade inside Formula 1 culture and a decade as the touring artist NINJA, two domains where small lapses are publicly visible. A founder’s view of building a private leadership community, Regents Racing, that uses motorsport psychology as a development tool for executives and members. A rare first-person account of rewiring cognitive function around dyspraxia, delivered as a TEDx keynote at the Luxembourg Philharmonie and translated into practical lessons on neurodivergence at work. A reference network drawn from Mission Makers, the podcast she founded at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which has hosted leaders across music, motorsport and business. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Regents Racing, a private leadership community using motorsport psychology, with roots at Regent’s University London. CEO of The Formula Mind, Regents Racing’s executive-facing subsidiary exploring Formula 1 as a lens for leadership and peak performance. TEDx speaker at TEDxLuxembourgCity, 2019, delivered at the Luxembourg Philharmonie. Producer and host of Mission Makers, a podcast launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Lecturer at Regent’s University London and Point Blank Music School. Performing artist as NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, Goodwood Festival of Speed, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Biography Formula 1 teams treat composure as an engineered system. Sleep, nutrition, debrief routines and pre-race protocols are sequenced so that the driver can make sound decisions when the cost of a wrong one is highest. Regents Racing was built to translate that discipline into a leadership setting, taking senior executives and members through experiences that pressure-test how they prepare, recover and decide. The organisation began in 2011 at Regent’s University London as a community of competitive drivers and has grown into a private network with programming around Formula 1 weekends in Monaco, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the Goodwood Festival of Speed and factory tours. Its executive-facing subsidiary, The Formula Mind, sits closer to senior leadership development. A second strand of the work comes from a personal record. Diagnosed with dyspraxia at 15, Nanji built a parallel career as the touring artist NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Her TEDx talk at the Luxembourg Philharmonie in 2019 set out how she rewired cognitive function around the condition, and that account is now a core part of her keynote work on neurodivergence and resilience. The third strand is Mission Makers, the podcast she launched during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020. The show has interviewed leaders across music, motorsport and business, and it doubles as her research engine: the conversations feed the frameworks she brings into the room when she speaks. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under pressure Formula 1 psychology and peak performance Resilience and self-leadership Neurodivergence and dyspraxia at work High-performance teams Entrepreneurship and founding a community-based business Music, creativity and performance discipline Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes focused on composure and decision-making under pressure Boards and ExCo audiences exploring high-performance culture DEI, talent and HR audiences working on neurodivergence and inclusive performance Conferences seeking a hybrid keynote and live performance from a single artist Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what high-performance preparation, recovery and debrief actually look like in Formula 1, and where the parallels to executive work hold A first-person account of building cognitive routines around dyspraxia, with direct application for neurodivergent talent in the workforce A clearer sense of how leaders sustain composure when the margin for error is thin A founder’s perspective on building a private community business that crosses motorsport, music and leadership