Business Continuity and Crisis Management speakers

Why organisations work with Robert Mazur Twenty-seven years across IRS Criminal Investigation, US Customs and the DEA gives him a breadth of federal financial-crime experience that is rare in the speaker circuit and specifically relevant to banking and regulated audiences. Operation C-Chase, his two-year undercover infiltration of Pablo Escobar’s money-laundering network and BCCI, one of the largest private banks in the world at the time, is one of the most studied financial-crime cases in history, and it is his case to tell. The Infiltrator, his New York Times bestseller, was adapted into a 2016 feature film starring Bryan Cranston, which gives audiences a shared cultural reference point before the session begins. His court certification as a money-laundering expert in the US and Canada means his material holds up in front of compliance, legal and risk audiences who will test it against their own casework. He combines war-story delivery with technical specificity, which is useful for organisations that need to energise a compliance programme without sacrificing the substance. Biography highlights Former US federal agent, 27-year career across IRS Criminal Investigation, US Customs Service and DEA Led Operation C-Chase, the mid-1980s undercover investigation of Pablo Escobar’s money-laundering network and BCCI Undercover alias «Robert Musella» for two years inside a $20 billion global banking fraud Court-certified money-laundering expert in the United States and Canada Author of The Infiltrator, New York Times bestseller, adapted into a 2016 feature film starring Bryan Cranston Author of second memoir The Betrayal Biography The Bank of Credit and Commerce International had $20 billion in assets and operations across more than 70 countries when Robert Mazur, posing as New Jersey businessman «Robert Musella», spent two years inside its money-laundering operations. Operation C-Chase, the US government infiltration he led, ultimately produced one of the most consequential financial-crime prosecutions of the twentieth century and the collapse of BCCI itself. The same investigation reached Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel, which was using the bank to move drug proceeds through the global financial system. His route to that case was a 27-year federal career that ran through IRS Criminal Investigation, the US Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Mazur is court-certified as a money-laundering expert in both the United States and Canada, which gives his analysis the standing to be cited in compliance programmes rather than simply admired in a keynote. The public record of the work is extensive. The Infiltrator, his bestselling memoir, was adapted into the 2016 feature film of the same name starring Bryan Cranston. His second memoir, The Betrayal, continues the inside account of how undercover operations against narcotics and money launderers are actually run, and where institutional complicity makes them possible. For global banks, compliance functions, regulators, law-enforcement audiences and corporate risk teams, the value proposition is direct. Mazur does not speak about financial crime; he speaks as someone whose work closed one of the largest laundering operations in financial history. The sessions combine the specific mechanics of how criminal networks move money with a clear-eyed view of what banks consistently fail to catch, and why. Key speaking topics Money laundering and the anatomy of financial crime Undercover investigations and infiltration methodology Banking compliance, AML and the weaknesses professional launderers exploit Drug cartels, organised crime and the global financial system Lessons from the BCCI and Pablo Escobar investigations Risk, governance and executive accountability for financial crime Ideal for Global banks, payment firms and fintech leadership teams strengthening financial-crime programmes Compliance, risk, audit and governance functions running internal training or board briefings Financial services regulators, supervisors and law-enforcement audiences Corporate risk leadership teams and boards exposed to financial-crime reputational risk Audience outcomes A detailed, first-hand view of how professional money launderers assess and exploit banking institutions Specific mechanisms used in the BCCI and Pablo Escobar cases, framed for modern compliance audiences A clearer read of where current AML and KYC approaches still fall short Practical prompts for internal programme design drawn from undercover investigative experience A reference point in The Infiltrator that leadership teams can share with wider compliance staff

Why organisations work with Rory Cormac He brings archival-grade authority on how states actually conduct covert action, drawn from declassified British and allied intelligence records, not commentary or speculation. His work on the grey zone gives boards a structured way to read sabotage, subversion and information operations as connected forms of state pressure, not isolated incidents. He translates the playbooks of Russian and Chinese covert activity into specific implications for industries exposed to critical infrastructure, supply chains and intellectual property. How to Stage a Coup (Atlantic, 2022) is one of the few mainstream studies of secret statecraft to be taken seriously by both academic intelligence scholars and practitioners. Fakers (Oxford University Press, 2026) reads the British Cold War forgery operations as a working playbook for present-day state disinformation, giving leaders a historical pattern they can apply to current incidents. He has given oral evidence on foreign interference to parliamentary inquiries in both the UK and Australia, and has fronted three Channel 4 documentaries with Richard Aldrich on intelligence and the British state, making him equally credible in front of policy committees, expert rooms and public audiences. Biography highlights Professor of International Relations and lead for security and resilience research at the University of Nottingham, specialising in secret intelligence and covert action. Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; previous Leverhulme and AHRC Fellowships. Author of Fakers (Oxford University Press, 2026) on state disinformation, How to Stage a Coup (Atlantic, 2022), Disrupt and Deny (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Confronting the Colonies (Hurst, 2014). Co-author with Richard J. Aldrich of The Black Door and The Secret Royals: Spying and the Crown from Victoria to Diana (Atlantic, 2021). Co-presenter of three Channel 4 documentaries: Spying on the Royals, D-Day: The King who Fooled Hitler, The Queen and the Coup. Has given oral evidence on foreign interference to parliamentary inquiries in the UK and Australia, with regular appearances across national press, radio and television on intelligence matters. Biography Most boards still treat espionage as a film genre. The pipeline interruption, the leaked tender, the social media campaign that crashes a launch, the supplier suddenly entangled in a sanctions investigation: these are read as separate operational problems, not as connected acts of state pressure. The work of Rory Cormac, Professor of International Relations at the University of Nottingham, is to give senior leaders the language and the historical pattern recognition to see them as one problem. Cormac is Professor of International Relations and lead for security and resilience research at the University of Nottingham, specialising in covert action and secret statecraft. His authority is built on archival research into declassified British and allied records, the basis of Disrupt and Deny (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Confronting the Colonies (Hurst, 2014). With Richard J. Aldrich he co-authored The Black Door and The Secret Royals, broadening that material into a wider reading of how states use the hidden hand. How to Stage a Coup (Atlantic, 2022) brought the argument into the present. Eleven lessons drawn from a century of secret statecraft, applied to a world of sabotage, ambiguous warfare and adversaries operating just below the threshold of open conflict. Fakers (Oxford University Press, 2026) extends the work into disinformation directly, using the declassified history of Britain’s Cold War forgery operations to read the mechanics of present-day state influence campaigns. Both books sit at the centre of current debates on the grey zone among scholars and practitioners alike. Beyond the academy he is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a former Leverhulme and AHRC Fellow, and a co-presenter with Aldrich of three Channel 4 documentaries on intelligence and the British state. He has also given oral evidence to parliamentary inquiries on foreign interference in both the UK and Australia. The result is a speaker who can hold a room of historians, a corporate security committee, and a Hay Festival audience using the same material. Key speaking topics Covert action and secret statecraft Grey-zone conflict and hybrid threats Russian and Chinese subversion Disinformation and information warfare Intelligence history and the modern state Political risk for critical infrastructure and IP-heavy sectors Resilience against sabotage and infiltration Ideal for Boards and risk committees in defence, energy, telecoms and critical infrastructure Chief security officers, heads of corporate intelligence and political risk leads Government, military and policy audiences working on national resilience Industry associations and conferences focused on geopolitical exposure Audience outcomes A clearer reading of how state adversaries combine sabotage, subversion and disinformation against commercial targets A working vocabulary for the grey zone that makes specific incidents legible as part of a larger pattern A historically grounded view of Russian and Chinese covert practice, rather than headline impressions Sharper questions for security, communications and supply-chain teams about where the organisation is exposed A sense of where the boundary sits between state interference and ordinary commercial risk

Why organisations work with Ryan Tillman Conflict and de-escalation content built from real shifts on patrol and in crisis negotiation, not adapted from a corporate training module. A direct, lived perspective on bias and inclusion from someone who once distrusted policing and chose to join it, which lands with audiences who have tuned out of standard DEI sessions. Author of Happy Eyes: Becoming All Things To All People, with a foreword by Dak Prescott and afterword by Gordon Graham, giving the keynote a published spine that leaders can read and pass on. Founder of Breaking Barriers United, a programme used by law enforcement agencies and corporate clients to rebuild communication between groups that have stopped trusting each other. Significant earned reach through the #ITSNEEDED podcast and a social audience that has accumulated over 100 million views, which lifts internal engagement before and after the event. Biography highlights Police Officer, Chino Police Department, Southern California, since 2013. Founder and CEO, Breaking Barriers United LLC. Author, Happy Eyes: Becoming All Things To All People, foreword by Dak Prescott, afterword by Gordon Graham, endorsed by Michael Strahan. Host, #ITSNEEDED podcast, with more than one million downloads. Featured on FOX 11 Los Angeles, NBC Los Angeles, ABC News and Voyage LA. Training and content partnerships with Lexipol, Open Sesame and the Heal America Movement. Biography Most organisational fractures begin as a communication problem. A manager misreads a team member, a customer interaction tips into hostility, a difficult conversation gets postponed until it becomes a grievance. The skills that prevent those failures are the same ones a patrol officer learns in the first minute of a call, and they are rarely taught inside corporate training. Ryan Tillman built his career inside that gap. A serving officer with the Chino Police Department in Southern California, he founded Breaking Barriers United to address what he saw on both sides of the badge: a breakdown in trust between people who needed to understand each other to function. The work began in policing and quickly moved into workplaces, where the underlying dynamics, bias, fear, misread intent, were identical. His book, Happy Eyes: Becoming All Things To All People, with a foreword by Dak Prescott and afterword by Gordon Graham, sets out the operating philosophy: meet people where they are, lead with respect, and use empathy as a practical tool rather than a slogan. The #ITSNEEDED podcast has carried that material into more than a million downloads, and his social channels have accumulated over 100 million views across appearances on FOX 11 LA, NBC Los Angeles and ABC News. What he brings into a corporate room is not motivation. It is a working method for the conversations that decide whether a culture holds together: how to read a situation before it escalates, how to disagree without losing trust, how to lead across difference without retreating into policy. Senior teams take from him the same thing his colleagues do on patrol, a steadier set of instincts for the moments that matter most. Key speaking topics Communication and trust at work De-escalation and conflict resolution Bias, inclusion and bridging divides Leadership under pressure Crisis response and personal safety Culture change in operational environments Empathy as a practical leadership skill Ideal for CHROs, heads of culture and DEI sponsors looking for content on inclusion that lands with sceptical audiences. Safety, security and risk leaders responsible for de-escalation, customer-facing conflict and frontline workforce protection. Senior leadership teams in operationally complex sectors (healthcare, retail, transport, public services) where communication failures carry real cost. Internal events focused on rebuilding engagement and trust after restructure, layoffs or visible cultural strain. Audience outcomes A clearer read on how everyday interactions either build or erode trust inside a team. Specific techniques for de-escalating conflict before it becomes a formal incident. A more confident vocabulary for talking about bias and difference without defaulting to slogans. A practical model for leading across viewpoints that disagree, drawn from policing and negotiation practice. A renewed sense among managers that culture is set in their own conversations, not in the policy document.

Why organisations work with Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton Her Decision Control Process derived from helmet-camera research on real operational commands, not simulation, is the only evidence-based framework of its kind adopted nationally, now embedded in UK National Operational Guidance and JESIP doctrine governing all blue-light services at major incidents. Her central research finding – that 80% of decisions made by experienced commanders are instinctive, and that goal-oriented training can increase situational awareness up to five times – gives leadership teams a specific, measurable basis for redesigning how they develop judgement under pressure. She is both a serving Chief Fire Officer and an active researcher at Cardiff University, meaning her framework is continuously stress-tested against real operational consequences – not archived after publication. Her second book, The Gender Bias (2023), extends the same empirical approach to the structural barriers holding women back at work – giving CHROs and boards a research-grounded contribution to progression strategy rather than advocacy. Her awards span operational command and academic research: the King’s Fire Service Medal, the APA Early Career Award, the APA Raymond Nickerson Best Paper Award, and the BBSRC Innovator of the Year honour represent recognition from named bodies across both domains. Biography highlights Chief Fire Officer, Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service (first woman to hold this post); formerly CFO, West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service; Deputy Assistant Commissioner, London Fire Brigade PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience, Cardiff University; Honorary Professor of Behavioural Neuroscience, Cardiff University; Chartered Psychologist, British Psychological Society; Chartered Companion, Chartered Management Institute Developed the Decision Control Process – adopted by every UK fire and rescue service, embedded in National Operational Guidance for incident command and in JESIP doctrine King’s Fire Service Medal (King’s Birthday Honours); APA Early Career Award (2016); APA Raymond Nickerson Best Paper Award (2018); BBSRC Innovator of the Year (2018) Author: The Heat of the Moment (Penguin Books, 2019) and The Gender Bias (2023) Featured on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs; named among Marie Claire’s Future Shapers; Cosmopolitan Millennial Power List; Big Issue Top 100 Changemakers Biography When researchers at Cardiff University fitted helmet cameras to experienced incident commanders during live operational responses, the footage was unambiguous: eight in ten decisions were made on instinct, with structured analytical frameworks bypassed entirely. That finding became the foundation of the Decision Control Process: a rapid mental checklist developed by Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton and subsequently adopted by every UK fire and rescue service. The research reshaped National Operational Guidance for incident command and is embedded in JESIP doctrine, the framework governing decision-making across all blue-light services at major incidents. It is a rare case of behavioural science research moving directly from peer-reviewed publication to national policy. Dr Cohen-Hatton holds a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience from Cardiff University, where she is an Honorary Professor, and is currently Chief Fire Officer of Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service: the first woman to lead that service. Her operational career spans South Wales, Surrey, London, and West Sussex, and includes command roles during the Westminster Bridge and Finsbury Park terror attacks and in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire. She is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and a Chartered Companion of the Chartered Management Institute. Her second book, The Gender Bias (2023), applies the same empirical lens to structural barriers in organisational progression: a data-led analysis of why women are judged differently at work and what organisations can do to address it. Alongside the King’s Fire Service Medal, the APA Early Career Award, the APA Raymond Nickerson Best Paper Award, and the BBSRC Innovator of the Year honour, her profile extends well beyond emergency services audiences: Desert Island Discs, Marie Claire, and Cosmopolitan have all featured her work. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Behavioural neuroscience and leadership judgement Incident command and human factors Organisational learning from high-stakes incidents Crisis command and situational awareness Gender bias and structural barriers to progression Social mobility and leadership resilience Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership teams in regulated, risk-critical, or high-consequence sectors CHROs and senior talent leads focused on women’s progression at executive level Risk, safety, resilience, and business continuity officers Senior leadership development programmes addressing performance and judgement under pressure Audience outcomes A concrete understanding of how instinct and intuition dominate decision-making under pressure, and where that creates measurable organisational risk Familiarity with the Decision Control Process and its evidence base, with direct implications for how leadership development programmes should be designed A research-grounded framework for diagnosing and addressing structural barriers to women’s progression in senior roles Greater awareness of how human factors – not just technical failure – contribute to adverse outcomes in complex, high-stakes environments A perspective on leadership judgement formed from decades of active operational command at the most senior level in UK emergency services

Why organisations work with Sam McAlister She is the negotiator who landed the 2019 Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew on the Epstein scandal, after almost a year of patient access work with Buckingham Palace. Few speakers can teach reputational negotiation from inside a case at that altitude. She teaches negotiation as a Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice at the LSE Law School, which gives the methodology academic structure, not just war stories. Her book Scoops, published by Oneworld in 2022, was adapted as the Netflix film Scoop in 2024 with Billie Piper. The material has been stress-tested by film, television and law school audiences. Two careers, criminal defence at 25 Bedford Row and a decade as a Newsnight booker, mean her toolkit covers cross-examination, hostile interview preparation, and the negotiation tactics that actually work when the counterparty has every reason to walk away. Biography highlights Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice, London School of Economics Law School, teaching negotiation. Former BBC Newsnight interviews producer for approximately ten years; left in 2021 after voluntary redundancy. Trained criminal defence barrister, 25 Bedford Row chambers, London. Author of Scoops: Behind the Scenes of the BBC’s Most Shocking Interviews (Oneworld Publications, 2022). Subject of the 2024 Netflix film Scoop, portrayed by Billie Piper. Secured the 2019 BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew on the Epstein scandal; the programme received a 2020 BAFTA Television Award nomination for News Coverage. Biography The BBC Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew aired in November 2019 and ended his public life. The booker who spent close to a year negotiating that access was Sam McAlister, then a producer on the programme and previously a criminal defence barrister at 25 Bedford Row. That career sequence matters. Cross-examination teaches a particular discipline: prepare the question for the answer you actually want, do not flinch when the room shifts, do not concede the frame. Booker work at a national news programme adds a second discipline, the patient, repeated conversation with a reluctant counterparty who can leave the table at any moment. McAlister now teaches that craft formally. She is a Visiting Senior Fellow in Practice at the LSE Law School, where her remit is negotiation. Her 2022 memoir Scoops, published by Oneworld, became the source material for the 2024 Netflix film Scoop, with Billie Piper in the lead. The Newsnight programme that anchors both was nominated at the 2020 BAFTA Television Awards in the News Coverage category. What this gives a corporate audience is rare: a working method for the conversations leaders most often delegate or duck. How to keep a reluctant counterparty in dialogue. How to prepare for an interview where every answer is reputationally live. How a calm, prepared, well-briefed presence wins access that money and seniority cannot. Key speaking topics High-stakes negotiation Crisis communication and reputational risk Persuasion and influence Media interviews and executive preparation Composure under public scrutiny Access and relationship-building with reluctant counterparties Ideal for CEOs, board chairs and general counsel facing reputational scrutiny or media exposure Heads of corporate affairs, communications and investor relations Senior leaders preparing for hostile interviews, regulatory hearings or contested negotiations Women’s leadership programmes and executive development cohorts focused on persuasion under pressure Audience outcomes A working frame for negotiating access and agreement when the counterparty has every reason to refuse. A practical method for preparing executives for high-pressure interviews, including the questions they hope no one asks. A read on what reputational risk looks like from the journalist’s side of the table, before it lands on yours. Tools for staying composed and on-message when the room turns adversarial.

Why organisations work with Scott Parazynski He is the only person on record to have both flown in space and summited Everest, giving every preparation and recovery argument the weight of a verifiable case study rather than an analogy. His STS-120 solar array repair, 90 feet from the airlock on a live, energised structure, is a documented worked example of decision-making at the edge of available data. Few speakers can hand a board that kind of primary material. A Stanford-trained physician and Harvard-trained emergency clinician, he brings a clinician’s discipline to how teams triage information when something is genuinely going wrong. As founder of Fluidity Technologies and CEO of OnwardAir, he speaks about innovation and risk from inside two operating aerospace companies, not from a podium career. His material on calculated risk versus reckless risk is built from cases where the distinction was tested in real time, which lands with audiences who have heard the metaphor too many times. Biography highlights Five Space Shuttle missions and seven spacewalks across 17 years at NASA, including service as EVA Branch Chief. Performed the STS-120 repair of a live P6 solar array tethered on the OBSS boom approximately 90 feet from the airlock. First person to fly in space and summit Mount Everest, reaching the summit on 20 May 2009. Stanford University BS Biology; Stanford Medical School MD; Harvard emergency medicine training. Author of The Sky Below: A True Story of Summits, Space and Speed, co-written with Susy Flory (Little A, 2017). Inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame, 2016; recipient of five NASA Spaceflight Medals and two NASA Distinguished Service Medals. Founder and CEO of Fluidity Technologies; currently leading OnwardAir, a hybrid-electric VTOL venture. Biography The fourth spacewalk of STS-120 in 2007 was not in any flight plan. A torn solar array on the International Space Station had to be repaired while still energised, and the astronaut sent to do it was tethered to a boom 90 feet from the airlock, further from safety than anyone had been before. The repair held. It is one of the most cited operational saves of the Shuttle era and the working example behind most of what Scott Parazynski now teaches leadership teams about decisions made on incomplete information. He spent 17 years at NASA, flying five Shuttle missions and conducting seven spacewalks for a total of around 47 hours outside the vehicle. He served as EVA Branch Chief, leading the office responsible for how astronauts work in vacuum. The clinical training behind that career, Stanford Medical School and Harvard emergency medicine, shapes how he describes preparation: as a structured rehearsal of failure, not as confidence-building. On 20 May 2009 he became the first person to have both flown in space and stood on the summit of Everest, after a ruptured lumbar disc forced him to abandon an earlier attempt and rebuild. The Sky Below, published with Susy Flory in 2017, is the long-form account. The book is useful here because it documents recovery and re-attempt, not just achievement. His current work is operational. He founded Fluidity Technologies, the single-handed 3D input controller spun out of his spacewalk experience, and now leads OnwardAir, a hybrid-electric VTOL venture. That gives boards a speaker who is currently running engineering teams under capital and regulatory pressure, not narrating a former career. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under extreme adversity Calculated risk versus reckless risk Team performance in high-consequence environments Preparation, rehearsal and failure recovery Innovation inside engineering-led organisations Human performance at the edge of physiology Building a culture where innovation is permitted and expected Ideal for Boards and executive teams designing crisis-response and operational resilience capability CEOs and COOs in safety-critical sectors: aerospace, energy, healthcare, infrastructure Engineering and R&D leadership teams setting risk thresholds for novel programmes Leadership-development cohorts for newly senior operators Audience outcomes A clearer language for distinguishing calculated risk from reckless risk inside their own decisions A working model of pre-mission rehearsal that they can adapt to their organisation’s failure modes A primary-source view of how a small team executes a non-rehearsed repair on a live system A more honest account of recovery from setback at the individual and team level A higher bar for what counts as preparation rather than reassurance

Why organisations work with Scott Tillema Practitioner authority that is genuinely operational. The negotiation craft was learned in live SWAT incidents in the Chicago area, not modelled in a classroom. That changes how a sceptical executive room receives the material. A single, transferable framework. The Four Pillars (Understanding, Timing, Delivery, Respect) gives an executive team a shared vocabulary they can use in the next M&A negotiation, regulator call, or internal escalation, not just remember from the talk. A proven public artefact. The TEDxNaperville talk “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators” has passed one million views, which means most participants arrive primed and engaged rather than cold. Cross-sector translation. The same material has been delivered to Microsoft, Citi, Vimeo, Bosch, YPO chapters across three continents, and audiences at SHRM and PMI conferences, which gives a buyer evidence that the content lands outside its origin context. A teaching credential at IMD. Five guest appearances on IMD Business School’s Advanced High Performance Leadership programme means the material has been pressure-tested in front of senior leaders inside one of Europe’s top executive education environments, not only on the keynote circuit. Biography highlights Twenty-plus years in law enforcement, retired SWAT hostage negotiator, Chicago area FBI-trained crisis negotiator Graduate degree in psychology and bachelor’s degree in behavioral science Negotiation training at Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and at IMD Business School Five-time guest speaker on IMD Business School’s Advanced High Performance Leadership programme TEDxNaperville speaker, “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators”, over one million views Founder of Negotiation Excellence, LLC; clients include Microsoft, Citi, Vimeo, Bosch, the FBI, Harvard University and YPO chapters Biography Most negotiation training in corporate settings is built on case studies. Scott Tillema’s is built on incidents where someone’s life depended on the next sentence. Twenty years as a SWAT hostage negotiator in the Chicago area, FBI-trained, and the work shows up in the room as composure rather than theory. The academic foundation is real as well. A graduate degree in psychology, an undergraduate degree in behavioral science, and negotiation training at both Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation and IMD Business School. The combination is what allows the operational material to be taught, not just demonstrated. Leaders leave with a framework they can use, not an anecdote they can retell. The framework is the Four Pillars: Understanding, Timing, Delivery, Respect. It was first laid out for a wider audience in the TEDxNaperville talk “The Secrets of Hostage Negotiators”, which has now passed one million views. The same model now anchors the executive sessions he runs through Negotiation Excellence, LLC for Microsoft, Citi, Vimeo, Bosch, YPO chapters across three continents, and audiences at SHRM and PMI conferences. It is also the basis on which IMD invited him back five times to its Advanced High Performance Leadership programme. What a senior team typically takes from a session is not a lecture on persuasion. It is a more disciplined posture in the conversations that actually decide things, the regulator call, the M&A walk-through, the internal escalation, the workforce announcement that has to land cleanly the first time. Key speaking topics High-stakes communication Crisis negotiation and de-escalation Influence without authority Conflict resolution Trust building Leading difficult conversations Decision-making under pressure Ideal for CEOs, COOs and senior leadership teams preparing for board, regulator, or workforce conversations where the first sentence sets the outcome HR, people and ER leaders managing escalations, restructure conversations, or formal grievance processes Sales, business development and commercial leaders running enterprise negotiations Crisis, security and legal teams who need their senior leaders fluent in de-escalation, not just trained in process Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the Four Pillars (Understanding, Timing, Delivery, Respect) that a leadership team can use in their own conversations the following week A more disciplined sense of when to slow a conversation down and when to move Practical de-escalation techniques drawn from live crisis negotiation, not workshop simulations Greater confidence in conversations where authority alone will not produce the outcome

Why organisations work with Terry Virts He has held command in an environment where a missed checklist item ends a mission. That experience reframes what risk discipline looks like inside a corporate operating model. His ISS tour was a multinational, multilingual command, including Russian, American, and European crew members during a politically tense period. He speaks credibly to leaders managing cross-border teams under strain. He filmed A Beautiful Planet from orbit and authored View From Above with National Geographic. The visual material is a working asset for keynote audiences, not a slideshow. The 2019 One More Orbit polar circumnavigation is a current, civilian, board-relevant case study in mission planning, contingency design, and small-team execution. He writes and speaks fluently on the practical content of command, not the metaphor of it. His book How to Astronaut is the operating manual version of his keynote material. Beyond the keynote, he runs an experiential exercise built on the Apollo 13 carbon dioxide emergency, where teams split into mission control and flight crew and build a working scrubber from mismatched parts against a countdown. The room lives the coordination problem under time pressure. Biography highlights Retired NASA astronaut, US Air Force colonel, and former F-16 test pilot with over 5,300 flight hours across 40-plus aircraft types. Pilot of STS-130 aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour, 2010. Commander of the International Space Station, Expedition 43, with 200 days in orbit and three spacewalks. Author of View From Above (National Geographic, 2017) and How to Astronaut (Workman Publishing, 2020). Lead astronaut cinematographer on the IMAX feature A Beautiful Planet, narrated by Jennifer Lawrence. Captain of the One More Orbit crew that set the FAI- and Guinness-certified world record for fastest pole-to-pole circumnavigation of Earth in July 2019. Biography A space station does not forgive a poorly briefed handover. Six people from three countries, in a structure travelling at 17,500 miles per hour, run on a checklist culture so disciplined it sounds bureaucratic until it saves a life. Terry Virts commanded that environment for Expedition 43, and the reason serious organisations book him is that the discipline travels. His route into that command is the spine of credibility. US Air Force Academy in Mathematics, F-16 pilot, test pilot, NASA selection in 2000, pilot of Space Shuttle Endeavour on STS-130, then 200 days aboard the ISS with three spacewalks and the command of a multinational crew. A General Management Program at Harvard Business School in 2011 sits in the middle of that arc, which matters: he reads commercial decision-making in the language an executive audience uses. The post-NASA work is where the speaking proposition sharpens. He photographed and filmed the ISS for the IMAX feature A Beautiful Planet, published View From Above with National Geographic, and wrote How to Astronaut for Workman in 2020. In 2019, he led the One More Orbit crew that circled the planet over both poles in 46 hours 40 minutes, setting the FAI- and Guinness-certified world record. It is a civilian mission with a board-room shape: small team, hard constraint, narrow window. What sets Virts apart from the broader astronaut speaker pool is how specific his operational material is. He does not deliver awe. He delivers the structure beneath the awe, which is what senior teams come for. Key speaking topics Crisis leadership and command decision-making Risk discipline in high-consequence operations Cross-cultural team leadership under pressure Mission planning and contingency design Lessons from human spaceflight for executive teams Innovation in extreme environments Earth observation and the climate perspective from orbit Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and operating leaders running businesses with high-consequence decisions Boards and executive committees focused on crisis preparedness and operational resilience Senior teams managing cross-border or multinational workforces under political strain Aerospace, defence, energy, and engineering leadership audiences Audience outcomes A working model of how command-grade decision discipline operates when checklists run out A clearer view of what risk leadership looks like in environments where errors are irreversible Concrete examples of multinational team management under sustained operational stress A perspective on Earth, climate, and human capability that lifts the room without softening the argument

Why organisations work with Jacinda Ardern Ardern made consequential governance decisions – not advisory ones – during a live-streamed act of mass terrorism, a major volcanic eruption, and a global pandemic, all within a single term in office. What she brings to organisations is a practitioner’s account of crisis governance under conditions of maximum accountability. She co-founded the Christchurch Call with French President Macron in 2019 and remains Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation today. That initiative – a multi-government, multi-platform framework for eliminating terrorist content online – gives her grounded authority on AI governance, platform accountability, and digital regulation that most governance specialists cannot match. Her memoir A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House/Pan Macmillan, 2025), a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, develops the concept of “pragmatic idealism” – the argument, backed by her own record in office, that empathy and decisive institutional action reinforce each other rather than pull against each other. Her Harvard appointments span three distinct domains: public leadership (Hauser Leader, Center for Public Leadership), AI and platform governance (Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow, Berkman Klein Center), and women’s policy (Senior Fellow, Women and Public Policy Program). This breadth reflects genuine multi-domain institutional credibility. As board member of The Earthshot Prize and Arnhold Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International, she engages with climate accountability at the level of institutional design – not as a cause, but as a governance and measurement problem that boards increasingly own. Biography highlights 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand, 2017-2023; the world’s youngest female head of government at the time of her election, aged 37 Led the governmental response to the Christchurch mosque attacks (2019), the Whakaari White Island volcanic eruption, and the COVID-19 pandemic – each requiring real-time governance decisions at national scale Co-founded the Christchurch Call with President Macron (2019); Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation, the NGO established by New Zealand and France in 2024 to coordinate global action on violent extremist content online Multiple Harvard fellowships across Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, including the Angelopoulos Global Public Leaders Fellow, Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership, and Knight Tech Governance Leadership Fellow Author of A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House / Pan Macmillan, 2025) – New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller; shortlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Harvard Kennedy School Gleitsman International Activist Award (2020); Harvard 2022 Commencement speaker; Honorary Doctorate from Harvard University; twice named to Time Magazine’s Most Influential People list Board member, The Earthshot Prize; Arnhold Distinguished Fellow, Conservation International; founder of the Field Fellowship on empathetic leadership (2024) Biography New Zealand was four weeks past the Christchurch mosque attacks when Jacinda Ardern stood with French President Macron in Paris and co-launched the Christchurch Call – a commitment from governments and technology companies to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. It was a governance response to a governance failure, assembled at pace, and it is still operating. That sequence captures what is most useful about Ardern’s perspective: she did not observe the intersection of crisis leadership, platform accountability, and public trust from the outside. She was accountable for it. Her concept of “pragmatic idealism” – developed across her term in office and set out in her memoir A Different Kind of Power (Penguin Random House/Pan Macmillan, 2025, a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller) – makes the case that empathy is not a soft alternative to decisive leadership but a structural condition of it. Leaders who build genuine trust before a crisis hits have more to draw on when decisions must be made under pressure and incomplete information. Leaders who do not find that the crisis itself destroys the conditions needed to manage it. Since leaving office in early 2023, Ardern has held multiple fellowships at Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Law School’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, where her focus has been AI governance, algorithmic accountability, and platform regulation. She is board member of The Earthshot Prize, Patron of the Christchurch Call Foundation, Arnhold Distinguished Fellow at Conservation International, and founder of the Field Fellowship, a programme supporting political leaders in empathetic leadership practice. For boards navigating crisis preparedness, digital governance, or ESG accountability, Ardern brings a record of decisions taken, at national scale, under conditions that most leadership frameworks were not designed for. Key speaking topics Crisis decision-making and governance under pressure Trust, institutional credibility, and stakeholder communication Digital platform accountability and online safety AI governance and technology regulation Climate accountability and ESG leadership Empathetic leadership and values-based decision-making Women in leadership and inclusive governance Ideal for Board and C-suite audiences responsible for crisis response, reputation management, and stakeholder trust under public scrutiny Technology and digital governance leaders focused on platform accountability, AI regulation, and online safety policy ESG and sustainability officers translating climate commitments into credible, auditable, scrutiny-resistant action Public sector and government-adjacent leaders managing delivery under high institutional pressure Audience outcomes A practical decision-making framework developed through direct, accountable experience of national-scale crisis – not theoretical modelling A sharper understanding of how trust is built, maintained, and lost under crisis conditions – and what communication disciplines make the difference Grounded perspective on digital platform accountability and AI governance from someone who helped design one of the world’s first functioning multi-government frameworks in this space A working account of how “pragmatic idealism” operates as a leadership model: acting from values without sacrificing speed, coherence, or institutional effectiveness Concrete principles for maintaining organisational credibility when multiple stakeholder groups are applying conflicting pressure simultaneously

Why organisations work with Thomas Kolditz A research base built where it counts. His framework on in extremis leadership draws on more than 175 field interviews conducted during combat operations in Iraq, giving senior teams something more rigorous than borrowed military metaphors. A command record at scale. Twelve years leading the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point, plus a flag officer career, give him a standing few academic speakers can match when addressing CEOs and boards on decision-making under pressure. A measurable model for leader development. As founding director of Rice University’s Doerr Institute, he built a programme recognised in 2019 as the top university leader development effort by the Association of Leadership Educators, with methods documented in Leadership Reckoning. Direct relevance to crisis governance. His work on dodging crisis, leading through tragedy, and building leadership capability in legacy organisations speaks to boards under live operational and reputational stress, not abstract resilience theory. A bridge between military, academic, and corporate audiences. Yale School of Management appointed him to run its Leadership Development Program; Rice trusted him to design theirs from a blank page. Both translate cleanly into how he works with executive teams. Biography highlights Founding Director, Ann and John Doerr Institute for New Leaders, Rice University. Retired Brigadier General, U.S. Army; former head of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point for twelve years. Former Professor in the Practice of Leadership and Director of the Leadership Development Program, Yale School of Management. Author, In Extremis Leadership: Leading As If Your Life Depended On It, Jossey-Bass, in the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum series. Co-author, Leadership Reckoning: Can Higher Education Develop the Leaders We Need?, with Libby Gill and Ryan P. Brown. Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership; Fellow of the American Psychological Association; U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal. Biography The leaders most worth studying are not those who perform well in stable conditions. They are the ones whose followers believe their lives, careers, or institutions are genuinely at risk. That observation became the basis for one of the more rigorous bodies of research on extreme leadership, drawn from more than 175 field interviews during combat operations in Iraq and published as In Extremis Leadership. The author of that work spent twelve years running the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point and retired as a Brigadier General. Yale School of Management then appointed him to lead its Leadership Development Program. Rice University asked him to build the Ann and John Doerr Institute for New Leaders from scratch, with the brief of creating the most evidence-based university leader development programme in the world. The Doerr Institute did not stay theoretical. By 2019, the Association of Leadership Educators named it the top university leader development programme in the country, and Global Gurus ranked it fourth in the world. The methodology behind that result is documented in Leadership Reckoning, co-authored with Libby Gill and Ryan P. Brown, which makes the case that most leader development efforts cannot prove they work and shows what a defensible alternative looks like. That combination of fieldwork in lethal environments, command authority, and measurable institution building is why he is invited into boardrooms where the question is not what leadership means in the abstract but what it produces under pressure. Recognition includes the Warren Bennis Award for Excellence in Leadership, fellowship of the American Psychological Association, and the U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal. Key speaking topics In extremis, leadership and decision-making under threat Crisis leadership and avoiding institutional crisis Leader development as a measurable discipline Composure and judgement at a senior level Innovation leadership inside legacy organisations Building leadership capability across an enterprise Ideal for CEOs, boards, and executive committees facing operational, reputational, or regulatory crisis exposure Chief Human Resources Officers and Chief Learning Officers are responsible for senior leader development Military, public sector, and high-hazard industry leadership audiences University presidents, provosts, and trustees are rebuilding leadership formation on campus Audience outcomes A working model for what changes in leader behaviour when the stakes shift from comfortable to consequential A clearer view of why most leader development programmes cannot demonstrate impact, and what to require instead Specific reference points from combat, aviation, and skydiving environments were translated for commercial decision-making A framework for treating composure, presence, and judgement as trainable senior-leader capabilities Practical guidance on leading through tragedy, restructuring, or reputational shock without losing organisational coherence

Why organisations work with Tim Bradshaw His authority sits in operational tradecraft, not theory. As a Covert Human Intelligence Officer he recruited and ran foreign agents in environments where misjudging a person or a moment carried real consequences. That experience translates directly into how senior leaders read rooms, build trust quickly, and influence outcomes without formal authority. He treats resilience as a leadership system, not an individual virtue. His work focuses on how decision-making structures and cultural signals shape whether teams hold together under sustained pressure, which is the version boards actually need. He has tested his content with operationally serious clients across regulated and high-stakes sectors, including Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Deloitte, Clyde & Co, Knight Frank, St James’s Place and Netflix. Through Sandstone Communications and the Sandstone Foundation he runs the same material at executive level and in schools, which keeps the language plain and the frameworks usable rather than abstract. Biography highlights Former British Army Intelligence Officer, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst graduate, served as a Covert Human Intelligence Officer. Founder and director of Sandstone Communications, an international leadership and trauma-informed training consultancy. Chief Executive of the Sandstone Foundation, delivering leadership and resilience programmes across corporate, public and education sectors. Author of Because I Can, a practical guide to personal effectiveness under pressure. Keynote client roster includes Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar Land Rover, Netflix, Deloitte, Knight Frank, Clyde & Co, St James’s Place, Fujifilm Europe, Hitachi Solutions, Taylor Wessing and Gateley. Personal endurance record includes Ironman, summit of Everest, summit of the Matterhorn, and seven triathlons in one weekend. Biography Most leadership programmes train people for clarity. The harder problem is the meeting where the information is incomplete, the timeline has collapsed, and the person in charge has to commit anyway. That is the territory Tim Bradshaw works in, and it is where his content earns its weight. His authority comes from operational practice rather than research. As a Covert Human Intelligence Officer in the British Army, a Royal Military Academy Sandhurst graduate, he recruited and handled foreign agents in environments where reading a person wrongly had immediate consequences. The discipline he brings into the room is not motivational. It is practical tradecraft: how to make decisions when the picture refuses to clarify, how to build trust at speed, how to influence outcomes when hierarchy gives you nothing to lean on. Through Sandstone Communications, the consultancy he founded, and the Sandstone Foundation, where he is chief executive, he applies that work to senior teams in regulated and operationally complex businesses. Clients include Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Deloitte, Clyde & Co, Knight Frank, St James’s Place, Netflix, Fujifilm Europe and Taylor Wessing. His book Because I Can sets out the personal effectiveness framework that underpins the keynotes. What makes his work usable is the refusal to treat resilience as an individual quality. He argues that leadership behaviour, decision structures and cultural signals are what determine whether a team stays effective under sustained pressure. That reframes a topic boards often hear as a wellbeing conversation into a question about how the organisation is actually run. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure and uncertainty Influence and trust without formal authority Leadership in high-stakes operational environments Team resilience as a leadership system Crisis management and composure Leading change without creating fragility Ideal for CEOs and executive teams in regulated, safety-critical or operationally complex sectors Senior leadership offsites where decision-making and judgment under pressure are the headline themes Sales, advisory and client-facing teams that depend on rapid trust-building with senior counterparties Risk, security and crisis leadership functions, including CROs, CISOs and continuity leads Audience outcomes A working method for committing to a decision when the information is incomplete A specific way to build trust and influence at speed without relying on title or authority A view of resilience as something leaders engineer into teams, not something they ask of individuals Composure as a teachable behaviour, with the cues senior leaders can use to model it A clearer read on which organisational habits actively erode performance when pressure is sustained

Why organisations work with Tim Collins He has commanded under live fire. The lessons on composure, communication, and accountability are drawn from running the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment Battle Group in Iraq, not a leadership model. His eve-of-battle speech is one of the most studied pieces of leadership communication of the last twenty years, hung in the Oval Office and quoted in business schools. Few speakers can talk about leadership communication from that position. Eight years as an officer in 22 SAS, including as Operations Officer, gives him a vocabulary on small-team performance, selection, and trust that very few corporate speakers can match credibly. He builds the talk around the audience’s actual leadership tension. The military stories are evidence, not the point. Biography highlights Commanded the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment Battle Group during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Eight years as an officer in 22 SAS, including service as Operations Officer. Appointed OBE in 2003 for service in Iraq. Author of Rules of Engagement: A Life in Conflict (Headline, 2006). Co-founder and Chairman of New Century Consulting, an intelligence-led security services firm working with government clients since 2006. Regular media commentator and columnist on defence and security, with bylines in the Telegraph and other UK national press. Biography The eve-of-battle address to the Royal Irish Regiment Battle Group, delivered in Kuwait on 19 March 2003, was extemporised and recorded in shorthand by a single journalist. President George W. Bush later had a copy hung in the Oval Office. It is now a fixture on leadership reading lists, taught for what it does in five minutes: set the moral frame, give the team something to hold onto, and accept the weight of command without flinching. The speech is not why senior leaders book Collins, but it explains what they get. He commanded a battalion in combat, with all that implies for accountability, communication, and the long shadow that command throws over a career. He came back to allegations of war crimes, cleared his name, and was promoted to colonel. That sequence, command, scrutiny, recovery, is the substance of what he teaches. Before Iraq, Collins served eight years in 22 SAS, including as Operations Officer, and led troops through Northern Ireland, the Falklands, and Cyprus. The earlier work shapes how he talks about selection, small-team trust, and what actually holds a unit together when the plan fails. His memoir Rules of Engagement (Headline, 2006) is the long-form version. Since retiring from the army in 2004 he has built New Century Consulting, an intelligence-led security firm working largely with government, and become a regular commentator on defence and security in the UK national press. The corporate keynote work draws on all of it: the command experience, the public scrutiny, the second career building a business with a payroll and contracts. Key speaking topics Command leadership under pressure Leadership communication in high-stakes moments Small-team performance and trust Decision-making with incomplete information Accountability and the weight of command Resilience after public scrutiny Lessons from operational command for civilian leaders Ideal for CEOs, executive committees, and divisional MDs preparing teams for high-stakes operational moments Leadership development programmes for newly senior leaders taking on command-level accountability Sales and operations conferences where the central leadership question is composure under pressure Board offsites focused on crisis readiness, succession, or the human side of restructure Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what leadership communication actually does in the moment that counts. Practical handles on composure, accountability, and team trust, drawn from command experience rather than theory. A more honest reading of what holds a team together when the plan changes. A reference point, the eve-of-battle speech, that audiences carry back into their own leadership conversations.