Motivation och inspiration speakers

Why organisations work with Jose Manuel Calderon Fourteen NBA seasons across seven franchises, each requiring a different role, system, and relationship with coaching staff. Few speakers can describe reinvention at that frequency from inside the experience. Captained the Spain national team through its most decorated era, winning the 2006 FIBA World Cup, the 2011 EuroBasket, and three Olympic medals across 2008, 2012, and 2016. Holds the NBA single-season free throw record at 98.05 percent. The story behind that statistic is a precise account of preparation, repetition, and composure that translates directly to high-stakes performance. Now operates inside the business of sport as Special Advisor to the Cleveland Cavaliers, strategic advisor to technology firm Sngular, and co-founder of sport technology venture OWQLO. The post-playing view is operational, not nostalgic. Biography highlights 14 NBA seasons with Toronto Raptors, Detroit Pistons, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Atlanta Hawks, and Cleveland Cavaliers. NBA single-season free throw record holder at 98.05 percent (2008-09, Toronto Raptors). 2006 FIBA World Cup champion and 2011 EuroBasket champion with Spain. Three Olympic medals with Spain: silver in 2008, silver in 2012, bronze in 2016. Special Assistant to the Executive Director at the National Basketball Players Association from 2019. Special Advisor to the Cleveland Cavaliers, strategic advisor to Sngular, co-founder of OWQLO, UNICEF Ambassador. Biography Fourteen seasons in the NBA is not a tenure. It is seven different working environments, seven coaching philosophies, and a constant negotiation of role. Across Toronto, Detroit, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Cleveland, the work was the same every season: arrive, read the room, and become useful to a group of people who did not pick you. That career line is the substance behind Jose Manuel Calderon’s speaking. He captained the Spain national team through the most decorated period in its history, winning the 2006 FIBA World Cup, the 2011 EuroBasket, and three Olympic medals across 2008, 2012, and 2016. The Spanish “golden generation” is studied because it sustained excellence across more than a decade, with changing coaches, ageing key players, and rising rivals. Calderon was a central figure in how that group held together. The detail that travels well into corporate rooms is his free throw record. In 2008-09 he made 151 of 154 attempts, a 98.05 percent season that still stands as the NBA’s highest. The talk that emerges from it is about repeatable performance, not natural talent, and it lands cleanly with audiences who are measured on consistency rather than peaks. After retiring, Calderon moved directly into the business of sport. He served as Special Assistant to the Executive Director of the NBA Players Association from 2019, advises the Cleveland Cavaliers, sits on the advisory board of Spanish technology firm Sngular, and co-founded sport technology venture OWQLO. He is also a UNICEF Ambassador. The result is a speaker who can speak to senior teams in the language they use, drawing on a playing career that is genuinely rare at the level it reached. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Team performance across changing line-ups High-stakes decision-making Captaincy and standards Inclusion and identity in elite sport Reinvention across cultures and systems The business of professional sport Ideal for Senior leadership teams under prolonged performance pressure CHROs and people leaders building cohesion across changing structures Sales and commercial leaders who manage on consistency rather than peaks Board and executive offsites looking for a credible outside voice on team dynamics Audience outcomes A practical account of how elite teams hold standards through line-up change, coaching turnover, and external scrutiny. A clear picture of what daily preparation looks like at the level that produces records, not anecdotes about motivation. A working language for captaincy, the responsibility of senior players inside a team, and how that maps to senior leaders inside an organisation. A perspective on inclusion built from a long career across multiple national, cultural, and locker-room contexts.

Why organisations work with Josie Gibson A nationally familiar face from ITV’s daytime flagship who lands instantly with UK consumer and employee audiences without long set-up. A live-room temperament built across thousands of hours of unscripted daytime television, including I’m A Celebrity 2023, where unpredictability is the format. Brand-event credibility from sustained partnerships with Samsung, Very, Next, Regatta, Babybel and Cawston Press. Genuine warmth on stage that suits internal culture moments, recognition nights and panels where audiences need to feel met, not lectured to. Biography highlights Host on ITV’s This Morning, regularly presenting alongside Alison Hammond, Dermot O’Leary and Rylan. Winner of Big Brother UK Series 11 (Channel 4, 2010). Finalist on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, 2023, finishing fourth. Television credits across The Wheel, Blankety Blank and Bake Off: Extra Slice. Commercial partnerships with Samsung, Very, Next Clothing, Regatta, Babybel and Cawston Press. Biography Live audiences are unforgiving. They feel a host who is performing at them rather than with them, and they switch off fast. The work of carrying a room with warmth, pace and on-the-fly recovery is craft, and it is built only by doing it for years on live television. Josie Gibson has built that craft on ITV’s This Morning, the UK’s longest-running daytime magazine show, where she presents alongside Alison Hammond, Dermot O’Leary and Rylan. Daytime television is unscripted by design: she has the reflexes to handle a guest going off-piste, a feature that runs short, or a tonal shift between segments without losing the audience. Her wider profile sits on top of that broadcast spine. She first reached a national audience as the winner of Big Brother UK Series 11 in 2010, and reinforced her live-television credentials reaching the final four on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in 2023. Brand work with Samsung, Very, Next Clothing, Regatta, Babybel and Cawston Press has given her sustained experience of representing partners on camera and in live settings. For organisations, this translates into a specific kind of value. Gibson is recognisable to UK staff and customer audiences from a programme they actually watch, and she brings the unscripted live-television temperament that internal events, awards ceremonies and brand activations need to feel like genuine moments rather than corporate set pieces. Key speaking topics Live event hosting Awards night hosting Brand event moderation Panel facilitation On-stage interviews Audience engagement for consumer-facing brands Ideal for Internal company conferences, kick-offs and recognition events with UK consumer-facing staff audiences. Awards ceremonies and brand activations seeking a recognisable ITV daytime presenter. Marketing, communications and HR teams briefing for warm, audience-led moderation rather than subject-matter keynote. Audience outcomes A live event paced and held by a broadcaster the room already knows from television. Panels and on-stage interviews that feel conversational rather than rehearsed. A recognition or awards moment that registers with employees as a genuine reward, not a formality. Brand stories told on stage by a presenter audiences read as warm and credible.

Why organisations work with Joss Stone A first-hand global perspective from a singer who performed in all 193 UN member states and partnered with local charities in each, a frame of reference very few keynote speakers can claim. A Grammy winner and double BRIT Award winner whose presence brings cultural weight and warmth to a corporate, charity, or values-led event. A founder’s account of running the Joss Stone Foundation, which supports more than 200 charities, told without corporate distance. A speaker who draws on Live 8, One Young World, and two decades inside the music industry to talk about purpose, resilience, and creative independence in plain language. Biography highlights Grammy Award winner for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals (2007), with John Legend and Van Hunt. Two BRIT Awards (2005): British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act; Guinness World Records as youngest BRIT solo winner at age 17. Debut album The Soul Sessions shortlisted for the 2004 Mercury Prize; approximately 14 million records sold worldwide. Performed at Live 8 (2005) and the One Young World Summit (2012). Completed The Total World Tour (2014 to 2019), performing in over 200 countries including all 193 UN member states, collaborating with local artists and charities. Founder of the Joss Stone Foundation, supporting more than 200 charities globally. Biography Most artists at the peak of a recording career do not put it down to spend five years performing in every country on earth. Joss Stone did. The Total World Tour ran from 2014 to 2019, reached all 193 UN member states, and paired every show with a charity visit and a local-artist collaboration. The Joss Stone Foundation grew directly out of it. Stone arrived at this work with credentials already in place. Her debut record was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize when she was sixteen. By seventeen she held two BRIT Awards and a Guinness World Records entry as the youngest solo winner of the prize. A Grammy followed in 2007 for her collaboration with John Legend and Van Hunt. Roughly 14 million records sold worldwide put her among the best-selling British soul artists of her generation. What she now brings to a stage is the rarer asset. She has sat with charity workers, musicians, and communities in places most senior leaders only see in briefing notes. She has built and run an international foundation. She has done it while staying recognisably herself, with the directness that audiences at One Young World, Live 8, and corporate summits have responded to. For organisations talking about purpose, global responsibility, or the human side of a values agenda, Stone offers proof that the work is doable and worth doing. The argument lands because she has done it. Key speaking topics Purpose and humanitarian leadership Global perspective through music and travel Founding and running a charitable foundation Creative independence and career longevity Cultural collaboration across 193 countries Resilience inside the music industry Ideal for Charity galas, foundation events, and CSR or ESG conferences Corporate summits on purpose, values, and employee engagement Awards dinners and after-dinner keynote slots Women’s leadership, young leaders, and One Young World style platforms Audience outcomes A vivid first-hand account of building a global humanitarian project from the ground up A reset of what purpose looks like when it is lived rather than messaged Specific stories from 193 countries that translate abstract values into human terms A reminder, from someone who has done it, that creative independence and commercial success can coexist

Why organisations work with Juan Pablo Montoya One of three drivers in history to win at the top tier of Formula 1, IndyCar, and the NASCAR Cup Series, giving him a rare lens on how elite teams differ across cultures and disciplines. Operated inside the highest-stakes performance environments in sport: Williams and McLaren in Formula 1, Chip Ganassi Racing in IndyCar, Team Penske in IndyCar and IMSA. Audiences hear about team execution from inside those organisations, not as commentary. A first-hand account of decision-making at 300 km/h, where the cost of a mistake is immediate, which translates directly for leaders managing high-pressure commercial calls. Bilingual (English and Spanish) and Latin American, which makes him relevant for global organisations with significant Hispanic markets or workforces. Biography highlights 1999 CART Series Champion with Chip Ganassi Racing, the youngest CART champion at the time at age 24. Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner, in 2000 and 2015. Won the 2000 race on his first attempt. Formula 1 career across Williams and McLaren: 7 wins, 30 podiums, 13 pole positions, and third in the 2002 and 2003 World Drivers’ Championships. Three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Daytona. 2019 IMSA SportsCar Championship with Team Penske. One of only three drivers to win races in Formula 1, IndyCar, and the NASCAR Cup Series. Biography The seat of a Formula 1 car is one of the most unforgiving leadership environments in sport. Decisions arrive at hundreds of kilometres per hour, the team behind the driver runs into the hundreds, and the margin between winning and crashing is measured in tenths. Juan Pablo Montoya spent two decades inside that environment, at the top of every major motorsport discipline. He won the CART championship in 1999 as a rookie with Chip Ganassi Racing, then won the Indianapolis 500 the following year on his first attempt. Formula 1 followed: seven Grand Prix wins and 30 podiums across Williams and McLaren, including a Monaco win in 2003 and back-to-back third-place finishes in the World Drivers’ Championship in 2002 and 2003. He then crossed disciplines that almost nobody else has crossed at the top tier. Wins in the NASCAR Cup Series. A second Indianapolis 500 in 2015 with Team Penske. Three victories in the 24 Hours of Daytona, and the 2019 IMSA SportsCar Championship. Only two other drivers in history have won at the top of Formula 1, IndyCar, and NASCAR. That cross-discipline record is what gives his keynote substance. He has worked inside Williams, McLaren, Ganassi, and Penske, four of the most demanding performance organisations in sport, and can speak directly to how they differ in how they prepare drivers, manage teams, and recover from failure. Key speaking topics High-performance team execution Composure and decision-making under pressure Cross-cultural team leadership in elite sport Resilience and reinvention across careers Motorsport, Formula 1, and IndyCar Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes Sales kick-offs and high-performance commercial team events Organisations with a Latin American footprint or Hispanic audience Automotive, technology, and sponsorship-aligned brand events Audience outcomes A first-hand view of how Formula 1, IndyCar, and NASCAR teams prepare for and recover from high-stakes moments. A clearer sense of what composure looks like in practice when decisions cannot be deferred. Specific examples of how trust between a driver and their team is built, tested, and rebuilt. Cross-cultural perspective on what separates elite teams in different national sporting cultures.

Why organisations work with Julia Gentry A coaching track record concentrated in growth-stage businesses in the $10 to $100 million revenue band, where the founder and the leadership team are the same people and personal capacity is the binding constraint. A signature D.R.E.A.M. framework she uses with executive teams to close the gap between stated ambition and the daily decisions that contradict it. Direct authority with women leaders navigating the specific tension between professional ambition and the rest of their lives, written about in her book Dream – I Dare You. A strong following in the US residential real estate sector, where she is repeatedly booked back into the same firms and conferences. Biography highlights CEO and founder of The Dream Factory & Co., leading a team of eight. Author of Dream – I Dare You: A Wake-Up Call to Greater Alignment in Your Faith, Family, Career, and Community and the companion Dream – Workbook. More than a decade coaching executive teams at companies grossing $10 to $100 million annually. Co-founder of six businesses across 16 years as an entrepreneur, including a real estate operation. Named client engagements include Harcourts North America, Total Real Estate Group and Keller Williams agents and brokerages. Creator of the D.R.E.A.M. framework, used in keynote sessions, group coaching and an eight-week curriculum. Biography Most leadership burnout is not a wellness problem. It is a clarity problem. The leader knows what the next quarter requires, but cannot remember what the next decade is for. That is the gap Julia Gentry works in. She is the CEO and founder of The Dream Factory & Co., a coaching practice she built after a career in residential real estate that ended, by her own account, in burnout in her early thirties. Over the past decade, she has coached executive teams at growth-stage businesses in the $10 to $100 million revenue range, where the leadership group and the founders are usually the same small set of people. Her book Dream – I Dare You is the written form of that work. It argues that alignment across professional ambition, family life, and personal conviction is the precondition for sustained senior performance, not a soft add-on to it. The companion Dream – Workbook turns the same argument into a working tool for leadership teams and small groups. Her commercial track record is strongest in the US residential real estate sector, where firms including Harcourts North America, Total Real Estate Group and Keller Williams brokerages have brought her back to work with leaders and agents. The D.R.E.A.M. framework she developed is now used in keynote settings, in an eight-week curriculum, and in direct executive coaching with founders who have stopped enjoying the company they built. Key speaking topics Self-leadership and burnout recovery Women in senior leadership Purpose and alignment in growth-stage businesses Limiting beliefs in executive teams Leadership in real estate and entrepreneur-led firms Faith-aligned leadership Ideal for Founders and CEOs of growth-stage businesses in the $10 to $100 million revenue band Women leadership networks and senior women’s events Real estate brokerages, agent groups and franchise leadership conferences Faith-aligned corporate and entrepreneurial audiences Audience outcomes A clear read on where personal capacity is the bottleneck in the business, not the strategy Language for the gap between stated ambition and actual decision-making in the leadership team A practical structure, the D.R.E.A.M. framework, for resetting that gap Permission and a method for women leaders to redefine what success in the role looks like A direct challenge to grind-culture assumptions about what senior leadership requires

Why organisations work with Julie Gautier A first-hand discipline of working under physiological pressure that few keynote speakers can credibly claim. Two French records in constant weight freediving, minus 68 metres on a single breath, are evidence of a practice, not an anecdote. A creative body of work that translates the discipline into something an audience can feel. Ama, shot in a single breath in the world’s deepest pool, has reached a wide international audience and has become a reference point for how breath, focus and stillness are cultivated. Direct relevance to leadership audiences asking how to stay composed under public scrutiny, scrutiny markets, board pressure or crisis. The mechanism she describes is concrete: how the breath is trained, how attention is held, how panic is metabolised before it becomes decision. A second register of value for organisations working on creativity, environmental purpose, or the relationship between people and the natural world. Her films sit inside that conversation rather than next to it. Biography highlights Two French records in constant weight freediving, minus 65 metres (2006) and minus 68 metres (2007). Co-founder of Les Films Engloutis, the production label behind her underwater work. Writer and director of Ama, performed in a single breath in the Y-40 deep pool, Italy. Co-director and writer of the underwater music video for Beyoncé and Naughty Boy’s “Runnin’ (Lose It All)” (2015). Director of One Breath Around the World, featured in National Geographic’s Short Film Showcase. TEDxLausanneWomen speaker, December 2019, “Inspiration in the Absence of Breath”. Biography Holding the breath is a trained skill, not a held-back reflex. Gautier worked on it for nine years as a competitive freediver, including two French national records in constant weight, before stepping out of the sport in 2009. The discipline she learned, working with the breath rather than against it, is the substance she now brings to leadership audiences. Her second career has been as a director and performer in underwater cinema. With Guillaume Néry, she co-founded Les Films Engloutis, the label behind films including Narcose, Ocean Gravity and One Breath Around the World, the last of which was carried by National Geographic’s Short Film Showcase. She also co-directed and wrote the underwater music video for Beyoncé and Naughty Boy’s “Runnin’ (Lose It All)”. Ama, released on International Women’s Day in 2018, is the work that brought the practice into the cultural conversation. It is a single-breath performance in the Y-40 deep pool in Italy, choreographed and performed by Gautier herself. It has been read as a piece on grief, on women’s resilience, on the management of pressure, on the value of stillness. It is not a metaphor for any of those things. It is the discipline made visible. For a corporate audience, the relevance is direct. Senior leaders are working in conditions where composure has become a performance variable. Gautier’s contribution is not motivational language. It is a description of how a person who has practised breath and attention under real physiological constraint actually does it, and what transfers when the audience walks out of the room. Key speaking topics Breath, focus and composure under pressure Self-leadership and emotional regulation Creativity drawn from natural environments Personal discipline and long-form practice Ocean storytelling and environmental purpose Ideal for Senior leadership offsites where composure under public pressure is a stated theme Cultural and inspirational segments of conferences for boards, executive committees and partner audiences Wellbeing, performance and people-function summits looking for substantive content on breath and attention Brand, creative and sustainability events where ocean storytelling has natural anchor Audience outcomes A concrete account of how breath is trained as a tool for focus, not as a wellness motif A vocabulary for talking about composure as a learned practice rather than a personal trait Visual material, drawn from her films, that audiences continue to discuss after the session A working frame for how stillness, patience and humility translate into professional performance

Why organisations work with Julien Simon-Chautemps He has run live, multi-million-pound decisions across 265 Grands Prix, where the cost of a wrong call is measured in tenths of a second and broadcast to a global audience. Few speakers operate from that altitude of pressure. He explains the F1 pit wall as a working management system: how information flows from car to engineer to strategist to driver, what gets filtered, and how the team avoids the two failure modes of analysis paralysis and over-reaction. He sat next to one of the most demanding drivers in modern F1 history, Kimi Raikkonen, and can describe in concrete terms how to communicate with high-performers who do not want managing, only useful input. He is still active in the sport as a Canal+ and F1 TV technical analyst, which keeps the case material current rather than nostalgic. The session does not rely on the 2007 Toyota years to make its point. He brings the engineer’s view, not the driver’s. Audiences get the side of the cockpit where the strategy, the data, and the team coordination actually happen. Biography highlights 14 seasons as a Formula 1 race engineer across Toyota, Lotus/Caterham, Renault/Lotus Renault, and Sauber/Alfa Romeo 265 Grands Prix attended trackside between 2007 and 2022 Race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen at Alfa Romeo through his final F1 seasons; previously worked with him at Lotus Engineered drivers including Jarno Trulli, Romain Grosjean, Pastor Maldonado, Vitaly Petrov, Jolyon Palmer, and Marcus Ericsson Founder of JSC7 Engineering Ltd (2022), providing motorsport consultancy, race strategy, and data analysis services Technical analyst for Canal+ and on-air pundit for F1 TV; aerospace engineering graduate of IPSA Paris (2002) Biography The pit wall in Formula 1 is one of the most concentrated decision environments in any industry. Tyre choices, fuel loads, safety-car responses, and pit-stop calls all happen on a clock that does not negotiate. Julien Simon-Chautemps spent fourteen seasons running that environment as a race engineer, including the final F1 chapter of Kimi Raikkonen’s career at Alfa Romeo. His route into the cockpit conversation was technical, not glamorous. He trained as an aerospace and aeronautical engineer at IPSA in Paris, then ran junior single-seater programmes at Prema Powerteam and Trident before stepping onto the F1 grid with Toyota in 2007. By the time he retired from trackside duties in 2022, he had attended 265 Grands Prix across Toyota, Lotus, Caterham, Renault, Sauber, and Alfa Romeo. The drivers he worked with were not interchangeable personalities. Jarno Trulli, Romain Grosjean, Vitaly Petrov, Pastor Maldonado, Jolyon Palmer, Marcus Ericsson, and Raikkonen each demanded a different style of communication. That range is what gives his sessions their texture: he is talking about how to lead and inform high-performers who will not tolerate noise, not how to motivate average teams. Today he runs JSC7 Engineering Ltd, a motorsport and automotive consultancy he founded in 2022, and contributes technical analysis to Canal+ and F1 TV. The keynote work draws on the same source material the consultancy does. Senior teams hear how an F1 garage actually coordinates, where the failure points sit, and what leaders in regulated, high-stakes industries can take from a sport built around the discipline of tenths. Key speaking topics Decision-making under time pressure High-performance team coordination Real-time communication between technical and executive functions Leadership of elite individual performers Operating rhythms in high-stakes, regulated environments Data, instinct, and the limits of each in live decisions Resilience and recovery in competitive cycles Ideal for COOs, transformation leads, and operational executives running time-critical functions Senior leadership teams in regulated or safety-critical industries (aviation, energy, financial markets, healthcare) Engineering and technology leaders building decision systems around live data Sales, trading, and front-line teams whose performance depends on second-by-second judgement Audience outcomes A working picture of how an F1 team turns live data into a single coordinated decision, with named examples from the pit wall Sharper language for the difference between a fast decision and a rushed one A feel for how high-performers actually want to be communicated with under pressure, drawn from years alongside Raikkonen and Grosjean Specific habits leaders can install before high-pressure moments rather than improvise during them A closer view of the sport itself: what the audience hears on the radio is the surface of a much larger system

Why organisations work with Kadeena Cox A first-hand account of rebuilding performance from zero after a stroke and an MS diagnosis at 23, then competing at world-record level across two different Paralympic sports. Substantive content on inclusion in elite environments, drawn from founding and running the KC Academy in partnership with the Rapha Foundation and SportsAid. A track record that is publicly verifiable at the highest level of British sport: golds at Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, and Paris 2024, plus OBE in 2022. Direct experience of the daily decision-making required when a body and a schedule cannot be relied on, which translates cleanly into leadership audiences operating under sustained uncertainty. Biography highlights Five-time Paralympic gold medallist (Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024) in athletics and cycling First British Paralympian since 1984 to win golds in two different sports at the same Games OBE for services to athletics and cycling (2022); MBE (2017) Founder of the KC Academy, in partnership with the Rapha Foundation and SportsAid Winner, BBC Celebrity MasterChef Series 16 (2021) World record holder, C4 500m time trial Biography The Rio 2016 Paralympics produced an outcome no British athlete had achieved in 32 years. Kadeena Cox won gold in two different sports at the same Games, in T38 400m athletics and C4-5 500m cycling, two years after a stroke and a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at the age of 23. The cycling time was faster than any able-bodied Team GB rider had produced at an Olympic or Paralympic Games. Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 added further golds, including a world record in the C4 500m time trial and a team sprint title alongside Jaco van Gass and Jody Cundy. The arc matters less for the medal count than for what it required operationally: training programmes built around a condition that does not behave predictably, and a competitive schedule that had to absorb that reality without losing edge. In 2021 Cox founded the KC Academy, which works with SportsAid and is supported by the Rapha Foundation to identify and fund cyclists from ethnically diverse backgrounds entering the British high-performance pathway. She is the only Black British cyclist to have won Olympic or Paralympic gold, and the Academy is her response to the structural reasons that statistic exists. Her speaking work draws on both strands: the discipline of competing when the body is unreliable, and the institutional work of changing who gets to be in the room at elite level. She was appointed OBE in 2022 for services to athletics and cycling, having received the MBE in 2017. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after diagnosis Composure and decision-making under physical and competitive pressure Inclusion as a high-performance capability Building structures for underrepresented talent Mental health and sustained performance Adapting goals when conditions change Ideal for Leadership offsites and conferences focused on resilience, change, or sustained performance under pressure DEI, talent and culture leads working on inclusion in high-performance settings Employee resource groups, particularly disability, race, and wellbeing networks Internal events marking transitions, restructures, or recovery moments Audience outcomes A concrete sense of what resilience looks like as a daily operational practice, not a value statement A reframed view of inclusion as a performance lever, grounded in the KC Academy’s specific work Honest language for talking about mental health and physical limits inside high-pressure teams Renewed confidence in setting ambitious goals when the operating environment is unstable

Why organisations work with Karenjeet Kaur Bains She holds a Guinness World Record (42 bodyweight squats in a minute, set against a male equivalent of 34) and a Commonwealth gold, which gives her claims about pressure and preparation a weight that motivational speakers without competitive credentials cannot match. She is the first British Sikh woman to represent Great Britain at the European and World powerlifting championships, which makes her a credible voice on what representation actually costs and produces inside an institution. She qualified as an ACA Chartered Accountant and spent six years in audit at KPMG, so she speaks to professional services and corporate audiences in their own language rather than from outside it. She combines a primetime BBC platform as Athena on Gladiators with a serious athletic and professional record, which lands with employee networks, ERGs, and graduate populations in a way a single-track speaker rarely does. Biography highlights Commonwealth Powerlifting Champion; first British Sikh woman to represent Great Britain at European and World championships. Guinness World Record holder, most bodyweight squats by a woman in one minute (42 reps, 2022). ACA Chartered Accountant; six years at KPMG in audit before moving into charity finance. Athena on the BBC One reboot of Gladiators, broadcast on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. British Powerlifting Athlete of the Year, 2023 and 2024. Listed keynote speaker at the ICAEW Annual Conference. Biography Powerlifting is one of the smallest, most demographically narrow sports in Britain. The first British Sikh woman to represent Great Britain at the European and World championships is also a Commonwealth gold medallist and a Guinness World Record holder. That combination is what Karenjeet Kaur Bains brings into a room. Her route to elite strength sport ran through, not around, a professional services career. She qualified as an ACA Chartered Accountant, spent six years at KPMG in audit, and trained for international competition in the hours either side of a working day. The Guinness record (42 bodyweight squats in a minute, against a male equivalent of 34) was set in two weeks of preparation while she held a full-time charity finance role. Her account of how high performers actually structure their lives is grounded, not theoretical. Since 2024 she has appeared as Athena on the BBC One reboot of Gladiators, which has put her in front of a household audience without softening the technical seriousness of her sport. ICAEW lists her as a keynote speaker at its Annual Conference, and she has been recognised as British Powerlifting Athlete of the Year in 2023 and 2024. For HR, DEI and employee engagement leaders, the value is specific. She speaks to what it takes for someone visibly different to stay, perform, and be seen inside institutions that did not previously include her, and what employers, networks and managers can usefully do about it. Key speaking topics Representation and identity in elite environments Performance under pressure and recovery from injury South Asian women in sport and professional life Breaking cultural and gender stereotypes Resilience and the psychology of high performance Inclusive culture in professional services Ideal for CHROs, DEI leads, and employee network sponsors planning Heritage Month, IWD, or culture moments. Professional services firms briefing graduate, qualified-accountant, and women’s network audiences. Leadership and high-performance offsites looking for a credentialled athlete voice over a generic motivational one. Audience outcomes A grounded picture of what visible representation costs and produces inside an institution. A practical sense of how high performers structure preparation, recovery, and the routine work around a peak. Language for ERGs and managers on how to support employees who are first or only in their roles. A reframing of “strength”, physical and professional, that audiences can use in their own teams.

Why organisations work with Karim Zeroual He has presented live on national television since 2014, which is the closest professional analogue to running a thousand-seat awards night without an autocue safety net. A Strictly Come Dancing final puts a performer in front of eleven million viewers under live conditions. That is a different category of composure to most stage hosts on the circuit. His CBBC and BBC Bitesize background gives him a precise instinct for keeping mixed audiences with the room, which translates directly to long conference agendas and multi-generational employee events. He moves between scripted broadcast, live theatre at the London Palladium, and improvised studio formats. Few hosts operate credibly in all three. For brands targeting younger employees, families or community audiences, he carries recognition that a generic corporate MC does not. Biography highlights Children’s BBC presenter since 2014, with on-screen credits including BBC Bitesize, Young Dancer, Wimbledon Live and Blue Peter. Runner-up, Strictly Come Dancing series 17 (2019), partnered with Amy Dowden; scored the series’ first perfect 40 in Week 11. Co-presenter of CBBC’s A Week to Beat the World, a factual travel format filmed across Guatemala, Brazil and Japan. Acting credits across The Sparticle Mystery (three series), EastEnders and Da Vinci’s Demons. West End and London Palladium stage credits including The Lion King, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Here Come The Boys. Trained at Sylvia Young Theatre School and the Urdang Academy. Biography A live event is a logistics document until someone walks on stage and turns it into a room. That is the job. Awards nights, internal conferences and brand activations rely on a host who can hold attention without flattening the agenda underneath it. Karim Zeroual has done that work in the most demanding live environment in British television. As a Children’s BBC presenter since 2014, he has fronted BBC Bitesize, Young Dancer, Wimbledon Live and Blue Peter, formats that punish any host who cannot keep pace with a live cue and a moving audience at the same time. The Strictly Come Dancing final in 2019 added a different test. Partnered with Amy Dowden, he reached the runner-up position in front of an audience of millions and scored the series’ first perfect forty for a Week 11 Jive. The discipline that produced that result, weeks of repetition under public scrutiny, is the same discipline that lets a host carry an unscripted stage moment without losing the brief. Stage credits at the London Palladium and across the West End in The Lion King, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Here Come The Boys round out a profile built on live performance rather than recorded craft. For organisations who need a host who can warm a room of two thousand, interview a CEO without flattering them, and shape an awards running order so it actually lands, that combination is what is being booked. Key speaking topics Live event hosting and awards night MC work Panel moderation and on-stage interviews Conference and town hall hosting Brand activation hosting and presenter-led live content Youth engagement and family audience communication On-camera presenting craft Ideal for Internal communications and HR leads booking annual awards nights, recognition events or town halls Brand and marketing teams running consumer-facing activations or family audience events Conference organisers who need a moderator credible across panels, fireside chats and stage interviews Charity and youth-sector organisations where audience trust with younger demographics matters Audience outcomes A live event run by a host who keeps the agenda intact while the room stays warm Panels and interviews that move beyond polite Q and A into useful exchanges Awards moments that feel earned for recipients, not stage-managed A consistent on-stage presence across multiple sessions of a long-form agenda

Why organisations work with Karl Burrows He turns abstract values into a physical, shared act. Teams leave having done something together, not just heard about it. His framing of authenticity as ego-aware self-leadership cuts through the usual corporate language and gives senior leaders a more honest vocabulary for how they show up. The cultural source material is genuine. Burrows is of Maori and European descent, learned haka and te reo through his Taranaki tribal connection, and treats the practice with the seriousness that distinguishes it from team-building theatre. His commercial track record speaks to a range. Hakaworks has worked with IBM, Vodafone, BP, Shell, Philips, BT, Deloitte, GSK and American Express across keynote, workshop and after-dinner formats. He brings a corporate operator’s lens. An MBA from Cranfield and years as a commercial lawyer for Procter and Gamble, DHL and Equifax mean he speaks the language of the room he is working with. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Director of Hakaworks, London. Co-founder of Manaia, the performance and education company established in London in 2004. MBA, Cranfield University. Former commercial lawyer and negotiator for Procter and Gamble, DHL and Equifax. Corporate engagements include IBM, Vodafone, BP, Shell, Philips, BT, Deloitte, GSK and American Express. Host of the Haka Works Talks podcast; podcast guest on The New P&L Principles and Leadership and TeamBonding. Biography Most corporate culture work happens in slides and surveys. Hakaworks works in the body. The London-based company Karl Burrows founded uses Maori cultural practice, including haka, to make team identity something a group does together rather than describes to itself. The methodology has taken Hakaworks into IBM, Vodafone, BP, Shell, Deloitte, GSK and American Express. The grounding is genuine. Burrows is of Maori and European descent, learned te reo and the haka of his Taranaki tribal area, and co-founded Manaia in London in 2004 as a way for haka performers to share the practice. Hakaworks grew from that, and the seriousness of the cultural source is what separates the work from generic team-building. The intellectual frame underneath the practice is authentic leadership. Burrows argues that authenticity demands self-awareness about ego and the discipline to set it aside, so leaders respond from values rather than identity defence. The argument lands harder because it is paired with a physical act that asks a room to commit visibly to a shared intent. He brings a corporate operator’s vocabulary to the work. An MBA from Cranfield and years as a commercial lawyer for Procter and Gamble, DHL and Equifax mean he understands the rooms he is invited into, and reads what a leadership team actually needs from a session rather than delivering a fixed set piece. Key speaking topics Authentic leadership and ego Team unity and trust Organisational culture and values in practice Purpose and collective performance Ritual as a leadership tool Maori cultural practice in business contexts Ideal for CHROs and culture leads running team-bonding offsites or culture interventions Senior leadership teams working through trust and unity issues Sales kickoffs, all-hands moments and conferences that need a shared experience rather than another panel Executive development programmes focused on authentic leadership Audience outcomes A shared physical experience the team can refer back to long after the room empties A more direct vocabulary for talking about ego, authenticity and how leaders show up under pressure A practical sense of how ritual and ceremony can be used to mark commitment to a strategy or change A felt understanding of what collective intent looks like, beyond a values poster

Why organisations work with Karren Brady She has actually done the job leaders are usually only asked to talk about: turning round a loss-making business, taking it public, and selling it for a reported 82 million pounds. Few speakers can talk credibly about boardroom decision-making, parliamentary scrutiny and front-page media pressure in the same session. She has lived all three at West Ham, in the House of Lords, and through a televised public role. She brings hard-edged commercial honesty to topics that often get softened, including women in leadership, where her position is built on a CBE for services to entrepreneurship and women in business, not slogan. Her profile, sustained through 16 years on The Apprentice and weekly columns in The Sun and Women & Home, makes her one of the few UK business voices a non-business audience already trusts. Biography highlights Appointed Managing Director of Birmingham City Football Club at 23; oversaw the 1997 London Stock Exchange flotation, the youngest MD of a UK plc at the time. Vice-Chair of West Ham United from 2010 to 2026; led the negotiation behind the move to the London Stadium. Conservative life peer; took her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Brady in November 2014. CBE in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to entrepreneurship and women in business. Lord Sugar’s aide on BBC’s The Apprentice since 2009. Author of Strong Woman: The Truth About Getting to the Top and Playing to Win: 10 Steps to Achieving Your Goals; columnist for The Sun and Women & Home. Biography Birmingham City Football Club was loss-making and barely solvent when Karren Brady was made Managing Director in 1993. She was 23. Four years later, the club was listed on the London Stock Exchange, and she had become the youngest managing director of a UK plc. It was sold in 2009 for a reported 82 million pounds. That trajectory is the foundation of how she talks about leadership. The commercial discipline came first; the public profile came second. By the time she joined West Ham United as Vice-Chair in 2010, she was operating in one of the most politically exposed boardrooms in British sport. She negotiated and defended the club’s move from the Boleyn Ground to the London Stadium, a decision that drew sustained criticism from supporters, parliamentarians and the press, and held the role for 16 years. In 2014 she was made a CBE for services to entrepreneurship and women in business and took her seat in the House of Lords as a Conservative life peer. She had already served as the UK government’s Small Business Ambassador, sat as a non-executive director on the board of Channel 4, and would later chair Taveta Investments, the parent company of the Arcadia Group, before resigning in 2019 over governance concerns. Few UK business voices have operated across that range of corporate, political and public pressure. Her broadcast and editorial presence sharpens the commercial offer rather than dilutes it. She has been Lord Sugar’s aide on The Apprentice since 2009 and writes weekly for The Sun and Women & Home, with two business books behind her, Strong Woman and Playing to Win. Senior teams book her because she has run real organisations through real scrutiny, and she will say what she actually thinks in front of a room. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under public scrutiny Boardroom governance and accountability Women in business and routes to senior leadership Building and selling a business Commercial strategy in highly visible sectors Resilience and reputation in regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive committees navigating high-visibility decisions or external scrutiny. CEO and senior leadership offsites where the agenda is commercial discipline rather than inspirational content. Conferences on women in leadership, entrepreneurship and governance that want a speaker with named operating credentials. After-dinner, awards and panel formats where a recognised business name with broadcast presence is the brief. Audience outcomes A clearer view of what board-level decision-making actually looks like when stakeholders, media and politics are all in the room. A practical sense of how senior leaders defend commercial decisions publicly without backing away from them. A grounded read on women in senior leadership from someone who has been the only woman on the board, not the panel discussion about it. A sharper instinct for separating reputation management from substance when an organisation is under pressure.