Employee Engagement

Why organisations work with Travis Bradberry His four-quadrant EQ model – self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management – gives HR and L&D teams a structured, easy-to-assess framework that can be integrated into existing leadership development and performance programmes, rather than treated as a standalone concept. TalentSmart’s reach into more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies means Bradberry’s frameworks have been stress-tested at enterprise scale across sectors and leadership levels, rather than drawn from a single industry or a handful of client cases. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 has sold over 3 million copies and been translated into 28 languages – a degree of market validation that signals genuine professional resonance, and that typically eases internal buy-in when positioning an EQ-based leadership initiative. His dual Ph.D. spanning both Clinical and Industrial-Organizational Psychology grounds a high-profile popular message in the research disciplines most directly relevant to behavioural change at work; a combination few speakers in the EQ space hold. With 2.5 million LinkedIn followers and Top Voice designation, his platform reflects an active, senior professional audience and demonstrates Bradberry’s credibility. Biography highlights Dual Ph.D. in Clinical and Industrial-Organizational Psychology, California School of Professional Psychology Co-author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – the bestselling EQ title in its category, with over 3 million copies sold and translated into 28 languages across 150+ countries Co-founder and President of TalentSmart (later TalentSmartEQ) – the EQ assessment and training business embedded in more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies Author of subsequent titles including Emotional Intelligence Habits and The New Emotional Intelligence; total book sales across all titles exceed 5 million copies Chief People Scientist at LEADx, a mobile-first leadership development platform applying behavioural science and AI to EQ training at scale LinkedIn Top Voice with over 2.5 million followers; written for or covered by Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, and TIME Biography The performance gap that most leadership development programmes fail to close is not a knowledge gap. Leaders who derail by alienating teams, making reactive decisions under pressure, or losing influence at senior levels, rarely lack technical expertise. The pattern that consistently predicts who performs and who struggles sits elsewhere: in the ability to perceive, regulate, and apply emotional information at the moments that matter most. Dr. Travis Bradberry holds a dual Ph.D. in Clinical and Industrial-Organizational Psychology and has spent his career making that domain measurable and actionable for organisations. As co-founder of TalentSmart, he built the dominant infrastructure for EQ assessment and training, working with more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. The company’s proprietary Emotional Intelligence Appraisal and associated training programmes embedded EQ into leadership development at a scale most researchers and authors never reach. His co-authored book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 became one of the most widely read management titles of its generation, selling over 3 million copies and appearing in 28 languages across 150 countries. The book’s four-quadrant model gave organisations a structured, assessable framework rather than an abstract aspiration. Subsequent works including Emotional Intelligence Habits and The New Emotional Intelligence extend that framework with more recent research in neuroscience and habit formation. As Chief People Scientist at LEADx, Bradberry’s current work focuses on applying EQ research through AI-assisted behavioural coaching at scale; a model increasingly relevant to organisations that need leadership development to produce lasting behavioural change beyond the classroom. His writing has reached a global executive audience through Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune, and the Wall Street Journal. Key speaking topics Emotional intelligence and leadership performance Self-awareness and self-management at work Measuring and developing EQ in organisations Behavioural science of decision-making under pressure Leadership effectiveness and derailment Talent development through emotional intelligence Performance culture and workplace behaviour Ideal for CHROs and People leaders designing or refreshing leadership development programmes Executive teams and senior leadership cohorts working on behavioural effectiveness and team dynamics L&D leads building EQ capability into management pipelines Organisations implementing performance culture or investing in measurable behaviour change Audience outcomes A clear understanding of the four-quadrant EQ model and how each domain directly affects leadership behaviour and organisational outcomes Awareness of how EQ predicts performance across roles and levels, grounded in TalentSmart’s enterprise-scale data Practical strategies for developing self-awareness and self-management under pressure – applicable immediately in leadership practice Frameworks for integrating EQ assessment into existing coaching, development, and performance programmes A sharper distinction between EQ as an abstract concept and EQ as a measurable, developable capability – with implications for how organisations design and evaluate leadership investment

Why organisations work with Tom Gimbel Twenty-six years running a staffing firm gives him unusually direct visibility into why employees actually leave: it shows up in his content as specific tactical guidance, not generalised culture theory. He treats middle managers as the operating layer where culture is either built or broken, and gives leadership teams a practical agenda for upgrading that layer. His perspective on hiring, onboarding and retention is the perspective of a CEO who has had to make payroll, not a consultant selling frameworks. Inc. 5000 recognition for twelve consecutive years and a Staffing Industry Analysts Staffing 100 listing back the credibility of his operating record on talent. Biography highlights Founder of LaSalle Network, a national staffing, recruiting and culture firm headquartered in Chicago. LaSalle Network named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies for 12 consecutive years. Named to Staffing Industry Analysts’ Staffing 100 list of the most influential people in staffing, multiple years. Inducted into the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame; named to Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40. Regular media commentator on hiring, careers and company culture across CNBC Squawk Box, TODAY, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, The New York Times and Entrepreneur. Board roles include American Staffing Association and Start Early; member of YPO, the Economic Club of Chicago and Entrepreneurs’ Organization. Biography People do not quit companies. They quit managers. That observation, which sits at the centre of Tom Gimbel’s work, sounds simple but is uncomfortable for most executive teams, because it locates the retention problem in the layer of the organisation where the least leadership development happens. Gimbel founded LaSalle Network in Chicago in 1998 and ran it as CEO for 26 years. The firm reached the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies for 12 consecutive years and was repeatedly named to “best places to work” lists by Glassdoor, Fortune, Inc. and Crain’s Chicago Business. He was named to Staffing Industry Analysts’ Staffing 100 list of the most influential people in the industry. That operating record is what makes his content credible to senior buyers. He is a regular commentator on hiring and culture for CNBC, TODAY, Fox Business, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, The New York Times and Entrepreneur, and his core argument is consistent across those appearances: middle-manager capability is the real engine of retention, and most companies underinvest in it. Gimbel’s keynote material focuses on the practical levers a leadership team can pull, hiring discipline, onboarding, manager development, the often-overlooked “B player” cohort, and how to build a retention-focused culture that survives growth. The audience is the CEO, COO and CHRO who already know they have a culture problem and want a sharp operator’s view on what to do about it. Key speaking topics Company culture and retention Middle-manager development Hiring, onboarding and talent strategy Employee engagement Building and protecting workplace culture through growth The labour market and the future of work Ideal for CEOs, COOs and CHROs leading high-growth or post-acquisition organisations facing retention pressure. Executive teams looking to upgrade their middle-manager population as a strategic priority. HR and talent leadership communities at industry conferences and association events. Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of why retention numbers move and which decisions actually shift them. A specific agenda for upgrading middle managers from individual contributors to people leaders. Tactical guidance on hiring and onboarding processes that protect culture as headcount scales. An operator’s perspective on company culture, distinct from consulting frameworks.

Why organisations work with Tim Smith Two decades on Steve Wright in the Afternoon on BBC Radio 2 is rehearsal time most corporate hosts do not have. He arrives on stage already knowing how to read a room of strangers in real time. He has built a working production relationship with FTSE-scale internal communications teams through podcast series for BAE Systems, Network Rail, BT, Jaguar Land Rover, Diageo, UK Power Networks and McVitie’s. He understands what a regulated employer can and cannot put into a sponsored programme. He interviews senior leaders, including former Prime Minister Tony Blair on the Steve Wright Show, without losing the audience or the executive. That craft transfers directly to fireside chats and keynote interviews at corporate events. His current weekday morning slot on Magic Classical and continuing radio practice keep his interview rhythm sharp. Buyers are not booking a former broadcaster; they are booking someone still on air every week. Biography highlights Co-presenter on Steve Wright in the Afternoon, BBC Radio 2, from 1999 to 2022. Presenter of the UK Top 20 Chart Show on BBC World Service for 13 years, succeeding Paul Burnett. Weekday morning presenter on Magic Classical from June 2025. Corporate podcast presenter for BAE Systems, Network Rail, BT, Jaguar Land Rover, Diageo, UK Power Networks and McVitie’s. Sony Award-nominated for Picture Show on BBC GLR. Covered the 2000 Open Golf Championship at St Andrews and Wimbledon for official broadcast platforms. Biography The hardest part of a corporate set piece is rarely the strategy on the slide. It is the twelve seconds after the host introduces the CEO, when the audience decides whether to listen. A broadcaster trained on live national radio knows how to fill those twelve seconds. Most corporate MCs do not. Tim joined BBC Radio 2 in 1999 as co-presenter on Steve Wright in the Afternoon and stayed for 23 years, alongside Janey Lee Grace and Joyce Frost. Before that he had presented on BBC Radio 1, on BBC GLR where Picture Show earned a Sony Award nomination, and the UK Top 20 Chart Show on BBC World Service for 13 years. The corporate work runs in parallel. He presents podcast series for BAE Systems, Network Rail, BT, Jaguar Land Rover, Diageo, UK Power Networks and McVitie’s, working inside the editorial and compliance constraints that internal communications teams in regulated industries actually operate under. From June 2025 he also presents the weekday morning show on Magic Classical. For a buyer, the proposition is narrow and clear. He is not a subject-matter speaker on a business theme. He is a host with two decades of live national broadcast behind him, hired to make a conference, awards night, town hall or branded podcast sound like something the audience wants to keep listening to. Key speaking topics Conference and awards hosting Keynote interviews and fireside chats with senior leaders Corporate podcast presenting and production Internal town hall and all-hands hosting Panel moderation Live broadcast craft for corporate events Ideal for Internal communications and employee experience leads commissioning town halls, all-hands events and leadership broadcasts Marketing and brand teams running awards programmes, conferences and customer events Corporate affairs teams producing branded podcast series for employee or external audiences Event producers and agency partners briefing on plenary and panel hosting Audience outcomes A plenary that runs to time, with senior speakers introduced and handled without dead air. A keynote interview that draws the answer the audience came to hear, not the answer the executive rehearsed. A panel that moves, with questions sharp enough that the panellists have to respond rather than recite. An awards night with pace, where category presentations land and the room is still engaged at the final award. A podcast episode that sounds like national broadcast quality rather than a recorded internal meeting.

Why organisations work with Stuart Lancaster A coaching record that proves the method twice: a national team rebuild with England and a sustained European-winning culture with Leinster, where the same principles produced different results in different conditions. Direct authorship of the 2018 Heineken Champions Cup-winning Leinster culture, alongside Leo Cullen, plus four consecutive PRO14 titles between 2018 and 2021. Few corporate speakers can point to a documented seven-year run of trophy-level output in their primary domain. A structured leadership masterclass product, not a one-off war-stories keynote. Lancaster runs his own corporate programme through Stuart Lancaster Leadership, which means the material has been used and refined with executive audiences over years. Hands-on practitioner credibility on the specific question senior leaders find hardest: how to set behavioural standards inside a high-status, high-ego group of professionals without losing performance. Biography highlights Head Coach, England Rugby, 2011 to 2015. Forty-six tests, twenty-eight wins, a Triple Crown and four Calcutta Cups. Senior coach, Leinster Rugby, 2016 to 2023. One European Rugby Champions Cup (2018) and four consecutive PRO14/URC titles (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021). Head Coach, Racing 92, from 2023. Head Coach, Connacht Rugby, from June 2025. Three Churchill Cup titles as Head Coach of England Saxons (2008, 2010, 2011) and National Division One title with Leeds Tykes (2006 to 2007). Founder of Stuart Lancaster Leadership, running corporate masterclasses and keynotes for business audiences. Biography Rebuilding a national rugby programme after a public failure is a leadership problem before it is a technical one. When Lancaster took the England head coach role in 2012, the squad was carrying the reputational damage of a disastrous 2011 World Cup. He spent the next four years rebuilding the behavioural standards, won twenty-eight of forty-six tests, took a Triple Crown and four Calcutta Cups, and then watched it end in the group stages of the 2015 World Cup on home soil. The next chapter is what makes the leadership argument credible. Joining Leinster as a senior coach in 2016, Lancaster worked alongside Leo Cullen on a culture that produced the 2018 European Rugby Champions Cup final, won 15-12 against Racing 92, and four consecutive PRO14/URC titles between 2018 and 2021. The same person, the same principles, a different system, and a sustained run of European and domestic trophies. That sequence is now the source material for his work with senior executives. Through Stuart Lancaster Leadership, he runs masterclasses and keynote sessions for corporate audiences on building high-performing teams, leadership under pressure, and the practical detail of culture inside elite groups. The work is structured, not anecdotal: behavioural standards, feedback mechanics, role clarity, how leaders show up in front of their group when results are poor. Since 2023 he has continued to coach at the highest level, first at Racing 92 in the Top 14 and now as Head Coach of Connacht Rugby, appointed in June 2025. The leadership method is not retrospective; it is being tested again, on the field, while the corporate audience is watching. Key speaking topics Building high-performing teams Culture and behavioural standards in elite groups Leadership under public scrutiny and after setback Trust, feedback and communication inside senior teams Resilience and sustained performance through change Authentic leadership for introverts and extroverts Ideal for Chief executives, executive committees and senior leadership groups responsible for performance over multi-year cycles Chief people officers and HR directors building leadership development programmes anchored in real team-leadership practice Sales, professional services and trading leadership teams operating under high pressure and public results Conference audiences of senior managers where leadership and team-performance content is the primary brief Audience outcomes A concrete reference model for what cultural standards look like inside an elite-performance group, drawn from named examples at England and Leinster Sharper thinking on the difference between leading through good results and leading through bad ones Practical language for the behavioural side of leadership: standards, feedback, role clarity, the leader’s own conduct in front of the group A counterpoint to abstract leadership content, grounded in a domain where results are public, weekly and unforgiving

Why organisations work with Sir Stuart Hampson He chaired the John Lewis Partnership from 1993 to 2007 through one of the most significant modernisation programmes in UK retail, including the Oxford Street and Sloane Square refurbishments, extended trading hours and the launch of John Lewis Direct and Ocado, with pre-tax profit reaching £319 million in 2006. As President of the Employee Ownership Association, he carries both the operator’s and the sector advocate’s view of employee ownership, rather than a textbook one. The public-office record, including chairmanship of The Crown Estate from 2010 to 2016, a CVO and a Deputy Lieutenancy of Buckinghamshire, gives him credibility in front of public-sector and regulated-industry audiences that most business speakers cannot match. His career trajectory, from the UK Civil Service to John Lewis and back into public office, allows him to speak fluently to audiences on both sides of the public-private divide. He has been on the corporate speaking circuit since 2009 and delivers sessions in English and French, useful for pan-European events. Biography highlights Chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, 1993 to 2007; joined the Partnership in 1982 Knighted for services to retailing, 1998; Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, 2016 Non-executive Chairman and First Commissioner of The Crown Estate, 2010 to 2016 President of the Employee Ownership Association; founding Deputy Chairman of London First Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford; honorary doctorate in Business Administration, Kingston University Earlier career in the UK Civil Service, rising to Assistant Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry Biography Britain’s most-cited example of employee ownership is the John Lewis Partnership, and the chairman who led it through its transition into the modern retail economy is Sir Stuart Hampson. He joined the Partnership in 1982, became Chairman in 1993, and held the role for fourteen years, through the refurbishment of the flagship Oxford Street and Sloane Square stores, extended trading hours, the expansion of the product range and the creation of John Lewis Direct and Ocado. By 2006 the Partnership was reporting pre-tax profits of £319 million, 27 per cent up on the previous year. His route into the role was unusual. He began his career in the UK Civil Service in 1969 at the Board of Trade and rose to Assistant Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry before moving to John Lewis. That grounding informs how he thinks about governance, employee voice and the relationship between public purpose and commercial return. The knighthood in 1998 recognised the retailing side of that work. A Commander of the Royal Victorian Order followed in 2016, the year his term chairing The Crown Estate came to an end, a role he had held since 2010. The advocacy role has been consistent throughout. He is President of the Employee Ownership Association, a founding Deputy Chairman of London First, a former President of the Royal Agricultural Society of England and a former Prince of Wales Ambassador for Economic Renewal. The academic link is through St John’s College, Oxford, where he studied and is now a Fellow, and Kingston University, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1998. For leadership teams, remuneration committees and HR functions looking at employee ownership, engagement and the commercial case for a partnership model, Hampson brings the rarest thing in the field: a first-hand account of what it looks like to run the institution that every UK executive cites when they use the phrase. He has been on the speaking circuit since 2009, delivering sessions in English and French. Key speaking topics Employee ownership and engagement at scale Culture and commercial performance in retail Governance in employee-owned businesses Leadership transitions and executive succession Public-private leadership: lessons from civil service and commercial roles Modernisation of long-established institutions Ideal for Boards and chief executives considering, defending or reforming an employee-ownership or partnership model CHROs, remuneration and engagement leaders looking to ground their strategy in a named, credible reference case Retail, consumer-goods and services leadership teams managing cultural transformation alongside modernisation Public-sector leaders and institutional boards seeking an experienced chair perspective on governance and purpose Audience outcomes A practitioner’s view of how employee ownership and engagement connect to commercial performance, drawn from fourteen years chairing the John Lewis Partnership Reference cases on the Oxford Street and Sloane Square modernisations and the launch of John Lewis Direct and Ocado A clearer framing of the governance trade-offs inside partnership and ownership models Perspective on the civil-service-to-commercial-leadership transition that is useful to organisations at the regulator-private sector boundary

Why organisations work with Stew Friedman Total Leadership is one of the few leadership methods built inside a Fortune 10 operating environment, Ford Motor Company, and then road-tested through a top-five business school for two decades. It has the rigour of academic work and the realism of factory-floor change. He gives executive teams a usable language for the trade-off they actually face, which is not work versus life but performance under pressure versus depletion of the people delivering it. His framework converts a soft topic into a measurable one. Participants run small structured experiments and report performance gains across four domains, which gives HR and L&D leaders something concrete to point at. Thinkers50 named him the world’s number one thinker on talent in 2015 and inducted him into the Hall of Fame in 2023, which is unusually strong recognition in a category that buyers are now under board pressure to take seriously. He works at the level senior buyers want, which is senior leaders and high-potential cohorts, and he is comfortable in front of a board, an executive offsite, or a long-form development programme. Biography highlights Emeritus Practice Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, on faculty since 1984. Founder of the Wharton Leadership Program and the Wharton Work/Life Integration Project, both established in 1991. Former senior executive for leadership development at Ford Motor Company, where he ran the Leadership Development Center and a corporate programme reaching 2,500 managers a year. Author of Total Leadership (Harvard Business Review Press), Leading the Life You Want, and Parents Who Lead. Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award for Talent, 2015, and inductee into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, 2023. Families and Work Institute Work Life Legacy Award, 2013. Host of Work and Life on SiriusXM Wharton Business Radio. Biography Ford Motor Company in the late 1990s was the proving ground for an idea that most leadership programmes still avoid: that the performance of senior leaders is inseparable from the rest of their lives, and that pretending otherwise produces fragile executives and exhausted teams. Friedman ran that experiment as the company’s senior executive for leadership development from 1999 to 2001, leading the Leadership Development Center and a programme that touched 2,500 managers a year. What he took back to Wharton became Total Leadership, the book and the method. The argument is simple to state and difficult to execute. A leader has four domains, work, home, community and self, and the job is to design small experiments that produce gains across all four at once. The method is taught inside Wharton’s MBA and executive programmes and has been delivered to thousands of leaders inside companies that cannot afford to treat senior burnout as a private matter. The intellectual home for the work is the Wharton Leadership Program and the Work/Life Integration Project, both of which Friedman founded in 1991 and ran for decades. He has written Total Leadership, Leading the Life You Want, and, with Alyssa F. Westring, Parents Who Lead. Harvard Business Review has carried more than fifty of his digital pieces. The external recognition matters because the category does. Thinkers50 ranked him the world’s number one thinker on talent in 2015 and inducted him into its Hall of Fame in 2023. The Families and Work Institute gave him its Work Life Legacy Award. For a senior buyer trying to fix the gap between what their leaders are asked to deliver and what their workforce is willing to give, that is the body of work in the room. Key speaking topics Leadership impact in all parts of life Total Leadership and four-way wins Leadership development inside large organisations Work and life integration as a performance question Engagement and the contract between leaders and the people they lead Talent strategy and senior leader development Parenting, career, and the dual-career executive household Ideal for CEO, COO, and executive committees rebuilding the leadership model after restructure or sustained pressure CHRO and chief talent officers responsible for senior leader development and retention Boards looking at engagement and burnout as a governance and risk issue, not a perks question High-potential cohorts inside leadership academies and corporate universities Audience outcomes A different working definition of leadership performance, one that includes the durability of the leader and the team, not just quarterly output A simple structure for designing small experiments that improve performance and wellbeing at the same time A language senior teams can use with each other about pressure, depletion and trade-offs without it sliding into a wellbeing conversation A clearer sense of what the next generation of senior leaders actually need from their organisations, and what they will not accept

Why organisations work with Simon Sinek The Golden Circle gives leadership teams a named, diagrammatic model for examining whether their communication and strategy starts from purpose or defaults to product; concrete enough to run a board session around, not just a concept to absorb from a stage. The Infinite Game framework reframes how organisations think about competition: the argument that most organisations are playing a finite game in an inherently infinite one gives senior leaders a precise diagnostic for why short-termism is corroding their culture and decision-making. His work on the Circle of Safety – drawn from military and organisational research – gives leaders a specific language and accountability structure for psychological safety, distinguishing it from vague “culture” conversations. Three consecutive Thinkers50 appearances (2017, 2019, 2021), including the Future Thinker award, position him inside the recognised canon of serious management thinking – relevant where senior buyers are evaluating credibility, not just popularity. His reach into the US Armed Forces, the United Nations, and the US Congress alongside global corporate work gives his frameworks a cross-sector validation that most leadership speakers cannot match. Biography highlights Author of five books on leadership and purpose, including Start with Why (global bestseller, over one million copies sold in the US alone), Leaders Eat Last (New York Times bestseller), and The Infinite Game (New York Times bestseller); published by Portfolio/Penguin and Penguin Random House Creator of the Golden Circle framework, one of the most widely adopted models in leadership communication and organisational purpose TED Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” (2009) is the third most-watched talk on TED.com, with over 60 million views Named to the Thinkers50 ranking three consecutive times (2017, 2019, 2021); recipient of the Thinkers50 Future Thinker Award Adjunct staff member, RAND Corporation (since 2010); former instructor in Strategic Communications, Columbia University Founder of The Optimism Company, a leadership learning and development platform, and Optimism Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House; has spoken at the United Nations, US Congress, and across senior US military leadership Biography Most leadership conversations begin in the wrong place. They start with what an organisation does or how it does it – and never reach the question that actually determines whether people are engaged, aligned, and willing to give discretionary effort: why. The inability to answer that question convincingly is not a branding gap; it is a leadership gap, and Simon Sinek has built one of the most recognised frameworks in contemporary management thinking to address it. His Golden Circle model – introduced in Start with Why (2009) and subsequently the subject of the third most-watched TED Talk in history – provides organisations with a structured means of diagnosing whether their leadership, communication, and strategy is purpose-led or merely product-led. The argument is grounded in the biology of decision-making: people do not respond primarily to logic and features, but to belief and identity. The practical implication for leadership is significant, and it is why the framework has moved from conference rooms into board strategy sessions, culture programmes, and military leadership curricula. His later work extends the argument. The Infinite Game (2019, New York Times bestseller) identifies a structural problem in how most organisations compete: treating an inherently infinite game – business, leadership, institutional relevance – as if it has a finish line. Leaders operating with a finite mindset optimise for short-term metrics and burn through the trust, culture, and purpose that actually determine longevity. This is not motivational language; it is a specific claim about strategic error, and it gives senior leaders a framework for examining decisions that are degrading their organisations from the inside. Sinek’s affiliations reflect the range at which his work operates. As an adjunct staff member at the RAND Corporation since 2010, advising on military innovation, and having spoken at the United Nations Global Compact Leaders Summit and directly to senior leadership across every branch of the US Armed Forces, he brings institutional credibility that extends well beyond the corporate speaker circuit. Three consecutive Thinkers50 appearances, including the Future Thinker Award, confirm his standing within the serious canon of management thinking. Key speaking topics Purpose-driven leadership and the Golden Circle Organisational trust and psychological safety Finite vs. infinite mindset in strategy and leadership Leadership culture and the conditions for engagement Long-term organisational performance and decision-making Inspiring communication for leaders and teams Values, identity, and organisational alignment Ideal for C-suite and board-level leadership development programmes where the strategic case for culture and purpose needs to be made at an executive level CHROs and People directors working on engagement, trust, and the conditions under which employees perform at their best Transformation leads and strategy teams examining how short-term competitive pressures are eroding long-term capability Senior leadership conferences requiring a speaker with both mass-market name recognition and a defensible intellectual framework Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary – Golden Circle, Circle of Safety, Infinite Game – that gives leadership teams a common reference point for conversations about purpose, trust, and strategy A framework for diagnosing whether their organisation’s leadership and communication starts from why or defaults to what A reframe of competitive strategy: the finite vs. infinite mindset distinction as a diagnostic tool for identifying decisions that are weakening organisational resilience Greater clarity on the specific leadership behaviours – protection, consistency, accountability – that build psychological safety and sustain discretionary effort A practical case for why culture and purpose are strategic variables, not HR programmes

Why organisations work with Shawn Achor The Happiness Advantage is one of the most-read popular books on the science of positive psychology, a New York Times bestseller that gives audiences a shared reference before the session begins. His TED talk «The Happy Secret to Better Work», with over 16 million views, is one of the most-watched of all time and is routinely used by HR and communications leaders to introduce his work internally. His Happiness Advantage training has been delivered across approximately a third of the Fortune 100, which means his intervention design is already calibrated for large, complex organisations rather than small-group coaching settings. A Harvard teaching record that includes more than a dozen distinguished teaching awards and one of the university’s most popular classes means his delivery has been pressure-tested in front of demanding, non-paying audiences. The research base is continuous: Institute for Applied Positive Research, collaboration with Yale and Columbia, HBR cover feature and a PBS special, all keeping the material updated rather than frozen at the 2010 book. Biography highlights CEO of Good Think, Inc.; founder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research BA from Harvard University; MA in Christian and Buddhist Ethics from Harvard Divinity School; twelve years at Harvard Author of New York Times bestsellers The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness TED talk «The Happy Secret to Better Work» viewed over 16 million times Research featured on the cover of Harvard Business Review; subject of a PBS special Happiness Advantage training deployed across approximately one third of the Fortune 100 Biography The success formula most organisations run on, work harder, deliver results, then be happy, runs against what positive psychology research has produced for the last two decades. Shawn Achor has built his career on inverting it, and The Happiness Advantage, his New York Times bestselling book, is the most accessible expression of the argument: positive mindset precedes performance, and the data now exist to prove it at corporate scale. His credentials are anchored at Harvard. A BA from the university, a Master of Arts from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist Ethics, twelve years on faculty with seven of those as an Officer of Harvard living in Harvard Yard, and more than a dozen teaching awards across that period. He taught what became one of the most popular classes in Harvard’s history on positive psychology. He now teaches in Wharton’s Advanced Management Program and continues research collaborations with Yale and Columbia through the Institute for Applied Positive Research. The public profile extends the research into the mainstream. His TED talk has been viewed more than 16 million times, one of the most-watched of all time. His work has been the cover of Harvard Business Review and the subject of a PBS special. He has lectured in more than 50 countries, a roster that includes CEOs in China, senior leaders at the Pentagon and the White House, and farmers in Zimbabwe. The commercial footprint is the point for corporate buyers. Achor’s Happiness Advantage training has been delivered across roughly a third of the Fortune 100 companies, which makes his positive-psychology material one of the most extensively deployed in enterprise use. For CHROs, chief wellbeing officers and executive teams trying to connect wellbeing investment to performance outcomes, he is one of the few researchers who has both the Harvard credentials and the deployment experience to hold both ends of the conversation. Key speaking topics The science of happiness and performance Positive psychology at organisational scale Mindset, optimism and resilience in high-pressure environments Leadership behaviours that generate positive contagion Stress, energy and sustainable performance Applying positive psychology to education and social systems Ideal for CEOs and executive teams connecting wellbeing and engagement to measurable performance outcomes CHROs, chief wellbeing officers and HR leadership teams designing enterprise-wide positive psychology programmes All-hands, sales kick-offs and leadership conferences requiring a main-stage, globally recognised speaker Schools, universities and education leadership teams applying positive education principles Audience outcomes The seven principles of positive psychology from The Happiness Advantage translated into workplace practice A research-grade view of the link between optimism, social support and job performance Specific behavioural interventions that are deployable without structural change Reference points from Harvard teaching, Fortune 100 corporate engagements and the Institute for Applied Positive Research

Why organisations work with Shane Feldman He built Count Me In from a high-school project into a global incubator that has initiated more than 30,000 community ventures across 104 countries. The operator credentials are unusual in the engagement space. His research is field-built, not desk-built. Feldman has embedded himself in more than 100 cities across six continents to study how communities form, hold, and break, and translates that fieldwork into corporate retention frameworks. His client list (Google, Disney, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, PwC, TD Bank, Kaiser Permanente, Netflix, Coca-Cola, YPO) signals a buyer base of large, complex employers who use him for substantive HR and culture interventions, not motivational filler. He carries genuine media credibility (A&E “Undercover High”, coverage by Forbes, People, Larry King, Oprah) that lifts the marketing weight of the engagement around a keynote. Recognised by the White House, the United Nations, and the Prime Minister of Canada for community leadership work, which makes the substantive claim on community expertise defensible rather than rhetorical. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Count Me In, a social entrepreneurship incubator with more than 30,000 ventures launched across 104 countries. Author of “A Kids Book About Community” (A Kids Co., 2020). Cast member of A&E docuseries “Undercover High” (2018), an embedded social experiment in a US public high school. Recognised by the White House, the United Nations, and the Prime Minister of Canada for achievements in community leadership. Keynote speaker for Google, Disney, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, PwC, YPO, TD Bank, Shopify, Kaiser Permanente, Netflix, and Coca-Cola. Featured by Forbes, People Magazine, Larry King, and Oprah. Biography Most large employers now lose people not for reasons their engagement surveys can name. Compensation, perks, and policy are not the friction point. Belonging is. The organisations that retain talent in this environment are the ones treating workplace community as an operating problem rather than a soft one. Shane Feldman’s career has been an unusually direct route into that problem. He founded Count Me In in 2008 as a teenager in Toronto after a difficult school transition; the organisation has since grown into a social entrepreneurship incubator with members across 104 countries and more than 30,000 ventures initiated. The work has been recognised by the White House, the United Nations, and the Prime Minister of Canada. The frameworks he brings to corporate audiences come from two sources that rarely sit together. One is operator experience running a global organisation built around commitment, service, and retention. The other is field research; Feldman has embedded in more than 100 cities across six continents to study how communities form and hold. He translates that into structured tools for HR, sales, and leadership audiences, packaged as “Passport” keynotes covering team retention, customer loyalty, future-of-work, and AI integration. The corporate roster reflects how the work travels. Google, Disney, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, PwC, YPO, TD Bank, Shopify, Kaiser Permanente, Netflix, and Coca-Cola have all booked him on engagement, culture, and retention briefs. Key speaking topics Workplace community and belonging Employee engagement and retention Customer loyalty and relationship-driven sales Future of work and hybrid team performance Humanising AI in the workplace Inclusive and community-centred leadership Talent attraction and culture design Ideal for CHROs and CPOs running engagement, retention, and culture programmes Sales and customer success leaders rebuilding loyalty in low-trust markets Conferences focused on the future of work, hybrid productivity, and AI integration Membership organisations (YPO, EO, professional bodies) addressing community and connection Audience outcomes A clear read on why engagement and retention initiatives fail when they treat community as a soft outcome. Practical mechanisms for building belonging at team and organisation level, drawn from Count Me In’s operating playbook. A vocabulary for talking about workplace community that connects people strategy to commercial outcomes. A set of usable frames for integrating AI into work without eroding the human relationships that drive retention.

Why organisations work with Scott Sonenshein A peer-reviewed thesis with commercial bite: Stretch synthesises a decade of his published research at Rice and Michigan into a working model for resourcefulness, not a recycled productivity argument. Credibility with finance and operations buyers: a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Washington Post pick of the 10 leadership books of 2017, anchored in studies of how constrained firms outperform better-funded rivals. A second franchise on workplace clutter and focus: co-author with Marie Kondo of the New York Times bestseller Joy at Work, giving him reach into culture, productivity and wellbeing briefs as well as strategy. Academic standing that holds up under scrutiny: former Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal, with publications in Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Science, and seven Rice Faculty Research Excellence Awards. A speaker who translates research without diluting it: keynotes at Google and Fortune 500 audiences across technology, energy, healthcare, retail, banking and manufacturing. Biography highlights Henry Gardiner Symonds, Professor of Management at Rice Business, Rice University. Author of Stretch (HarperCollins, 2017), a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Washington Post 2017 leadership book of the year selection. Co-author with Marie Kondo of Joy at Work (Little, Brown Spark, 2020), a New York Times bestseller. Ph.D. from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan; M.Phil from the University of Cambridge. Former Associate Editor, Academy of Management Journal; published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review and Organization Science. Bylines in the New York Times, Time, Fast Company and Harvard Business Review; speaker at Talks at Google. Biography The instinct in most boardrooms under pressure is to ask for more. More budget, more headcount, more technology, more data. Sonenshein’s research at Rice University, drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork, argues that the firms that outperform their rivals tend to do the opposite. They redeploy what they already own. That argument is the spine of Stretch, his Wall Street Journal bestseller, named by the Washington Post as one of the ten leadership books to read in 2017. The book separates two organisational mindsets. Chasers measure themselves by what they lack. Stretchers find unconventional uses for resources, people and capabilities already inside the business. The distinction shows up in margins, in innovation rates, and in how teams behave when the next round of funding does not arrive. The academic credentials behind the argument are unusually strong for a trade book author. Sonenshein holds the Henry Gardiner Symonds Professorship at Rice Business, a Ph.D. from the Ross School of Business at Michigan, and an M.Phil from Cambridge. He has served as Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal and published in Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Science. Rice has awarded him its Faculty Research Excellence Award seven times. His second book, Joy at Work, co-written with Marie Kondo and published by Little, Brown Spark in 2020, became a New York Times bestseller and extended his reach into the operating reality of how people focus, prioritise and clear cognitive load at work. That combined ground, the strategy of resourcefulness above and the discipline of focus below, is what makes him useful to executive audiences who cannot solve a growth problem by writing a bigger cheque. Key speaking topics Resourcefulness as a strategic capability Innovation under constraint Organisational change and sensemaking Productivity and focus at work Decluttering professional life and decision load Creativity and growth without additional budget Ideal for Senior leadership teams under cost pressure who still own a growth mandate CHROs and culture leads rebuilding focus, prioritisation and engagement Innovation, transformation and operations leaders running pilots without expansion capital Conferences in technology, energy, healthcare, retail, banking and manufacturing where the audience is operators, not strategists in the abstract Audience outcomes A working language to separate “chasing” from “stretching” inside their own decisions Concrete examples of how constrained firms outperform better-resourced rivals A method for auditing the underused resources, people and capabilities already on the books Practical tools from Joy at Work for cutting cognitive clutter at the team level Research-backed counterarguments to the default that growth requires more inputs

Why organisations work with Roberto Forzoni Authored the textbook the Football Association embedded into its national coaching curriculum (The Official FA Guide to Psychology for Football, Hodder, 2004). The intellectual model has been tested at scale across FA coach education, not only in private practice. Built the “Team Murray” multidisciplinary support model during his tenure as National Performance Psychologist at the Lawn Tennis Association, 2007 to 2009. The structure has since been adopted by other federations and players as a template. Has done the hands-on work alongside the consultancy. First-team coaching roles under Steve Coppell at Crystal Palace, Brentford and Brighton; performance psychology at West Ham United, Southampton, Charlton and Norwich City. He has been in the dressing room when pressure broke a team and when it did not. Holds an MSc in Sport Sciences (Distinction) from Brunel University and BASES accreditation, with applied training in CBT, motivational interviewing and solution-focused practice. The clinical depth is unusual for a performance speaker. Standing BBC consultant on performance and mindset for more than two decades, with further contributions on Sky and Al Jazeera. The perspective has been publicly tested over time, not assembled for the stage. Biography highlights Lead author of The Official FA Guide to Psychology for Football (Hodder & Stoughton, 2004), embedded by the Football Association into its national coaching curriculum. National Performance Psychologist at the Lawn Tennis Association from 2007 to 2009. Created the “Team Murray” multidisciplinary support model during Andy Murray’s early Grand Slam years. First-team coaching and performance psychology roles across eight Premier League clubs, including West Ham United, Southampton, Brentford, Brighton, Crystal Palace, Charlton Athletic and Norwich City. MSc Sport Sciences (Distinction), Brunel University. BASES-accredited Sport Psychologist, with further training in CBT, motivational interviewing and solution-focused practice. BBC consultant on performance and mindset across BBC TV and BBC Radio for more than two decades, with further contributions on Sky and Al Jazeera. Psychological coach to Olympic and World Championship athletes, including heavyweight Derek Chisora’s preparation for his title fight against Tyson Fury and Olympic sprinter Ashleigh Nelson. Biography The West Ham squad that brought in Roberto Forzoni as performance psychologist was running a 23% win rate. Nine games later, after the team had completed a Premier League double over both Manchester United and Arsenal, the win rate sat at 78%. The intervention was psychological. That kind of recovery has shown up repeatedly across Forzoni’s thirty years inside elite sport. He has held first-team coaching and performance psychology roles at eight Premier League clubs, including West Ham United, Southampton, Brentford and Crystal Palace. He prepared heavyweight Derek Chisora for the title fight against Tyson Fury, and built the “Team Murray” multidisciplinary model during Andy Murray’s early years on the tour. The published work sits in football. Forzoni is the lead author of The Official FA Guide to Psychology for Football, the textbook the Football Association embedded into its coach education programme in 2004. The intellectual base draws on an MSc in Sport Sciences (Distinction) from Brunel University, BASES accreditation, and applied training in CBT and solution-focused practice. More than two decades of BBC consultancy on performance and mindset have put the perspective into wide public circulation. What Forzoni brings into a corporate room is a particular reading of senior team behaviour under pressure. The patterns he watches for were diagnosed in dressing rooms and on Centre Court. Composure narrows under scrutiny. Strong personalities stop bringing their best to the group when results turn. For Forzoni, these are coachable problems, drawn from the same evidence base a relegation-threatened Premier League squad would use. Key speaking topics Performance psychology Team dynamics under pressure Composure and emotional regulation in senior leadership Recovery from public setback Mindset and behavioural change in elite environments Wellbeing and sustained performance Ideal for Senior leadership teams under sustained external scrutiny or after a publicly visible setback CEOs and executive committees in restructure, post-merger integration or change cycles, where the constraint has become team behaviour CHROs and L&D directors building team-effectiveness and resilience programmes for senior talent High-stakes client-facing teams in sales, professional services and trading environments Audience outcomes A specific language for the behaviours that hold a team together under pressure and the behaviours that split it apart The techniques used inside Premier League dressing rooms and Grand Slam tennis to regulate nerves and recover after a public setback An honest read of the gap between a leadership team’s stated values and how it actually behaves when results stall Composure approached as a deliberate behaviour leaders can train, with specific drills Forzoni uses inside elite sport The discipline of asking “Did I work as hard as I could today?” as a daily performance check, a question Forzoni draws from elite athletes

Why organisations work with Robert Holden His Be Happy programme is one of the few wellbeing interventions to have been independently tested by academic scientists on national television, giving HR and culture leaders a credible, evidence-grounded answer to the “is any of this real” question from finance and the board. Twenty years of corporate work with Dove on the Real Beauty Campaign and Unilever on brand purpose across 400 brands means he speaks to wellbeing and purpose as commercial, not pastoral, conversations. Success Intelligence reframes high performance for senior teams who have hit their targets and are quietly running on empty, an audience that generic resilience speakers do not credibly reach. A back catalogue of 14 books with Hay House and Penguin Random House, two BBC documentaries, two TEDx talks and a long Oprah association gives him cultural recognition that lifts an internal event out of a routine wellness slot. Biography highlights Ph.D. in psychology and spirituality; founder of The Happiness Project (1994), originally NHS-sponsored. Subject of two BBC documentaries, The Happiness Formula and How to Be Happy, shown in 20 countries to more than 30 million viewers. Be Happy programme was independently tested by Professor Michael Argyle (Oxford) and Professor Richard Davidson (University of Wisconsin-Madison) for the BBC QED science strand. Appointed team coach to the leaders of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign in 2005; later led brand-purpose work with Unilever across its 400 brands. New York Times bestselling author of 14 books, including Happiness NOW!, Authentic Success, Loveability, Life Loves You (with Louise Hay) and Higher Purpose. Two TEDx talks (Destination Addiction, The Tea Meditation); featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and PBS. Biography The Happiness Project began in 1994 as an NHS-sponsored clinic in west London, treating happiness as a clinical question rather than a self-help category. Two years later, the BBC built a QED science documentary around its eight-week programme, with Oxford’s Michael Argyle and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Richard Davidson measuring outcomes. The documentary reached more than 30 million viewers in 20 countries and gave Robert Holden a platform other wellbeing voices have struggled to match. From that base, Holden built Success Intelligence, a consulting practice working with senior teams on the version of high performance that does not quietly burn people out. In 2005 he was appointed team coach to the leaders of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, and the brand-purpose work that followed extended into Unilever’s broader portfolio. His books, fourteen of them across Hay House and Penguin Random House, sit on the same line of inquiry: Happiness NOW!, Authentic Success, Loveability, Life Loves You with Louise Hay, and Higher Purpose. Two TEDx talks and a long association with Oprah have kept the audience wide. What organisations get from Holden is a serious, non-corporate voice on questions HR and senior teams now have to answer in commercial language: why people commit, what purpose actually means inside a P&L, and why happiness, properly defined, is closer to a leadership variable than a benefit. Key speaking topics Happiness and wellbeing at work Success Intelligence and authentic success Purpose-led leadership and brand purpose Resilience and burnout in senior teams Creative thinking through change Coaching and personal development Mental health and positive psychology Ideal for CHROs and heads of culture rebuilding wellbeing strategies that have to land with finance and the board. Senior leadership offsites where high-performing teams are quietly fatigued and need a different framing of success. Brand and marketing leadership working through purpose, authenticity and customer trust. Conferences on the future of work, employee engagement, and mental health in the workplace. Audience outcomes A clearer, evidence-backed view of what happiness at work actually is, and what it is not. Language to talk about wellbeing and purpose with commercial credibility, not pastoral softness. Practical inquiries from Success Intelligence that senior leaders can apply to their own working patterns. A sharper account of why purpose work succeeds inside some organisations and fails inside others. Permission, particularly for senior audiences, to take the question of meaning at work seriously.