Motivation och inspiration speakers

Why organisations work with Lewis Pugh He has helped secure formal protection for more than two million square kilometres of ocean, including the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area, the largest in the world. That is a track record on environmental policy outcomes very few private-sector advisors or speakers can match. He brings a working maritime lawyer’s grasp of treaty, sovereign negotiation, and multilateral process. His framing of climate and ocean commitments is grounded in how rules actually move, which lands with boards wrestling with regulatory and ESG risk. As the UN’s first Patron of the Oceans, he carries institutional weight inside the system most companies are now being judged against, including UNEP, COP processes, and national governments. He converts physical expeditions into specific decisions about preparation, team selection, and changing course under hostile conditions. Audiences leave with a usable account of how leaders behave when the plan stops working, sourced from the North Pole, Mount Everest, the Red Sea, and Antarctica. Biography highlights UN Patron of the Oceans, appointed by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2013. Founder of The Lewis Pugh Foundation, established in 2015 to drive the creation of Marine Protected Areas worldwide. First person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world; first across the North Pole, the length of the English Channel, the Red Sea, and around Martha’s Vineyard. Maritime lawyer trained at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Cape Town; former practitioner at Ince and Co in the City of London; former Reservist in the British SAS. Author of Achieving the Impossible (Simon and Schuster, 2010) and 21 Yaks and a Speedo (2014); twice a TEDGlobal speaker. Awarded South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga (Gold Class); named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame; named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. Biography The Ross Sea Marine Protected Area, off Antarctica, is the largest protected ocean reserve on the planet, larger than the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy combined. Lewis Pugh swam in its near-freezing waters in a Speedo to push 25 nations, including Russia, into signing the agreement that created it. Few advocates working on the ocean and climate file have that kind of policy outcome attached to their name. Pugh trained as a maritime lawyer at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Cape Town, and practised at Ince and Co in the City of London. During those years he served as a Reservist in the British SAS. The combination matters for the work he now does. The legal training shapes how he reads treaties, jurisdiction, and sovereign behaviour. The military background shapes how he plans expeditions and assembles teams. The endurance swimming is the public-facing instrument that pulls governments to the table. In 2013 the UN appointed him as its first Patron of the Oceans. In 2015 he founded The Lewis Pugh Foundation, dedicated to Marine Protected Areas, the ocean equivalent of national parks. Through that work he has helped secure protection for more than two million square kilometres of marine ecosystem, an area the size of Western Europe, and is campaigning for 30 percent of the world’s oceans to be formally protected by 2030. His books, Achieving the Impossible (Simon and Schuster) and 21 Yaks and a Speedo, sit alongside two TEDGlobal talks that TED’s editors describe as the work of a “master story-teller”. For corporate audiences, the substance is not the swimming. It is the working method behind it: how a small team prepares for hostile conditions, how an advocate moves sovereign signatories, and how leaders decide when to keep going and when to change course. Key speaking topics Ocean and climate policy Sustainability and ESG commitments at board level Marine Protected Areas and treaty negotiation Resilience and leadership in hostile conditions Team preparation and decision-making under pressure Purpose-driven leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, ocean, and ESG strategy Sustainability leaders, chief sustainability officers, and ESG committees Senior leadership offsites focused on resilience, preparation, and decision-making under pressure Public-sector and multilateral audiences working on environment and oceans policy Audience outcomes A clearer view of how high-level environmental commitments are converted into binding agreements and protected areas. A working account of how small teams plan for, and recover from, conditions where the original plan fails. A direct line of sight into the UN, COP, and Marine Protected Area processes that increasingly shape corporate disclosure and risk. A sharper sense of what credible, evidenced advocacy looks like, drawn from named expeditions and named outcomes.

Why organisations work with Libby Jackson She ran live operations on the European module of the International Space Station as Columbus Flight Director, a seat where decisions are made in minutes with crew lives in the loop. That experience is rare on a corporate stage. She built and led the UK Space Agency education programme for Tim Peake’s Principia mission, an outreach effort that reached more than two million students and around one in three UK schools, evidence of operational leadership at national scale. Her account of decision-making under pressure draws on procedures used in mission control rooms, not metaphor, giving senior teams a working vocabulary for handling ambiguity and failure. An OBE for services to the space sector and the 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award place her credentials inside the small group of British human spaceflight leaders that buyers can name. She translates highly technical environments for non-technical audiences without softening the substance, useful for boards and leadership teams that want rigour without the jargon. Biography highlights Columbus Flight Director, European Space Agency Mission Control for the International Space Station, Munich. Head of Space, Science Museum, London, since March 2025, the first holder of the role. Former Head of Space Exploration, UK Space Agency, with prior responsibility for the Human Exploration Programme. OBE, 2023 New Year Honours, for services to the Space Sector. 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award, Exploration Museum, Iceland. BSc Physics, Imperial College London; MSc Astronautics and Space Engineering, Cranfield. Honorary DSc, University of Kent. Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. Author of A Galaxy of Her Own (2017) and Space Explorers (2020), both Penguin. Regular BBC science contributor including Stargazing Live. Biography A Flight Director on the International Space Station has minutes, not hours, to make calls that involve crew safety, multinational politics, and millions of pounds of hardware. Libby Jackson held that seat at the European Space Agency’s Columbus Control Centre in Munich, the European module of the ISS. Seven years inside mission control gave her a working knowledge of how senior teams hold together when consequences are immediate and irreversible. She moved to the UK Space Agency in 2014, where she ran education and outreach for Tim Peake’s Principia mission, the British astronaut’s flight to the ISS. The programme reached more than two million students and around one in three UK schools, an operational result on a national scale. She later became Head of Space Exploration, coordinating UK investments across human and robotic missions, the ISS, and lunar and Mars activity. In March 2025 she took up a new post as Head of Space at the Science Museum in London, the first person to hold that title. Her two books, A Galaxy of Her Own and Space Explorers, both published by Penguin, sit alongside an OBE for services to the space sector and the 2023 Leif Erikson Exploration History Award from the Exploration Museum in Iceland. For corporate audiences, the value sits in what mission control teaches about composure, sequencing and trust under load. Jackson does not offer the space career as inspiration. She uses it as a working case study in how trained teams make decisions when the data is incomplete, the clock is short, and the cost of error is absolute. Key speaking topics Decision-making under operational pressure Mission control leadership and team coordination Human spaceflight and the future of exploration Risk, failure, and recovery in complex systems The Artemis programme and the return to the Moon Women in science and engineering Translating technical work for non-technical audiences Ideal for Boards and executive teams preparing for crisis decision-making and incident leadership Heads of operations, engineering and safety in high-consequence sectors such as energy, aviation, healthcare and defence Transformation and innovation leaders working through high-stakes technical change Corporate STEM, early careers and women in leadership programmes seeking a credible British voice in space Audience outcomes A working picture of how mission control teams structure decisions when consequences are immediate Specific lessons from the Columbus and Principia missions on coordination across multinational expert teams A clearer view of where corporate decision processes break down compared with operational environments built around failure Renewed confidence in the value of preparation, role clarity and handover discipline as leadership tools A sharper sense of where the next decade of human spaceflight is heading, and what that means for industries adjacent to it

Why organisations work with Lisa Nichols She speaks to the part of a workforce that engagement surveys cannot reach: the private doubt, fatigue, and self-protection that quietly drains performance during change. Her credibility is lived, not theoretical. She built a multi-million dollar enterprise from public assistance, and she uses that arc to make resilience feel concrete to senior teams who have heard every framework. She has been trusted by Google, Amazon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and NBC for workforce and leadership development sessions, which is a useful signal for enterprise buyers vetting cultural fit. She is one of the most recognised motivational voices of her generation, with reach through The Secret, Oprah, The Today Show, and a Broadway debut at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater. That recognition fills rooms and earns attention before she opens her mouth. Her work translates well into multi-format engagements: keynote, executive coaching circles, and emerging-leader programmes through Motivating the Masses, so a single booking can extend into a programme. Biography highlights New York Times bestselling author of No Matter What! and author of Abundance Now (HarperCollins, 2016). Featured teacher in The Secret (2006), the global self-help film that introduced her to a mass audience. Founder and CEO of Motivating the Masses, Inc., a personal and business development training company. Founder of the Motivating the Teen Spirit Foundation, focused on teen mental health, self-esteem, and dropout prevention. Broadway debut in December 2024 with the one-woman show When My Soul Speaks at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, directed by Emmy winner Nick Nanton. Recipient of the Humanitarian Award from the country of South Africa, The Ambassador Award, and the LEGO Foundation’s Heart of Learning Award. Biography Public assistance and a baby wrapped in towels because the diapers had run out. That is where Lisa Nichols started in 1994. The arc from that night in a small apartment to a CEO’s chair, a New York Times bestseller list, and a Broadway stage is the source material she draws on when she speaks to leadership teams about resilience. She came to a global audience through The Secret, the 2006 film that sold tens of millions of copies and put a small group of teachers in front of a mass readership. Her own book, No Matter What!, followed and reached the New York Times bestseller list. Abundance Now, published by HarperCollins in 2016, took the same lived material into a more practical framework for personal and professional change. The corporate work sits underneath that public profile. Through Motivating the Masses, the training company she founded and runs, Nichols has delivered leadership and engagement programmes for Google, Amazon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and NBC. The brief is usually the same: a workforce facing change, a culture that needs reigniting, or a leadership cohort that has the strategy but not the conviction. In December 2024, Nichols took the same material to Broadway, performing When My Soul Speaks for one night at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater under Emmy winner Nick Nanton. Eleven vignettes covered abusive relationships, poverty, single motherhood, and the late-arriving private wins. It is the same story she tells corporate audiences, told in the form most people only see on television, and it is part of why her name still draws a room. Key speaking topics Resilience and personal conviction Employee engagement through change Inclusive and values-based leadership Self-leadership for emerging leaders Storytelling for organisational influence Women’s leadership and advancement Ideal for CHROs and culture leads designing engagement, wellbeing, or DEI programmes that need a credible lived voice rather than a frameworks-only speaker. Senior leadership offsites where conviction, accountability, and personal resilience are the agenda, not the warm-up. Emerging-leader and high-potential cohorts inside large enterprises. Women’s leadership networks and ERG flagship events looking for a recognised voice with a corporate track record. Audience outcomes Leaders leave with a sharper sense of how their own conviction shows up to their teams in periods of change. Cohorts leave with practical language for resilience and self-trust they can use in difficult conversations the next week. Engagement and wellbeing programmes gain a vocabulary that lands across seniority levels, not only at the top. Audiences leave with a story arc they remember, which is what makes the rest of the programme stick.

Why organisations work with Liz Jackson She has been on both sides of the table: founder of a B2B marketing firm she ran for 17 years, and now Sales & Marketing Director at M&A advisor BCMS, where she works with owner-managers through valuation, growth-to-sale, and the transition into life after exit. She runs The Fellows Group, a network of more than 200 entrepreneurs who have already sold their companies through BCMS. Few speakers can draw on a live, operational community of post-exit founders for their material. Her credibility on resilience is earned, not borrowed. She lost her sight at 25, the same year she founded Great Guns Marketing, and built the business into a multi-site national operation while blind. The MBE in 2007 was for services to business, not for personal story. She turns the conversation about disability and inclusion into a problem-solving conversation. Her framing, that disabled people develop unusually strong problem-solving instincts because they have had to, gives leadership teams a sharper lens on adversity and capability than the standard inclusion talk. Biography highlights MBE, 2007, for services to business Honorary doctorate, Staffordshire University, 2012 Founder, Great Guns Marketing, a national B2B telemarketing business she led for 17 years Sales & Marketing Director, BCMS (Initium Corporate Finance), advising owner-managers on sale and transition Host of The Fellows Group, a network of 200+ entrepreneurs who have exited their businesses through BCMS Featured on Channel 4’s Secret Millionaire Author of StartUp!, published by Pearson Prentice Hall Biography Great Guns Marketing was launched in 1998 by a 25-year-old with no degree, a £1,000 grant and a £4,000 loan from The Prince’s Trust. The same year, its founder lost her sight. Over the next 17 years the business grew into one of the UK’s leading B2B telemarketing firms, with offices across England, Scotland and Ireland. That arc is the foundation of Liz Jackson’s commercial credibility, but it is no longer her main subject. As Sales & Marketing Director at BCMS, the M&A advisor for owner-managed businesses, she now sits inside the transactions she once would have been on the other side of, coaching founders through valuation, growth-to-sale and the life that begins the day the cheque clears. She also hosts The Fellows Group, a network of more than 200 entrepreneurs who have exited their companies through BCMS. It gives her a working evidence base on what actually changes for founders after a sale, the parts that are well rehearsed and the parts that are not. That material sits behind her work on entrepreneurship, growth strategy and exit planning, and it is what distinguishes her from speakers whose entrepreneurial story stopped at the founding moment. Jackson’s MBE, awarded in 2007 for services to business, and her honorary doctorate from Staffordshire University in 2012 are the public markers of that record. The Channel 4 Secret Millionaire appearance and her book StartUp!, published by Pearson Prentice Hall, are the points where her story has reached a broader audience. Inside a leadership room, her sharpest material is on how owner-managers can run a business now with the discipline of a business that will one day be sold. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and scale-up leadership Growth strategy for owner-managed businesses Sale readiness and post-exit transition Sales and B2B customer acquisition Resilience and adversity in business building Disability, problem-solving and inclusion Networking and founder community Ideal for Owner-managers, founders and shareholder-directors of mid-market businesses M&A advisors, private equity portfolio companies and corporate finance audiences Sales and commercial leadership teams in B2B businesses DEI and leadership audiences seeking a substantive voice on disability and capability Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what running a business “to be sold” actually looks like operationally, not just financially Specific insight from a network of 200+ post-exit founders on what makes the transition succeed or fail A sharper framing of disability and adversity as a source of commercial problem-solving capability A direct account of how a national B2B business was built, and sustained, by a founder operating without sight

Why organisations work with Liz McConaghy A first-person account of operational PTSD from someone who survived a suicide attempt, not a clinical overview of mental health from a third-party expert. Seventeen years on the Chinook Fleet, including ten Afghanistan deployments and MERT casualty recovery under fire. The credibility on high-stakes teamwork is earned, not theoretical. 2023 Inspirational Woman in Defence Award, recognising her public advocacy on PTSD and recovery among veterans. A bestselling book (Chinook Crew ‘Chick’) that gives audiences a durable artefact to take back into the organisation after the talk. Direct relevance for organisations with armed-forces-connected workforces, high-stress operating teams, or active mental health and resilience programmes. Biography highlights Longest-serving female crewman on the RAF Chinook Fleet, with over 3,000 flying hours across a 17-year career. Two Iraq deployments and ten Afghanistan deployments under Operation Herrick, including service on the Medical Emergency Response Team. Author of Chinook Crew ‘Chick’ (Pen and Sword, 2022), Amazon Bestseller within three weeks of release. 2023 Inspirational Woman in Defence Award winner. Mental health and PTSD ambassador for veterans, drawing on her own near-fatal post-service crisis. Featured speaker for the Institute of Leadership and a regular contributor on military leadership and recovery. Biography The Medical Emergency Response Team flew casualty recovery under fire in Helmand. Soldiers died and were resuscitated on the cabin floor of the Chinook. Liz McConaghy spent ten deployments on that aircraft, and the operational cost of it caught up with her years later, not in service. She joined the RAF at 19, deployed to Iraq at 21, and stayed on the Chinook Fleet for 17 years. Three thousand flying hours, two Iraq tours, ten Afghanistan tours, and four years as the only female crewman on the wing. She left in 2019, and in August 2020 attempted suicide. What followed was the work she now brings into organisations. A bestselling autobiography, Chinook Crew ‘Chick’, published by Pen and Sword in 2022. The 2023 Inspirational Woman in Defence Award. An ambassadorship for veteran mental health, built on the argument that PTSD is a chapter of a life, not the definition of one. For organisations carrying the cost of psychological strain on their people, the value is the source. McConaghy speaks as someone who has been through the failure mode that mental health programmes are meant to prevent, and who is articulate about what brought her back. Key speaking topics Mental health and PTSD in high-pressure roles Resilience after operational and personal trauma Team leadership in extreme operating environments Self-leadership and recovery Women in male-dominated workplaces Veteran transition and post-service identity Ideal for CHROs, wellbeing leads, and ER teams running mental health and resilience programmes at scale Organisations with armed-forces-connected workforces, including defence primes, security contractors, and emergency services Leadership offsites where the agenda includes psychological safety, burnout, or sustained performance under load Employee network groups and ERGs focused on women, veterans, or mental health Audience outcomes A first-person reference point for what operational PTSD looks like, and what recovery from it actually involves Practical language for opening internal conversations about suicide risk and post-service mental health A clearer view of how high-functioning teams in extreme environments sustain themselves, and where they fail Renewed permission, particularly for senior leaders, to treat their own mental health as an operating variable

Why organisations work with Lizzie Carr She has built and runs an operating environmental non-profit, not a campaign. Planet Patrol’s app turns volunteer activity into structured pollution and water-quality data, which is a usable model for any organisation thinking about citizen-led evidence gathering. Her record-setting expeditions (England’s waterways solo, the English Channel, the Hudson) gave the work its primary dataset. The endurance story is inseparable from the environmental method, which makes for a sustainability talk that actually contains a method. A cancer diagnosis at 26 sits behind the whole trajectory. That gives audiences a credible voice on personal resilience and reinvention without it being a separate, bolted-on talk. Recognition from the Crown (MBE, 2021) and from the Prime Minister’s Points of Light award gives the profile institutional weight that bureau-built activist profiles often lack. Authored Paddling Britain (2018) and hosts the Earth Shakers podcast, with regular media presence on BBC, Sky News, Channel 4 and national newspapers. The platform is real. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Planet Patrol; nearly 500,000 pieces of litter recorded by volunteers across 113 countries. MBE, 2021, for services to environmental work and activism. First person to paddleboard England’s connected waterways solo and unsupported (400 miles, 22 days). First woman to solo paddleboard the English Channel; also crossed the Hudson River (170 miles, 8 days). Author, Paddling Britain (Bradt, 2018); host, Earth Shakers podcast. Named in Top 10 Female Climate Activists lists by Stylist, Marie Claire and Glamour; Stylist Inspiration of the Year, 2020. Biography Most environmental campaigners describe a problem. Carr built a tool that measures it. Planet Patrol began as one woman with a paddleboard and a phone, plotting every piece of plastic she could see along England’s 400 miles of inland waterway, and has become a citizen-science platform with volunteers in more than 100 countries logging pollution and water-quality data into a single app. The origin matters because the method does. Carr was diagnosed with cancer at 26 and took up paddleboarding during recovery. Three world firsts followed, each a research expedition as much as an endurance feat. The English waterway crossing produced over 20,000 plastic data points. The English Channel and Hudson River crossings extended the platform internationally. The expeditions gave the non-profit its data, its public profile and its operating logic. That logic is what makes the talk land in a corporate room. The argument is that environmental action becomes credible when it produces evidence, that citizen science is a legitimate route to that evidence at scale, and that personal conviction holds up when it has a measurement framework underneath it. Carr’s MBE in 2021, the Prime Minister’s Points of Light award, and her place in the Stylist, Marie Claire and Glamour lists of leading climate activists are recognitions of an operating contribution, not just a story. She is the author of Paddling Britain (Bradt, 2018), hosts the Earth Shakers podcast, and writes and broadcasts regularly across UK national press and television. Audiences leave with a story they remember and, more usefully for a sustainability or purpose programme, a working example of how community action becomes data and how data becomes accountability. Key speaking topics Citizen science and environmental data Plastic pollution and freshwater health Sustainability leadership and purpose Building and scaling a non-profit Personal resilience and reinvention after illness Adventure, endurance and mental performance Activism without perfectionism Ideal for Sustainability and ESG leads designing employee or community engagement programmes with measurable outcomes. CSR, foundation and purpose teams looking for a credible activist voice with operating substance. Leadership and culture programmes wanting a resilience and reinvention narrative with verifiable proof points. Conferences and offsites where a sustainability or wellbeing keynote needs a memorable lead voice. Audience outcomes A clear example of how citizen-led data collection translates environmental concern into evidence organisations can use. A working model for turning a single expedition or campaign into a long-term operating platform. A vivid case for personal reinvention after a serious health setback, told without sentiment. Language and arguments senior leaders can take back into their own sustainability and purpose conversations.

Why organisations work with Lizzie Daly She brings working scientist credentials, not commentator credentials. Her PhD research at Swansea University tracks animal movement with tag technology, including fieldwork on African elephants in Kenya and a male jaguar in the Pantanal. She has the broadcast craft to land a sustainability message with a non-specialist audience, with on-screen credits across BBC One, BBC Two, CBeebies, CBBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet and Love Nature. Conservation organisations trust her platform: ambassador for the Marine Conservation Society and the Jane Goodall Institute UK, and the first female patron of ORCA. She has a track record of hosting and moderating high-stakes industry moments, including the Wildscreen Panda Awards in 2018 and 2022 and over 50 hours of live content during Wildscreen 2020. Her expedition record, including a 140km solo run in the Finnish Arctic Circle at minus 35C, gives a credible second register on resilience and decision-making in extreme environments. Biography highlights Honorary Fellow of Swansea University and part-time PhD researcher there, with a research focus on animal movement through tag technology. Academic Teaching and Outreach Fellow at Swansea University. Undergraduate degree from the University of Exeter; research Masters from the University of Bristol. Author of Life in the Wild (DK, 2024), a children’s wildlife book illustrated by Chiara Fedele. Presenter credits include Weatherman Walking (BBC One), Curious Creatures (BBC Two), Winterwatch (BBC Two), The One Show (BBC One), Solved: Nature’s Greatest Mysteries (Animal Planet), Jaguar Journals (Love Nature) and Deep Dive Australia (Love Nature). Hosted the Wildscreen Panda Awards in 2018 and 2022, and live-hosted the Wildscreen festival in 2020. Ambassador for the Marine Conservation Society and the Jane Goodall Institute UK, first female patron of ORCA, and ambassador for the Norwich Science Festival. Biography A barrel jellyfish the size of a human, filmed off the Cornish coast during Wild Ocean Week 2019, became one of the most-shared marine wildlife clips on the BBC that summer. The biologist in the water was Lizzie Daly, then mid-way through a seven-day expedition raising funds for the Marine Conservation Society. The clip travelled because the science was real and the storytelling was clean. Both qualities define how she now works with organisations on sustainability and conservation. Her academic base is Swansea University, where she is a part-time PhD researcher studying wildlife movement with tag technology and an Academic Teaching and Outreach Fellow. The fieldwork is specific and physical: deploying tracking tags on African elephants in Kenya, on a male jaguar in the Pantanal, and joining a 2022 scientific expedition to the Peruvian Amazon. Swansea has since named her an Honorary Fellow. The broadcasting CV runs in parallel. Recent series include Jaguar Journals and Deep Dive Australia for Love Nature, alongside earlier credits on BBC One, BBC Two, CBeebies, CBBC, National Geographic and Animal Planet. She has hosted the Wildscreen Panda Awards twice, in 2018 with Lewis Pugh and in 2022 with Dan O’Neill, and live-hosted more than 50 hours of Wildscreen festival content in 2020. For a corporate audience, this combination matters. A sustainability or ESG narrative that has to survive scrutiny needs a voice with field credibility, scientific training, and the storytelling judgement to keep a non-specialist audience with the argument. In September 2024 she published Life in the Wild with DK, a children’s title built on the same instinct: real animals, real movement data, told without hype. Key speaking topics Sustainability and environmental responsibility Marine conservation and ocean health Wildlife biology and animal movement science Climate communication for non-specialist audiences Conservation storytelling and public engagement Resilience and performance in extreme environments Hosting and moderation of awards, conferences and live formats Ideal for Chief sustainability officers, ESG leads and corporate affairs teams shaping external sustainability narratives. Boards and leadership offsites adding scientific credibility to climate, ocean and biodiversity discussions. Conference and awards organisers who need a host who can carry a science-led programme on stage. Internal events focused on purpose, employee engagement and connecting people to environmental commitments. Audience outcomes A clearer sense of what current wildlife and ocean science actually shows, beyond headline narratives. Practical reference points for talking about sustainability with employees, customers and stakeholders without resorting to slogans. A vivid set of field stories, from Arctic expeditions to jaguar tracking, that audiences can recall and retell. Renewed conviction about the role organisations can play in marine and wildlife conservation, grounded in named partner organisations.

Why organisations work with Lizzy Yarnold One of two athletes in history to defend an Olympic skeleton title, and the only British Winter Olympian ever to retain a gold. The credibility of repeating the result, not just achieving it once, is the central proof point. Speaks from a sport where mistakes are measured in hundredths of a second and decisions happen at 80mph. The transfer to high-stakes commercial decision-making is direct, not metaphorical. Brings the inside view of UK Sport’s Girls4Gold talent-identification programme, a system designed to find and develop performers from outside the obvious pipeline. Useful for HR and talent leaders thinking about non-traditional pathways. Comfortable in honest territory: she retired after a vestibular disorder, a chest infection at the Games, and surgery on her knee and back. The story of what high performance costs is part of the offer, not glossed over. Sits on the British Olympic Association athlete commission and works as a BBC analyst, so the perspective is current rather than retrospective. Biography highlights Olympic gold, women’s skeleton, Sochi 2014 – winning margin of 0.97 seconds, the largest in Winter Olympic skeleton history. Olympic gold, women’s skeleton, PyeongChang 2018 – the first British athlete to retain a Winter Olympic title. World Championship gold (Winterberg, 2015) and European Championship gold (Igls, 2015), completing skeleton’s grand slam alongside Olympic and World Cup titles. Overall Skeleton World Cup winner, 2013-14 season. OBE for services to skeleton (2018), upgraded from MBE awarded in 2014. Honorary doctorate of science, University of Kent (2018). BBC analyst for Winter Olympic skeleton and luge coverage. Member of the British Olympic Association athlete commission. Biography The 2014 Sochi gold was won by 0.97 seconds. In a sport where podium positions are usually settled by hundredths, that margin is closer to a different category of performance than a different result. Lizzy Yarnold won that race after fewer than four years on the international circuit. Then she did it again in PyeongChang, the first British athlete to retain a Winter Olympic title. The route in is worth noting. Yarnold was a club-level heptathlete identified by UK Sport’s Girls4Gold programme in 2008, a scheme built specifically to find Olympic-level athletes from outside the established sporting pipeline. She went from sled debut to Olympic champion in roughly five years, trained at Team Bath, and read Geography and Sport & Exercise Science at the University of Gloucestershire. What organisations get from her is the part of high performance that does not photograph well. The 2018 campaign was run through a vestibular disorder that affected her balance, a chest infection during the Games, and surgery on her knee and back shortly afterwards. The lesson she draws from it is operational rather than inspirational: how to keep making the right small decision when the conditions for the right big one have disappeared. Since retiring she has worked as a BBC analyst for Winter Olympic skeleton and luge coverage and sat on the British Olympic Association athlete commission. Corporate audiences have included Deloitte, Jaguar Land Rover, Eli Lilly, The Pipeline, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Key speaking topics Sustained high performance Resilience under pressure Talent identification and non-traditional pathways Goal setting and execution discipline Team performance in elite environments Leadership through preparation Managing change after peak success Ideal for Senior leadership teams entering a second strategic cycle after a major win High-performance and sales teams operating in narrow-margin environments HR and talent leaders rethinking pipelines and identification Graduate, leadership development and emerging-talent programmes Audience outcomes A grounded view of what defending a position takes once the original conditions have changed A specific account of how elite athletes structure preparation, recovery and competition decisions An honest framing of the cost of high performance, useful for wellbeing and retention conversations A model for talent identification drawn from a programme designed to find outliers, not develop incumbents A compelling, named-stakes story of two Olympic finals, told first-hand

Why organisations work with Loris Spinelli A live factory contract with Lamborghini Squadra Corse, the kind of role only a handful of drivers in the world hold at any one time, gives audiences direct access to how a global manufacturer engineers performance under public pressure. Five Lamborghini Super Trofeo championships across European and North American series, plus the 2023 IMSA GTD class win at Petit Le Mans, give him verifiable proof points rather than career anecdotes. Endurance racing experience at Daytona and Spa, where outcomes hinge on hours of driver rotation, fatigue management and team radio discipline, lends itself to genuine cross-over conversations on team performance. Speaks fluent English and Italian and is based in the United States, which makes him a workable fit for European and US corporate audiences without translation. Biography highlights Lamborghini Squadra Corse factory GT3 driver since the 2024 season. Five-time Lamborghini Super Trofeo champion across Europe Pro, Europe Pro-Am and North America Pro classes, 2015 to 2023. GTD class winner at the 2023 Motul Petit Le Mans with Forte Racing; runner-up in GTD at Petit Le Mans 2024. KF2 karting World Cup winner, 2011. Competes in the IMSA SportsCar Championship and GT World Challenge Europe series. Italian, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Biography GT3 endurance racing is one of the few professional environments where a small group of people, working under physical strain and live television coverage, has to take coordinated decisions every few seconds for hours at a time. Loris Spinelli has built a career inside that environment. Since 2024 he has been a factory driver for Lamborghini Squadra Corse, the manufacturer’s works GT3 programme, having come through its junior driver development pipeline. His record on track is specific and verifiable. He has won five Lamborghini Super Trofeo championships across European and North American series between 2015 and 2023, and took the GTD class win at the 2023 Motul Petit Le Mans with Forte Racing, recovering from three drive-through penalties to do so. The same crew finished second in class at Petit Le Mans in 2024 by under a second. That body of work gives him a usable language for corporate audiences on the things motorsport actually teaches: how a factory team prepares for races it cannot fully predict, how drivers handle the gap between data and judgement, how composure under sustained pressure is built rather than summoned. He works in English and Italian and is based in Florida, which makes him accessible to both US and European programmes. His most useful contribution to a leadership audience is not the racing footage. It is the description, from someone currently inside it, of how a global performance organisation routinely turns long preparation into a few seconds of execution and then debriefs honestly enough to do it again the following weekend. Key speaking topics High-performance culture inside a factory motorsport team Composure and decision-making under pressure Preparation, debrief and continuous improvement Team trust and communication in endurance racing Resilience after setbacks and penalties Italian motorsport and the Lamborghini Squadra Corse programme Ideal for Sales kick-offs and incentive events where a credible elite performer is the anchor Leadership offsites focused on composure, recovery and team discipline Automotive, luxury and hospitality clients with a brand affinity to motorsport Italian and bilingual European audiences Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a current factory GT3 driver prepares for high-stakes endurance races. A working definition of team trust drawn from driver-engineer-pit communication, not a generic team metaphor. A specific example of recovering from setbacks during a race, anchored in the 2023 Petit Le Mans win. Practical reflections on what high-performance culture looks like inside a global manufacturer’s works programme.

Why organisations work with Louie Gravance He authored core content for “Disney’s Approach to Quality Service” at the Disney Institute, the programme that taught Disney’s service operating model to outside corporate clients. Buyers get the curriculum source, not a second-hand interpretation of it. His post-Disney consulting work has produced named, large-scale service campaigns for Bank of America, ING Financial, Choice Hotels, Nikon and Microbac Technologies. The work has a commercial track record outside theme parks. He treats service as stagecraft. His frameworks (the P.L.A.N. model, the Ten Skills of the Service Superhero, the Seven Secrets for Crafting WOW Service Experiences) give frontline managers something to teach on Monday, not a philosophy to absorb. He continues to work inside live guest operations, including the Ollivanders Wand Experience at Universal Orlando’s Diagon Alley. The content is sharpened on a working stage, not refined in a slide deck. The book Service is a Superpower: Lessons Learned in a Magic Kingdom (Mascot Books, 2020) gives organisations a takeaway that travels into the team after the keynote ends. Biography highlights 25-plus years at the Walt Disney Company, including curriculum design at the Disney Institute in Orlando. Lead designer on Disney’s “Approach to Quality Service” programme for external corporate clients. Architect of multi-million-dollar service campaigns for Bank of America, ING Financial, Choice Hotels, Nikon, Microbac Technologies and the American Council of Independent Laboratories. Author, Service is a Superpower: Lessons Learned in a Magic Kingdom (Mascot Books, 2020). Opening team member for Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley at Universal Orlando from 2014; continues to perform at the Ollivanders Wand Experience. Recipient of Disney’s Partners in Excellence Award and the Spirit of Disney Award. Biography The hardest part of a service strategy is not writing it. It is the moment when a brand promise meets a tired employee at the end of a long shift. Disney’s operating answer to that problem was not a slogan. It was a curriculum, and Louie Gravance helped build it. Inside the Disney Institute in Orlando, Gravance was part of the team that turned the theme park’s service model into “Disney’s Approach to Quality Service,” the programme that exported the company’s frontline practice to outside corporates. That work sat on top of a longer Disney career: live entertainment design, cast training, and the daily craft of running guest experiences at scale. He spent over 25 years inside the company. The post-Disney work moves the same operating logic into industries where service is the product but the theatre is harder to see. His campaigns include Bank of America’s “Spirit” initiative, alongside named programmes for ING Financial, Choice Hotels, Nikon, Microbac Technologies and the American Council of Independent Laboratories. The book that distils this practice, Service is a Superpower: Lessons Learned in a Magic Kingdom (Mascot Books, 2020), is structured around what he calls the Ten Skills of the Service Superhero. He has not left the operational stage. Since 2014 he has been part of the team behind the Ollivanders Wand Experience inside Universal Orlando’s Diagon Alley, where the content he teaches to corporate clients is tested on real guests, several times a day. Key speaking topics Customer experience and service culture Employee engagement on the frontline Hospitality and member-services operating practice Service storytelling and brand moments Difficult customer interactions Disney-trained service design Ideal for CX, customer service and member-services leaders in financial services, retail, hospitality and healthcare CMOs and brand leaders whose customer promise depends on frontline delivery HR and L&D directors building service onboarding and engagement programmes Franchise, branch and field operations leaders running distributed service teams Audience outcomes A working definition of what a “WOW moment” is and how it is constructed, not described. Specific tools (P.L.A.N., the Ten Skills of the Service Superhero) that translate brand intent into frontline behaviour. A method for handling difficult customer interactions without scripting employees into rigidity. A clear separation between service performance and customer service technology, with the human craft restored to the centre. A model for treating employee engagement as the precondition for service quality, not a parallel HR programme.

Why organisations work with Lucy Bloom She has run mission-driven organisations through real turnarounds, including a $7 million fundraising programme at Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia and a model shift from orphanage to community development at Sunrise Cambodia. Her leadership material is drawn from those decisions, not from theory. She is one of a small number of Australian leaders to appear on the global Top 30 #SocialCEOs list, which gives her credibility with audiences that care about purpose translated into delivery. She combines a long commercial career, two decades running a boutique advertising agency, with senior charity leadership. That cross-sector range lets her speak credibly to both corporate and not-for-profit rooms. As a HarperCollins-published author and frequent contributor to ABC, Sky News, the Australian Financial Review and CEO Magazine, she has the public communication craft to hold a senior audience for a full keynote. Biography highlights Founding CEO, Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia (Australia); raised over $7 million for hospitals and a midwifery school in Ethiopia. CEO, Sunrise Cambodia; led the transition from orphanage model to community-first programmes. First and only Australian named to the global Top 30 #SocialCEOs list. Two-time finalist, Telstra Business Woman of the Year Awards. Author of three books across three genres, including the HarperCollins memoir Get the Girls Out (2019). Speaking and writing platform spanning ABC, Sky News, Today, the Australian Financial Review, CEO Magazine and Australian Vogue. Biography Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia is a women’s health charity working in one of the most demanding operating environments in the world. It needed money, a credible Australian operation, and a leader who could hold both the cause and the donor relationships. Lucy Bloom was the founding CEO. Over a few years the Australian arm raised more than $7 million for hospitals and a midwifery school in Ethiopia. She was then headhunted by Sunrise Cambodia, a children’s charity that needed to move away from the orphanage model toward community-first development. She led that transition. She is the first and only Australian on the global Top 30 #SocialCEOs list, a recognition that tracks operating substance rather than profile. Before the charity sector she spent two decades building and running a boutique advertising agency. That commercial track record is why her material lands in corporate rooms as well as not-for-profit ones. Clients she has spoken to include Deloitte, Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, JP Morgan, Amazon Web Services, McDonald’s and Tourism Australia. She is the author of three books across three genres, including the HarperCollins memoir Get the Girls Out, and a regular contributor and interviewee in Australian national media. The throughline across the work is straightforward: how leaders convert conviction into results when the resources are tight and the stakes are real. Key speaking topics Creative leadership Values-based leadership and kindness at work Purpose-driven organisations Resilience and reinvention Storytelling and business communication Change leadership in mission-driven settings Ideal for CEOs and executive teams in mission-driven and purpose-led organisations Boards and leadership teams in not-for-profits and foundations Corporate leadership audiences working on values, culture and purpose Conferences with a women-in-leadership or social-impact track Audience outcomes A working account of how a charity CEO raises seven figures and rebuilds an operating model under constraint. Specific examples of values-based decisions made in real conditions, not as theory. A reframed view of creative leadership as a discipline that produces commercial and social results, not a personality trait. Practical communication craft from a published author and broadcast contributor.

Why organisations work with Lucy Shepherd She has actually led teams through conditions where decisions carry physical consequence: a 50-day, 400km first-recorded crossing of Guyana’s Kanuku Mountains with an Indigenous Macushi and Wapishana team, captured in Channel 4’s Secret Amazon: Into the Wild. Her credentials sit inside the institutions that historically define exploration: Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society at 23, co-opted council member of the Scientific Exploration Society, with a Penguin Michael Joseph book, Into the Wild, that documents the thinking behind the expedition. She speaks credibly to mixed-team leadership in cultures and conditions she does not control, a closer analogy for senior leaders running global teams than the usual sports or military comparisons. She brings a current, on-camera profile, rather than a single-event story repeated for years. Each new expedition and broadcast updates the material she draws on. Biography highlights Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, appointed at age 23. Co-opted council member of the Scientific Exploration Society. Led the first recorded east-to-west traverse of Guyana’s Kanuku Mountains, a 50-day, 400km expedition with an all-Indigenous team. Author of Into the Wild, published by Penguin Michael Joseph. Star and self-shooting subject of Channel 4’s Secret Amazon: Into the Wild, a two-part series that aired in 2024. Described by The Times as «the most hardcore member of the new generation of British adventurers». Biography The first recorded east-to-west crossing of Guyana’s Kanuku Mountains took 50 days and roughly 400 kilometres on foot. Lucy Shepherd led it in 2021 with an Indigenous Macushi and Wapishana team, navigating jungle, river and uncharted terrain on outdated maps. Channel 4 turned the expedition into Secret Amazon: Into the Wild, broadcast in 2024. Shepherd’s credentials read like an older era of exploration. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society at 23 and co-opted onto the council of the Scientific Exploration Society, the bodies that have historically vetted serious British expedition work. The Times has called her «the most hardcore member of the new generation of British adventurers,» a line that travels because it is uncharacteristically literal about what she does. The keynote material draws on a decade of leading and joining expeditions across Arctic plateaus, high mountains, deep jungle and desert. The themes that recur are practical: composure when conditions degrade, trust built across cultural and language boundaries, decisions made on incomplete information, and the discipline of carrying on when the plan no longer applies. Her Penguin Michael Joseph book, Into the Wild, sets out the thinking behind those decisions in long form. Senior audiences tend to find the analogy useful because the field she works in is unforgiving in ways business rarely is. The leadership questions translate without softening, and the speaker bringing them has carried the consequences personally. Key speaking topics Expedition leadership in extreme environments Decision-making under physical and psychological pressure Leading mixed and cross-cultural teams Risk, preparation and the limits of planning Wilderness, biodiversity and environmental stewardship Resilience drawn from expedition fieldwork Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and partner conferences seeking a substantive keynote on judgment under pressure Teams coming through restructure, sustained change, or operational shock who need a renewed sense of composure and trust Sustainability, ESG and conservation-themed audiences who want a credible field voice rather than a policy speaker All-hands and inspirational anchor slots where the standard sports or military keynote has worn thin Audience outcomes A grounded sense of what real decision-making under pressure looks like, told through a specific 50-day expedition rather than abstract framework. A more honest reading of risk, preparation and the point at which planning stops being useful. A practical model for building trust across a team when language, culture and authority are not stable. A renewed argument for protecting wilderness and biodiversity, made by someone who has spent time inside it.