Emotional Intelligence

Why organisations work with Joy Poole Joy addresses a gap most leadership development programmes leave entirely open: not what leaders should do under pressure, but how they actually operate internally when clarity is scarce, the stakes are high, and the team is watching. Her background at Meta, in large-scale consulting environments, and across high-growth technology companies gives her a working knowledge of the specific pressures that senior audiences are navigating. As a credentialed executive coach with a practice built around leaders under sustained load, she brings a level of depth and practical tool-transfer that most leadership keynote speakers cannot replicate from the stage. The sailing narrative, crewing an ocean circumnavigation as part of a team, is not an adventure story bolted onto a leadership talk. It provides an environment in which the same principles about self-leadership under pressure have been tested and proven. Joy customises her engagements as a matter of principle. A leadership team at a fintech navigating rapid growth is not the same audience as a professional services firm managing restructuring, and she treats them accordingly. Biography highlights 20 years in senior sales, consulting and leadership roles across Google, Facebook/Meta, Capgemini, and Arthur Andersen Certified Professional Coach, Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC); Master Practitioner of the Energy Leadership Index; Transitions Dynamics Specialist Executive Programme certificates from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics Speaker at internal leadership forums for Meta and at industry conferences across technology, media, and financial services Completed a round-the-world sailing circumnavigation – her second parallel environment for testing how leaders perform when conditions are extreme Biography Senior leadership in fast-moving technology and consulting organisations teaches you a great deal about performance under pressure. It teaches you rather less about what is actually happening inside a leader while all of that performance is required. Joy Poole spent two decades at the centre of that tension in senior roles at Meta, Capgemini, and Arthur Andersen, before building a practice around the gap she identified. Her core argument is precise: when organisations face uncertainty, change, or sustained pressure, the variable that most determines leadership quality is not expertise or experience alone. It is how clearly and calmly a leader can operate within themselves; how they think when the picture is incomplete, how they make decisions when there is no clean answer, and how they show up for their teams while also carrying their own uncertainty. This is self-leadership, and she treats it as a practical capability, not a motivational concept. Joy holds executive credentials from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics alongside certification from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. She brings to the stage what most leadership speakers cannot: a decade of operational experience at genuine scale, combined with years of coaching senior executives through exactly the internal dynamics she speaks about. An unusual secondary proof point sits alongside her professional record. Joy is currently completing a round-the-world sailing circumnavigation; an environment that applies the same conditions her leadership audiences face, stripped to their essentials. The lessons from both settings reinforce the same argument: what determines performance under pressure is not position or preparation. It is the quality of self-leadership. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under pressure and uncertainty Decision-making in ambiguous conditions Composure and credibility under sustained organisational load Leadership during restructuring and change Confidence and presence for senior leaders Trust as a leadership capability Ideal for HR and L&D directors commissioning leadership development sessions for offsites, internal forums, or away-days during periods of significant organisational change: restructuring, reorganisation, or high-growth phases Executive and senior leadership programme managers looking for a session that is grounded and practical rather than motivational Senior leadership teams in technology, financial services, professional services, and consulting where pace and pressure are structural features of the environment Audience outcomes A clearer, more honest account of how they actually operate under pressure, not how they think they should operate Practical tools for improving self-leadership composure in high-stakes situations that can be applied immediately A reframe of uncertainty and incomplete information as conditions to be navigated rather than problems to be solved Greater understanding of how their own internal state affects team performance and organisational credibility A shared vocabulary for a leadership conversation that most organisations do not currently have language for

Why organisations work with Neelu Kaur She treats workplace silence as a structural problem. Most speakers in this space coach individuals to be more confident; her intervention sits in meeting design and the conversational rules that decide who gets to challenge a senior idea. The Self-Trust Recession is her named diagnosis of the moment: capable leaders, surrounded by AI and competing opinion, are second-guessing themselves and outsourcing decision authority. Her Self-Trust Reset framework is the way back. Her cross-cultural lens, the collective “we” she was raised in meeting the individualistic “I” of American corporate life, makes her credible to global and AAPI audiences who have lived that gap themselves. Her tools combine cognitive and body-based techniques. The pairing of organisational psychology training (Columbia, NYU Stern) and sixteen years of yoga and Ayurveda teaching produces practical methods her audiences can apply in the next meeting they walk into. Be Your Own Cheerleader, published by Post Hill Press in January 2023, gives her work a published thesis a senior buyer can read before commissioning. Biography highlights Author of Be Your Own Cheerleader (Post Hill Press, 2023), a guide to self-advocacy that addresses the cultural gap between collective and individualistic workplace norms. MA in Social and Organizational Psychology, Columbia University, and BS from NYU Stern School of Business. Certified NLP Master Practitioner and Coach, NLP Center of New York. Client list includes Google, Bloomberg, Sony Music, RBC, Ernst & Young, and Jefferies. Featured on Morning Brew’s Good Work and TV Asia / SEEMA Network’s Sundays with Seema. Chief Guide at Chief (NYC), with over sixteen years as a yoga teacher and Ayurveda practitioner. Biography Most organisations have more talent than they have contribution. Capable people stay quiet at exactly the moments their judgement is most needed, and what looks like alignment is often silence. This is the tension Neelu Kaur takes on. Trained as an organisational psychologist at Columbia and with an undergraduate degree from NYU Stern, she has spent over fifteen years inside Fortune 500 organisations. The question her work returns to is why capable people stay quiet in the moments that matter. Her client list, which includes Google, Bloomberg, Sony Music, RBC, Ernst & Young, and Jefferies, gives her a view across financial services, consulting, and tech. Her current diagnosis is what she calls the Self-Trust Recession. Leaders are surrounded by AI tools and competing opinion, and the quiet effect is that capable people are outsourcing their own judgement. The Self-Trust Reset framework she has built around this idea is a way to recognise when fear is shaping a decision and rebuild internal authority before acting on it. The earlier strand of her work runs through Be Your Own Cheerleader (Post Hill Press, January 2023). She wrote the book out of her own experience growing up between two cultures: Indian at home, American at work. It examines why people raised in collective ‘we’ cultures struggle to advocate for themselves in workplaces built around the individualistic ‘I’. That cultural lens still shapes her work and is part of what makes her credible to global teams and AAPI audiences who have lived the same code-switch. Key speaking topics Self-trust and decision-making in high-pressure environments Self-advocacy in the workplace Cross-cultural communication in global teams The cost of consensus and over-collaboration AAPI and underrepresented voices in corporate life Burnout and sustainable leadership Ideal for Leadership teams in Fortune 500 environments where decision speed and contribution quality are the bottleneck CHROs, Chief Learning Officers, and L&D leaders building cultures of voice and accountability DEI, AAPI, and Employee Resource Group programmes looking for content that goes beyond representation language High-potential talent and mid-career professionals working across cultures in global organisations Audience outcomes A clear way to recognise when fear, perfectionism, or comparison is shaping a decision instead of judgement Behavioural tools to speak up in high-stakes moments without overshooting or shutting down A vocabulary for the cultural gap between collective and individualistic workplace norms, useful for global team conversations A diagnostic for where consensus and over-discussion are slowing the team’s decisions

Why organisations work with Martin Brooks He has taught body language to leaders at Henley Business School, London Business School and Judge Business School, giving the content a teaching-grade structure that most communication coaches lack. His sales-leadership background means the work lands with commercial audiences who tend to dismiss communication coaching as soft skills. His Body Language Decoder gives delegates a reference artefact that travels back into the business after the session, not just a one-day boost. Broadcasters book him to analyse political and corporate figures live on air (BBC2, LBC, Discovery, The Times), which is a useful proxy for how quickly he can read a room. Clients including IBM, PwC, KPMG, Procter & Gamble and the Financial Times have used him for executive coaching, pitch preparation, and leadership development. Biography highlights Author of Body Language Decoder (Laurence King / Hachette, 2021). Teaches “Body Language for Leaders” at Henley Business School. Course Director at the Chartered Institute of Marketing since 2008. Founder of his communications consultancy in 2002, after a career in sales and sales leadership. Media commentator on body language for BBC Radio, LBC, BBC2 election coverage, Discovery Channel and The Times. Clients include IBM, PwC, KPMG, Procter & Gamble and the Financial Times. Biography Most leaders prepare what they will say in a high-stakes meeting and almost nothing about how they will appear while saying it. The asymmetry shows. Boards, investors and senior peers form judgements on credibility within seconds, and the data they use is mostly nonverbal. Martin Brooks works in that gap. He has run his own communication consultancy since 2002, after a career in sales and sales leadership where the cost of looking uncertain in front of a buyer was immediate and personal. That commercial origin shapes how he teaches. The work is not theatre training and not motivational, it is operator instruction on what hands, eyes, voice, and posture are doing while a leader argues a point. The teaching has institutional weight behind it. Brooks delivers “Body Language for Leaders” at Henley Business School and has taught at London Business School and Judge Business School. He has been a Course Director at the Chartered Institute of Marketing since 2008. His Body Language Decoder, published in 2021 by Laurence King, sits as a 50-card field reference that delegates use after the session. Broadcasters use him as the in-studio analyst for politicians and corporate leaders under pressure. He provided live analysis on Discovery Channel of Mark Zuckerberg’s US Senate testimony, has covered UK general elections on BBC2, and contributes to BBC Radio, LBC and The Times. For a senior buyer, that body of live, on-record reading is the best available evidence that what he teaches in the room actually works under fire. Key speaking topics Body language for senior leaders Executive presence and credibility on stage Nonverbal communication in high-stakes meetings Pitch and presentation coaching Reading political and business figures in real time Ideal for Executive committees and senior leadership teams preparing for investor, board or town-hall communication CEOs and C-suite leaders stepping into more public-facing roles Sales leadership and pitch teams running competitive bids Leadership development and high-potential programmes Audience outcomes A vocabulary for what their own body is signalling while they speak The ability to read confidence, hesitation and disagreement in a room before words confirm it Concrete adjustments to posture, gesture and eye contact that they can use the same week A reference artefact (the Body Language Decoder cards) for ongoing use post-session Sharper judgement on how political and corporate figures are performing under pressure

Why organisations work with Nikki Bhamra Her frameworks for identifying blind spots and challenging assumptions come directly from twenty years of investigative work in human trafficking and serious organised crime – professional contexts where flawed judgement had irreversible consequences, not theoretical ones. She makes a specific, teachable argument: that most leadership failures are not information problems but reasoning problems caused by how leaders question, filter, and challenge what they already know. As a certified Insights Discovery psychometric practitioner, she combines forensic thinking with structured behavioural profiling, enabling her to work at depth on team dynamics and communication, not only from the keynote stage. Her work has been applied in regulated, high-accountability environments: the NHS, the Crown Prosecution Service, and financial services: organisations where decision quality and trust are operational risks, not soft skills. She has delivered sessions on the University of Cambridge Master’s in Leadership programme, applying her investigative-informed approach to decision quality and trust to senior leadership development. Biography highlights Senior Crime Investigator for over two decades, leading complex operations into human trafficking and serious organised crime in UK law enforcement Founder and CEO of Peak Potential Group, a bespoke leadership development company Certified Insights Discovery psychometric practitioner CIPD-qualified; member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Professional Speaking Association Has delivered sessions on the University of Cambridge Master’s in Leadership programme TEDx speaker; Highly Commended, Speaker Bookers Choice, Speaker Awards Clients include Metro Bank, the NHS, and the Crown Prosecution Service Biography Nikki Bhamra spent over two decades as a Senior Crime Investigator in UK law enforcement, leading operations into human trafficking and serious organised crime. In that environment, an unchallenged assumption or a question left unasked could have irreversible consequences. The discipline required to surface the truth – not the convenient version – is the foundation of everything she now brings to organisations. Her central argument is precise and useful: most leadership errors are not caused by a lack of information. They are caused by how leaders question, filter, and challenge the information already in front of them. Blind spots, confirmation bias, and the absence of psychological safety allow flawed thinking to compound quietly, in everyday conversations, not only in moments of obvious crisis. The cost shows up in decisions, culture, and trust. Bhamra is a certified Insights Discovery psychometric practitioner and CIPD-qualified, which means she operates at both the conceptual and structural levels: forensic questioning frameworks alongside behavioural profiling, tailored to the specific dynamics of a leadership team. She is Founder and CEO of Peak Potential Group, through which she delivers bespoke leadership programmes as well as keynotes. Her work has been applied in regulated, high-accountability environments: the NHS, the Crown Prosecution Service, and financial services. She has delivered sessions on the University of Cambridge Master’s in Leadership programme. She is a TEDx speaker and was recognised as Highly Commended in the Speaker Bookers Choice category at the Speaker Awards. Key speaking topics Leadership decision-making under pressure Blind spots, bias, and judgement errors Forensic questioning and evidence-based reasoning Trust-building in high-stakes environments Psychological safety and speaking up High-performance team dynamics Communication in complex and regulated environments Ideal for Senior leadership teams and executive cohorts in high-pressure, complex, or regulated industries Risk, compliance, and governance functions where decision quality and trust are operationally critical CHROs and L&D leaders building leadership capability programmes with a behavioural science foundation Boards and transformation leads treating decision quality and leadership culture as measurable strategic risks Audience outcomes A practical framework for identifying blind spots and surfacing unchecked assumptions before they affect decisions or culture Structured questioning techniques drawn from investigative practice, applicable immediately to leadership conversations and team dynamics Greater understanding of how confirmation bias, selective attention, and faulty assumption affect judgement – and what to do about it Concrete approaches to building psychological safety and trust in teams, grounded in behavioural evidence rather than aspiration Increased awareness of the everyday communication patterns that either strengthen or erode credibility and leadership effectiveness under pressure

Why organisations work with Kit Symons and Holly Sedlacek A genuine dual lens on performance under pressure. A former Wales international and Fulham manager works alongside a chartered organisational psychologist, delivered as a two-voice session. Sport shows up as evidence. Symons speaks from the dressing room of a Premier League club, and Sedlacek translates what happened there through psychology a board will recognise. Content that moves past cliche on the topics leadership teams quietly struggle with: imposter feelings at executive level, handling failure in public, and the emotional cost of transitions. Formats built for different rooms: motivational keynote, fireside conversation, masterclass, and follow-up team coaching through Know Your Pace. Biography highlights Kit Symons: 36 caps for Wales; 100+ league appearances each at Portsmouth, Manchester City, and Fulham. Kit Symons: Fulham manager from October 2014; assistant to Chris Coleman with the Wales national team from January 2012. Holly Sedlacek: MA in Industrial and Organisational Psychology; ICF ACC coach. Holly Sedlacek: certified in Hogan, EQi 2.0, DiSC, and Transactional Analysis. Holly Sedlacek: 14+ years in Learning and Talent Development across consulting, insurance, and asset management before founding Know Your Pace. Co-founders of Know Your Pace, a London-based leadership coaching practice working with leaders in sport and business. Biography Elite football teams are not built by talent alone. They are built by how a group handles the week after a bad result, the player who loses form, the dressing room conversation no one wants to have. That is the same territory executive teams live in, and it is where Kit Symons and Holly Sedlacek work. Symons spent more than two decades inside professional football, with more than 300 league appearances across Portsmouth, Manchester City, and Fulham, and 36 caps for Wales. He went on to manage Fulham and to coach the Wales national team alongside Chris Coleman. He speaks from the dressing room. Sedlacek brings the discipline that makes the sport insight transferable. She holds an MA in Industrial and Organisational Psychology, an ICF coaching credential, and certifications in Hogan, EQi 2.0, DiSC, and Transactional Analysis. Before founding Know Your Pace, she spent 14 years in talent and leadership development inside consulting, insurance, and asset management. Together they work with leadership teams on the parts of performance that rarely sit on an org chart: belonging, self-doubt, emotional range, what happens after a mistake. The format is deliberately two-voice, a practitioner and a psychologist in the same room, and that structure is what lets a session move past anecdote into behaviour change. Key speaking topics Resilient leadership in adversity High-performing teams Culture of belonging Emotional capacity in leadership Authentic connection and trust Self-doubt and imposter syndrome at senior levels Learning from mistakes and failure The emotional process of career and organisational transitions Ideal for Executive teams and C-suite offsites CHROs and people leaders investing in leadership development Managers of high-stakes, high-scrutiny teams Sport and performance organisations looking at leadership and culture Audience outcomes A sharper read on how individual and team behaviour shifts under pressure, and what to do about it. Practical language for the emotional work of leadership: trust, belonging, failure, transition. A shared reference point for senior teams to discuss performance without reverting to sport cliches or wellness tropes. Tools drawn from recognised psychometric frames (Hogan, EQi 2.0, DiSC) that sit alongside existing leadership programmes.

Why organisations work with Paul McGee He gives organisations a single, named, portable language for resilience. SUMO has been translated into more than 20 languages and used inside global brands, which means the ideas travel beyond the keynote into how teams actually talk about setbacks. His behavioural-psychology background turns wellbeing content into something a senior buyer can defend commercially. The argument is rooted in cognition and behaviour change, not motivation. His track record sits in serious operating environments: Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS and Manchester City FC have all booked him for change, performance and confidence work. Self-Confidence held number one on the WHSmith Business Book chart for 24 weeks, which is unusual evidence that the content lands with a workplace audience and not only a self-help one. Visiting Professor at the University of Chester since 2019, appointed specifically for translating academic behavioural research into practical use. That credential supports the seriousness of the work without academic detachment. Biography highlights Visiting Professor, University of Chester, appointed 2019 Creator of the SUMO (Shut Up, Move On) framework; Sunday Times bestseller, translated into 20+ languages Author of Self-Confidence, which reached number one and held the WHSmith Business Book chart for 24 weeks Capstone-published author of nine titles, including How to Speak So People Really Listen, How Not to Worry, How to Succeed with People, and YESSS! Delivered keynotes for 1,000+ organisations across 40+ countries, including Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS and Manchester City FC Background as a behavioural psychologist with more than 30 years of applied practice Biography Most organisations underestimate how much of their performance problem is a confidence problem. Strategy is rarely the missing ingredient. What gets in the way is the personal cost of repeated change, knocks to self-belief, and the quiet drain of pressure that nobody names. SUMO (Shut Up, Move On) gave that problem a vocabulary. It is a behavioural framework that asks people to stop, examine the thinking that holds them back, and choose a different response. The framework belongs to Paul McGee, a former behavioural psychologist who now sits as Visiting Professor at the University of Chester, an appointment made in 2019 to recognise his work translating academic research into practical use. SUMO became a Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into more than 20 languages. His follow-up, Self-Confidence, spent 24 weeks at number one on the WHSmith Business Book chart, a result that is hard to fake and tells you who the content actually serves. Nine books for Capstone, the Wiley business imprint, sit behind the keynote work. They cover communication, worry, confidence and resilience, but the through-line is behaviour change inside ordinary working lives. The argument is consistent: small, repeatable mental habits compound into the resilience that organisations now need from their people, especially under sustained change. The client list reads as a workplace one rather than a wellness one. Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS and Manchester City FC have all commissioned McGee for change, performance and confidence work. Across 40+ countries and more than 1,000 organisations, the brief is usually the same: give our people something that holds up after the keynote ends. Key speaking topics Resilience and personal performance under pressure Confidence and self-leadership at work Behaviour change and the SUMO framework Leading through change and uncertainty Communication and influence Wellbeing as an operating capability Ideal for HR and people leaders building resilience capability across the workforce Senior leadership teams managing fatigue from repeated change programmes Customer-facing and high-pressure functions where confidence directly shapes performance Learning and development heads commissioning durable, named frameworks rather than one-off motivational content Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary, drawn from SUMO, for naming and interrupting unhelpful thinking patterns Specific behavioural habits to rebuild confidence and composure after setbacks A practical way to separate the parts of a problem people can act on from the parts they cannot A clearer view of how individual resilience translates into team performance and customer outcomes

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 Mc’Dole Chigborogu He delivers regular facilitation inside NHS mental health settings through Genesis Impact, so the resilience and clarity work he brings to organisations is tested in one of the most demanding environments for it. He speaks to burnout and identity from inside the experience, not from a clinical or academic remove, which lands with audiences who are tired of corporate wellbeing scripts. His background sits across sport, sales, and entrepreneurship, so he reads commercial pressure environments and frames resilience in their language rather than therapy language. He is multilingual across English, Italian, Spanish, German, and Igbo, useful for organisations with mixed European and West African workforces who want a single voice rather than translation overlay. He reaches the capable people who quietly opt out of wellbeing programmes, the senior operators and high performers who carry the load and never raise their hand, which is exactly the group most organisations struggle to engage. Biography highlights Delivers regular facilitation in NHS mental health settings through his delivery partnership, Genesis Impact. Co-founder of Mane Might, a UK hair growth and wellness brand. Director of MCDOLE CHIGBOROGU LTD, his speaking and coaching company registered at Companies House. Multilingual operator across English, Italian, Spanish, German, and Igbo. Background that crosses competitive football, UK sales management, and entrepreneurship. Panellist at the Power in Partnership event in London. Author of The Man Who Refused To Stay Invisible (2025). Builds a public audience on resilience and composure under pressure through YouTube and writing. Biography Most wellbeing programmes miss the people who need them most. The capable operators who hold teams together tend to opt out of anything that sounds clinical, then carry the cost of that silence into their decisions and the people around them. Access to support is rarely the problem. What matters is whether the person delivering the message reads as someone who has been there. Mc’Dole Chigborogu works in that gap. His path runs through competitive football, UK sales management, and the launch of Mane Might, a wellness brand he co-founded. He frames the problem as a loss of security under pressure, the point at which judgment and nerve begin to slip, and talks about it in terms sales leaders and founders recognise from their own week. His approach is less about insight and more about getting judgment and perspective back online before the pressure makes the call for them. His book, The Man Who Refused To Stay Invisible, sets out the same argument: that the people who look most in control are often the ones quietly losing their grip on it. He delivers the same material live in five languages, English, Italian, Spanish, German, and Igbo, which suits organisations with mixed European and West African workforces. He also does this work where it is hardest, inside NHS mental health settings, through his delivery partnership Genesis Impact. Key speaking topics Clarity and judgment under pressure Leadership under sustained stress Burnout and identity in high-pressure roles Resilience and composure Decision-making under stress Ideal for Sales leadership teams and high-pressure commercial functions Employee networks focused on men’s mental health Early and mid-career talent programmes addressing burnout Diversity and inclusion programmes seeking culturally and linguistically diverse voices Audience outcomes A frame for recognising burnout signals before they become performance failures Vocabulary for talking about mental health that does not rely on clinical or HR language A view of resilience as a daily practice tied to identity, not a one-off intervention Practical reflection points for leaders managing their own composure under sustained pressure

Why organisations work with Thomas Erikson A four-colour behavioural vocabulary that a 200-person sales team or a board can adopt in a single session and use in the next meeting, with no consultancy follow-up required. One of the highest-recognition author brands in European business: “Surrounded by Idiots” alone is one of Sweden’s best-selling non-fiction titles ever, with the series at over seven million copies in more than 70 languages. Direct application across the hardest interpersonal terrain leaders actually face: difficult bosses, narcissistic colleagues, manipulative behaviour, conflict in cross-cultural and hybrid teams. More than two decades inside companies such as IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA, with roughly 120 keynotes a year keeping the material tested against live corporate audiences. A communicator first: the material is built for retention by non-specialists, so the language survives the journey from the keynote room into Monday-morning behaviour. Biography highlights Author of the “Surrounded by” series, including Surrounded by Idiots, Surrounded by Psychopaths, Surrounded by Bad Bosses and Lazy Employees, Surrounded by Narcissists, Surrounded by Setbacks, Surrounded by Energy Vampires and Surrounded by Liars. More than 12 million books sold across the series, translated into over 70 languages; one of the most translated living Swedish authors. Delivers approximately 120 keynote lectures per year to executive and corporate audiences across Europe. Has mentored executives and run sessions at companies including IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA Motors. Twenty-plus years specialising in communication, personality dynamics and interpersonal behaviour in professional settings. Built his keynote material on the colour-coded DISC framework (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue), used to map how people decide, communicate and react under pressure. Biography Most workplace tension is not philosophical. It is two competent people reading the same situation in incompatible ways and deciding the other one is the problem. The “Surrounded by Idiots” series turned that observation into a vocabulary that millions of readers now apply at work without having to read a textbook to use it. The series, beginning with Surrounded by Idiots, has sold more than 12 million copies across more than 70 languages, with subsequent titles extending the framework to psychopaths, narcissists, bad bosses, setbacks, energy vampires and liars. The books rest on the colour-coded DISC model, mapping behaviour onto four types (Red, Yellow, Green, Blue) that describe how different people make decisions, give feedback and behave under pressure. The keynote work has run in parallel for over two decades, with roughly 120 corporate lectures a year. Audiences have included IKEA, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Volvo and KIA Motors. The session is built to leave a room of 50 or 500 with the same shared language, so the colour-coding survives into the next sales call, the next performance review and the next conflict between two senior people who quietly cannot stand each other. What is unusual is the reach. Most communication frameworks live inside training departments. This one has crossed into mass-market reading culture, which means a leadership audience often arrives already half-fluent. The job of the keynote is to turn that recognition into something the organisation can actually use. Key speaking topics Behavioural styles and the DISC colour model Communication across different personality types Difficult colleagues, manipulation and narcissism at work Leadership and how to read your team Sales and the behaviour of the buyer Conflict, feedback and tough conversations Resilience and managing setbacks Ideal for Leadership teams that want a shared language for behaviour and communication Sales and customer-facing organisations whose results depend on reading the other side of the table HR, L&D and culture leads designing development around feedback, conflict and team dynamics Cross-cultural, hybrid and matrix teams where misreads between colleagues compound quickly Audience outcomes A shared four-colour vocabulary the whole audience can use to describe colleagues and clients within the same week A clearer read on their own default style and how it is experienced by people who do not share it Practical adjustments for handling the colleague, boss or client they currently find hardest to deal with A working frame for recognising manipulation, narcissism and other high-cost behaviours before they damage the team A common reference point that survives the keynote and shows up in the next round of meetings, reviews and sales calls

Why organisations work with Mimi Nicklin A productised methodology, ALUR (Authenticity, Listening, Understanding, Recognition), that gives line managers something more usable than “be more empathetic” and translates into engagement, psychological safety, and retention conversations. Practitioner credibility from a former CEO of a global advertising agency, so the empathy argument is framed in commercial language CHROs can defend to the CFO. Deep multigenerational fluency, including the HBR IdeaCast on generational differences and a thesis on listening to Millennial and Gen Z employees instead of forcing conformity. Strong Asia-Pacific and MENA market footprint, which is rare for an English-language workplace culture speaker and useful for regional and global rollouts beyond the usual US and UK circuit. Three published books on empathy at work, including Softening the Edge and Empathy at Work, that give internal HR sponsors something concrete to circulate before and after the session. Biography highlights Founder of Empathy Everywhere, a global empathy training and engagement platform. Author of Softening the Edge and Empathy at Work, with a new book, 40 Ways to Connect with People, forthcoming. Featured guest on the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast, “How Empathy Helps Bridge Generational Differences”. Former CEO of a global advertising agency, with 15+ years in marketing and brand strategy across 25 markets. Has trained 18,500+ professionals across Fortune 500 organisations, and shared the stage with figures including Bill Gates, for clients including Emirates, Capgemini, and Daikin. Described across industry listings as the #1 EQ Keynote Speaker (USA) for 2026, and the #1 Workplace Wellbeing Leader in Malaysia. Biography Most empathy conversations in corporate settings die at the values poster. Leaders nod, HR runs a workshop, engagement scores barely move, and managers go back to managing on output. Mimi Nicklin’s work starts from the assumption that the problem is operational, not philosophical: empathy has no traction inside a business until it is broken into behaviours a tired manager can use on a Tuesday afternoon. That is what the ALUR methodology, the framework behind her platform Empathy Everywhere, attempts to do. Authenticity, Listening, Understanding, Recognition. Four practices, taught as habits, that sit underneath the messier work of running multigenerational teams, restoring psychological safety after restructure, and rebuilding engagement when hybrid has flattened the cues people used to read each other by. Her credibility on this is unusual because it is commercial first. She built and ran a global advertising agency before she became a full-time author and speaker, and her writing in Softening the Edge and Empathy at Work argues the business case in numbers a CFO will accept, not in the language of wellbeing alone. Harvard Business Review’s IdeaCast brought her on to make the case that generational friction is mostly a listening failure, an argument that has since shaped how a number of her client organisations talk about Gen Z retention. The work sits at the practical end of the people agenda, which is why CHROs, heads of culture, and senior HR leaders book her rather than chief executives. She is the speaker you commission when the engagement survey came back worse than last year, the exit interviews keep using the same words, and someone needs to give the leadership population a usable answer. Key speaking topics Human skills as the competitive edge in the age of AI Listening-led leadership and the ALUR methodology Empathy as a measurable workplace capability Multigenerational engagement and Gen Z retention Psychological safety in restructured and hybrid teams Mental health and wellbeing at work Conflict resolution and difficult conversations Inclusion as an everyday management practice Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers commissioning culture or engagement programmes after a low survey or restructure Heads of L&D rolling out leadership development to senior managers across multigenerational, multi-market teams Heads of DEI, wellbeing, or culture transformation looking for a substantive empathy capability that does not collapse into wellness theatre Regional HR leaders in Asia-Pacific, MENA, and Europe running global culture programmes that need a speaker with cross-market fluency Audience outcomes A practical operating definition of empathy at work, broken into the four ALUR behaviours, that managers can apply the next day Specific tactics for closing the engagement gap between senior leaders and Millennial or Gen Z talent without forcing either side to conform A clearer reading of where psychological safety has eroded inside hybrid and restructured teams, and what restores it A commercial case for empathy that connects to retention, productivity, and customer outcomes, not only wellbeing Confidence that empathy is a teachable management skill, not a personality trait some managers happen to have

Why organisations work with Mike Robbins He treats appreciation, vulnerability, and psychological safety as operational levers, not soft values, and gives leaders a vocabulary their teams can act on the next morning. He has spent twenty years inside the cultures of Google, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, eBay, Gap, Schwab, Airbnb, the NBA, and Pixar. The frame is tested against how high-stakes teams actually behave. His book Bring Your Whole Self to Work and the related TEDxBerkeley talk gave senior leaders a usable language for authenticity that does not collapse into oversharing or performance. He holds the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association, the top earned credential in his profession, and is one of fewer than ten percent of speakers worldwide to hold it. His perspective sits on an unusual seam: elite-level baseball at Stanford and in the Kansas City Royals system, then two decades of cultural work with serious operating companies. The room recognises the standard he is calling for. Biography highlights Author of five books published by Hay House, including Bring Your Whole Self to Work and We’re All in This Together, translated into fifteen languages. Speaker at TEDxBerkeley, with three TEDx talks that have reached close to 2.3 million views. Featured in the New York Times, on ABC News, and in Harvard Business Review; hosts the weekly We’re All in This Together podcast. Stanford graduate (American Studies, specialisation in race and ethnicity); pitched for Stanford in the College World Series. Drafted by the New York Yankees out of high school; played three professional seasons in the Kansas City Royals minor league system. Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), National Speakers Association. Biography Most teams underperform their talent. Not because the people are wrong, but because the cultural conditions around them, trust, candour, appreciation, the willingness to be honest under pressure, are weaker than the work demands. That gap is the territory Mike Robbins has worked in for twenty-five years, across more than 2,000 programmes in 17 countries. His five books, published by Hay House and translated into fifteen languages, build a coherent argument about how authenticity and appreciation operate as performance variables inside teams. Bring Your Whole Self to Work and We’re All in This Together are the most cited. Both have moved from leadership reading lists into the working language that companies like Google, Microsoft, Wells Fargo, Airbnb, the NBA, and Pixar use to describe their own culture work. The intellectual frame is sharpened by an unusual background. Robbins pitched for Stanford in the College World Series and spent three seasons in the Kansas City Royals minor league system before injuries ended his playing career. He understands what high-performance teams demand of the people inside them, and he understands what fails. That perspective sits alongside a Stanford degree in American Studies with a specialisation in race and ethnicity, and the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association. His TEDxBerkeley talk on bringing your whole self to work has reached audiences far beyond corporate stages, and his Forbes column extends the same argument into how leaders practise appreciation, navigate change, and create psychological safety without slipping into performance. The throughline is consistent: culture is not climate, it is capability, and the leaders who treat it that way get more from their people. Key speaking topics Team culture and psychological safety Authenticity and vulnerability at work Appreciation as a performance practice Emotional intelligence for leaders Belonging and inclusion inside teams Leading through change and uncertainty Trust and high-performing teams Human connection in an AI-accelerating workplace Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers rebuilding engagement and team culture after restructure or hybrid transition Senior leadership teams who want a shared language for trust, candour, and appreciation Heads of talent and learning designing culture and leadership development programmes Sales, R&D, and operating leaders responsible for the performance of large, distributed teams Audience outcomes A practical model for psychological safety that leaders can apply inside their own teams the same week Specific behaviours that turn appreciation from a soft idea into a measurable team practice A clear distinction between authenticity that builds trust and disclosure that erodes it Tools for engaging conflict directly rather than routing around it A shared team vocabulary for the cultural conditions that high performance actually depends on

Why organisations work with Nadine Chammas A working background in theatre direction, stage performance and hypnotherapy, applied to the workplace behaviours that leadership programmes usually skip: voice, presence, composure on the floor. Creator of the trademarked TLD Method, delivered as a book, certified course and retreat, which gives clients a defined system rather than a one-off keynote. Two decades operating across the GCC, with audiences in Arabic and English, and a track record of running corporate sessions on emotional intelligence, conflict resolution and executive presence. Author of The Stage is Yours, an Amazon bestseller that frames professional and personal communication through a theatre-director lens. A profile that travels in regional media: weekly counselling sessions on Al Arabiya, and a music output that gives her unusual cultural reach for a corporate trainer. Biography highlights Founder of The Life Director consultancy and creator of the TLD Method, delivered through book, certification course and retreat. BA in Fine Arts and Theatre Studies, Lebanese University. Master Practitioner of NLP and Timeline Therapy; certified by the American Board of Hypnotherapy; certified stage hypnotist trained in Las Vegas. Founded Scenez Group Production Company (Dubai, 2000) and Scenez Drama and Arts Academy. Author of The Stage is Yours (Amazon bestseller); subsequent title The Life Director: Presence over Performance. Weekly counselling segments on Al Arabiya; 11 released songs, with two pandemic-era Arabic releases passing 1.2 million YouTube views combined. Biography Presence is a workplace skill, and most professionals are never taught it. Senior leaders are expected to hold a room, settle a difficult conversation, and stay composed under scrutiny, but the training they receive treats those behaviours as personality, not craft. Theatre treats them as craft, and that is where Nadine Chammas comes from. Trained at Lebanese University in Fine Arts and Theatre Studies, she built her early career in Dubai through Scenez Group Production Company and Scenez Drama and Arts Academy, running productions across the region and teaching performance to children and adults. Alongside the theatre work she trained as a Master Practitioner of NLP and Timeline Therapy, completed certification with the American Board of Hypnotherapy, and qualified as a stage hypnotist in Las Vegas. The combination is unusual: stagecraft and behavioural method, applied to how people show up at work. The Life Director is the consultancy that consolidates that work. Her TLD Method is delivered as a book, a certified practitioner course and a retreat, and is positioned for individuals, corporate audiences and educational institutions. The corporate framing is direct: communication and leadership, emotional intelligence and resilience, conflict resolution and team behaviour, executive presence, decision-making under pressure. The Stage is Yours, her Amazon bestseller, sets out the underlying argument that a working life can be approached the same way a director approaches a production. She operates across the GCC and the US, in Arabic and English, with regional media reach through weekly Al Arabiya counselling segments and a music career that runs in parallel to the corporate work. The composite makes her suited to audiences where personal credibility, communication and cultural fluency are part of the brief, not separate from it. Key speaking topics Executive presence and personal branding Communication and influence Emotional intelligence and resilience Conflict resolution and team behaviour Storytelling for leaders Women in leadership Workplace culture and engagement Ideal for HR and L&D leaders commissioning communication, presence and behavioural skills programmes. Corporate audiences across the GCC where Arabic-English fluency and regional cultural read are part of the brief. Women’s leadership networks and conferences. Professional services and client-facing teams whose work depends on how they show up in the room. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for executive presence drawn from theatre and behavioural method, not personality traits. Specific techniques for voice, composure and physical presence under pressure. A clearer sense of how to use storytelling to make a message land with a corporate audience. An honest read on the behaviours that cost senior professionals credibility, and what to do about them.