Employee Wellbeing

Why organisations work with Dave Steele He turns an abstract inclusion agenda into a room of people who have felt something specific. Poetry, song and personal testimony land with audiences in a way a policy deck cannot. He brings a named platform behind the message: the Stand By Me RP community he founded in 2015 is one of the largest RP groups in the world, and his trilogy topped poetry charts in the US and Australia. He has been trusted by serious institutions to represent the patient and lived-experience voice, including the American Foundation for the Blind (Helen Keller Achievement Awards emcee) and the National Eye Institute at NIH. Brand and product work with Apple, Meta, Audi, Kellogg’s, Navilens and OrCam gives him direct fluency in how large companies are approaching accessibility in practice, not just in principle. He delivers as a performer as well as a speaker, which makes him suited to conference mainstage, awards nights and internal culture events where a standard keynote would not move the room. Biography highlights Author of the “Stand By Me RP” poetry trilogy (2016-2018); Volume I reached number one poetic release in the US and Australia in its first week. Founder of the Stand By Me RP online community (2015), one of the largest Retinitis Pigmentosa support groups on social media. Emcee of the 24th Annual Helen Keller Achievement Awards, American Foundation for the Blind. Invited speaker at the National Institutes of Health, where he opened the National Eye Institute Intramural Program retreat in April 2024. Patron of Henshaws; 2018 Henshaws Impact Award; 2018 Pride of Bury Community Hero Award; 2023 National Diversity Award shortlist (Positive Role Model for Disability). Global Ambassador for Two Blind Brothers; collaborator with Apple, Meta, Audi, Kellogg’s, Parfums de Marly, Navilens and OrCam. Biography Most inclusion work still treats disability as an HR category. A poem, delivered in a room of executives, does something a training module cannot. It gives the audience a few minutes inside someone else’s life, and that is what Dave Steele’s work depends on. Steele was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 2014. He had been a singer and a car salesman; the diagnosis ended both careers and left him at home in Manchester with four children and serious debt. In 2015 he started a Facebook page called “Stand By Me RP,” named after a song he had rewritten for a support group. It became one of the largest RP communities on social media and the seed of everything that followed. The poetry came next. His “Stand By Me RP” trilogy, released annually between 2016 and 2018, reached the top of poetry charts in the United States and Australia. He has since written more than 700 poems and songs about sight loss. That body of work is why serious institutions invite him in: he emceed the 24th Helen Keller Achievement Awards for the American Foundation for the Blind, and in April 2024 opened the National Eye Institute’s Intramural Program retreat at NIH at the invitation of its scientific director. The organisational value is different from a typical DEI speaker. Steele does not offer a framework. He offers a specific voice that leaders can put in front of their people when they want an inclusion conversation to stop feeling procedural, supported by active work with Apple, Meta, Audi, Kellogg’s, Navilens and OrCam on how accessibility actually shows up in product and brand. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and lived experience Sight loss and visual impairment advocacy Resilience after a life-changing diagnosis Accessibility in product, brand and workplace Poetry and storytelling as communication Mental health and identity through chronic illness Patient voice in medical and research settings Ideal for CHRO, DEI and employee experience leaders running disability inclusion or accessibility programmes Healthcare, life sciences and ophthalmology audiences wanting an authentic patient voice Awards nights, conference mainstage slots and internal culture events that need a performer as well as a speaker Consumer, tech and retail brands working on accessibility in product and communications Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what a progressive sight loss diagnosis does to work, family and identity A sharper sense of where stated inclusion policies diverge from daily employee experience Specific references from brand and product work with companies like Apple, Meta and OrCam on accessibility in practice Poetry and spoken-word performance that anchors the message in memory long after the event A reframing of disability as an active contribution to an organisation, not a compliance line

Why organisations work with Jaz Ampaw-Farr She gives leadership teams a vocabulary for wellbeing and inclusion that lands with sceptical senior audiences, because the argument is framed through performance and culture rather than through HR policy. Her toolkit is specific and teachable. The Failure CV, Jazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the 10% Braver model are named devices line managers can pick up the next day. The credibility sits in two places that rarely combine: a trained teacher with thirty years of front-line education work, and two 2025 honorary doctorates from the University of Hull and Bishop Grosseteste University for contribution to leadership, resilience, wellbeing and diversity. She is a working broadcaster and writer, not a consultant performing. Co-presenter on CBBC’s Hard Spell Abbey, TEDx speaker with a talk above 140,000 views, author of “Because of You, This Is Me” with Ian Gilbert, and 2025 Diversity in Cannes Programmer’s Choice winner for the short film Re-Story Your Life. Buyers book her for rooms that have heard the standard resilience keynote before and did not change anything afterwards. The measurable difference is that leaders leave with a small number of named practices they are willing to try in public. Biography highlights Co-writer and co-presenter, CBBC spelling series Hard Spell Abbey. TEDx speaker, “The Power of Everyday Heroes” (TEDxNorwichED), 140,000+ views. Author, “Because of You, This Is Me: The stories we tell, the stories we change and the power of everyday heroes” (Crown House Publishing, with Ian Gilbert). Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of Hull, 2025. Honorary Doctor of the University, Bishop Grosseteste University, 2025. Programmer’s Choice Award, 2025 Diversity in Cannes Film Festival, for the short film Re-Story Your Life. Speaker of the Year and Best Live Gig, The Speaker Awards UK, 2022. Contestant, BBC The Apprentice Series 9. Biography Five teachers changed the trajectory of a homeless teenager raised in foster care. Decades later, she trained as a teacher herself, and the question of what those five adults actually did, practically, at work, on ordinary days, became the spine of her professional work. That question is the reason organisations book her. It has a usable answer, and it applies inside businesses as much as inside schools. The public platform built up from there. A TEDx talk, “The Power of Everyday Heroes”, now carries more than 140,000 views. “Because of You, This Is Me”, written with Ian Gilbert for Crown House Publishing, turned the argument into a book for educators and leaders. A stretch on BBC’s The Apprentice and co-presenting credits on CBBC’s Hard Spell Abbey gave her the broadcast fluency that makes the live keynote work in front of an impatient senior room. The body of work is named, not generic. 10% Braver treats courage as a daily operational habit rather than a mindset. The Failure CV reframes psychological safety as something a leader practises in public. Jazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs repositions wellbeing as infrastructure for performance. In 2025, the University of Hull and Bishop Grosseteste University both conferred honorary doctorates for her contribution to leadership, resilience, wellbeing and diversity, and her short film Re-Story Your Life won the Programmer’s Choice Award at the Diversity in Cannes Film Festival. What a senior HR or culture buyer is actually getting is a speaker who can hold a room that has already heard the standard resilience keynote, and leave it with a small number of specific things the organisation’s line managers are willing to try on Monday. Key speaking topics Workplace wellbeing and psychological safety Inclusive leadership and belonging Resilience as an operational practice Storytelling for leaders and culture builders Employee engagement and human connection at work Personal courage and the 10% Braver model Culture and performance in high-pressure teams Ideal for CHROs and heads of people building a culture and wellbeing agenda that has to land with a sceptical executive audience Leadership teams running an inclusion, belonging or psychological safety programme that has stalled at policy and needs to move into daily practice Education, health and public sector leadership audiences working through sustained workforce pressure Internal conferences where the brief is to reset the tone before a demanding year, not to deliver a technical update Audience outcomes A named set of practices (Failure CV, 10% Braver, Jazlow’s Hierarchy of Needs) that line managers can use in conversations the next week. A sharper internal language for wellbeing and inclusion that links directly to performance and retention. Permission for senior leaders to be visible about uncertainty and failure in front of their teams. A reframing of resilience as an organisational responsibility, not a personal character test. A live example of storytelling used to shift a room, which leaders can study and borrow from.

Why organisations work with Sally Penni She founded and chairs Women in the Law UK, the largest professional development network for women in the legal profession in the country, giving her firsthand evidence of what fair progression looks like when it is built as an institution rather than announced as a policy. Her authority on fair progression is grounded in active legal practice at Kenworthy’s Chambers, a Bencher position at Gray’s Inn, and appointment to the International Criminal Court list of counsel. The argument carries weight because the practitioner is real. Through the Talking Law podcast she has interviewed Lord Pannick KC, Jolyon Maugham KC, the Treasury Solicitor, and other figures at the top of the UK legal system, building a body of recorded conversation about leadership, culture, and reform inside one of the most conservative professions. Her board portfolio spans the Royal Exchange Theatre, Arawak Walton Housing Association, the Access to Justice Foundation, and a part-time judicial role at the Valuation Tribunal, so the perspective is informed by governance experience across cultural, housing, legal, and judicial settings. She was awarded an MBE specifically for diversity, social mobility, and law, a recognition of practical contribution rather than profile, and one that signals to senior buyers that the work has stood up to external scrutiny. Biography highlights Practising barrister at Kenworthy’s Chambers, Manchester, specialising in criminal, employment, public, and data protection law. Founder and chair of Women in the Law UK, the professional development organisation she established in 2012. MBE for services to diversity, social mobility, and law, Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020. Two honorary doctorates in law, from Manchester Metropolitan University (2022) and the University of Salford (2023). Bencher of Gray’s Inn. Appointed to the list of counsel for the International Criminal Court. Companion of the Chartered Management Institute (CCMI) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA); author of the Talking Law book series; TEDx speaker. Host of two podcasts, Talking Law and The Law and Guidance Podcast. Talking Law features senior UK legal figures including Lord Pannick KC and the Treasury Solicitor. Non-Executive Director at the Royal Exchange Theatre and Arawak Walton Housing Association; Trustee, Access to Justice Foundation; part-time judge, Valuation Tribunal for England. Biography The legal profession is one of the most credentialled and slowest-moving institutions in British public life. It is also one of the places where the gap between stated values and lived experience is most visible. Sally Penni MBE has spent her career working that gap from the inside, as a practising barrister, an institution-builder, and a public voice on what it takes to widen access to a closed profession. She practises at Kenworthy’s Chambers in Manchester across criminal, employment, public, and data protection law, and sits as a part-time judge on the Valuation Tribunal for England. She is a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and on the International Criminal Court list of counsel. The institutional standing matters because it is the basis on which the rest of the work is taken seriously inside the profession. In 2012 she founded Women in the Law UK, now the country’s largest professional network for women in legal practice. Her Talking Law podcast, and a second show, The Law and Guidance Podcast, have built a record of conversation with senior figures of the bar, including Lord Pannick KC and the Treasury Solicitor. Through the same network she has built a substantial body of work on women’s health at work, including menopause, and the legal duties employers carry. Outside the law she sits on boards across theatre, housing, and access to justice, including the Royal Exchange Theatre, Arawak Walton Housing Association, and the Access to Justice Foundation. That work has been recognised on its own terms. An MBE in 2020 for diversity, social mobility, and law, honorary doctorates in law from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2022 and the University of Salford in 2023, and appointment as a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute. The recognition points at one thing: a body of work that has changed institutions rather than commented on them, recorded in the Talking Law books drawn from the same conversations that built the podcast. Key speaking topics Values-based leadership Women in leadership and the legal profession Social mobility and access to the professions Mentorship and talent development Governance and board-level standards Wellbeing and resilience in professional careers Law, regulation, and the future of the legal profession Women’s health, menopause, and the law at work Ideal for General Counsel, Chief Legal Officers, and senior in-house legal teams setting standards on culture and how the firm develops its people Chief People Officers, CHROs, and heads of talent designing culture and progression strategy for professional and regulated workforces Boards, NEDs, and chairs reviewing governance standards on culture, social mobility, and access Senior partners and managing partners at law firms, chambers, and professional services firms Employers and people teams developing menopause and women’s-health policy under employment-law obligations Audience outcomes A clearer view of what values-based leadership requires when the organisation is regulated, conservative, and resistant to change Direct reference points from inside the legal profession on building durable institutions for under-represented talent A sharper standard for telling genuine culture change apart from communications Practical perspective on mentoring, sponsorship, and progression at senior levels A grounded view of employers’ legal duties around menopause and women’s health at work, from a practising barrister rather than a consultant

Why organisations work with Chemmy Alcott A two-decade Team GB career across four Olympic Games gives her credible authority on what sustained high performance under public pressure actually demands, day to day. She is the first British female skier to win a run in a FIS Alpine World Cup event, a specific, verifiable breakthrough rather than a general claim of elite status. Her recovery from a career-threatening Lake Louise leg fracture, returning to compete at Sochi 2014, gives audiences a concrete case study in decision-making after physical shock. Lead presenter on BBC Ski Sunday and BBC Winter Olympics analyst across PyeongChang, Beijing and Milano Cortina, which makes her equally credible as conference host and panel chair, not only keynote speaker. Founded the X-Elle initiative for young women in sport and serves as an ambassador for Right to Play, Ski4Cancer, SnowCamp and United Learning, anchoring her message in sustained, named commitments rather than one-off charity work. Biography highlights Four-time Winter Olympian: Salt Lake City 2002, Torino 2006, Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014. Seven-time British overall national champion and eight-time British ladies’ overall champion. First British female ski racer to win a run in a FIS Alpine World Cup event; reached eighth in the world rankings. Lead presenter, BBC Ski Sunday; BBC Winter Olympics analyst across three Games. Finished fifth on ITV Dancing on Ice (2012), having taken up skating to rehabilitate a fractured leg. Founder of the X-Elle confidence-through-sport initiative; long-standing ambassador for Right to Play, Ski4Cancer, SnowCamp and United Learning. Biography A 50-bone childhood ski accident nearly ended Chemmy Alcott’s career before it began. She came back to compete in four consecutive Winter Olympic Games for Team GB, win seven British overall national titles, and become the first British female ski racer to win a run in a FIS Alpine World Cup event. The career was not a clean upward line. A serious crash at Lake Louise broke her leg and threatened her place at Sochi 2014. She rebuilt her physical base by switching to ice skating, reached the final stages of ITV Dancing on Ice, and returned to compete at her fourth Olympics. That sequence, injury, public reinvention, return, is the spine of her keynote work. Since retiring in 2014 she has anchored BBC Ski Sunday as lead presenter and served as a BBC Winter Olympics analyst across PyeongChang, Beijing and Milano Cortina. The broadcasting craft matters commercially: she is fluent on stage, holds a panel, hosts an awards room, and handles live conference moments without losing structure. Her work outside broadcasting is concrete rather than ornamental. She founded the X-Elle initiative to build young women’s confidence through sport, climbed Kilimanjaro to raise funds for Right to Play, and remains an active ambassador for Right to Play, Ski4Cancer, SnowCamp and United Learning. The through-line is the same one she takes to corporate audiences: there is no win or lose, only win or learn. Key speaking topics Resilience after physical and competitive shock Self-leadership and composure under pressure Growth mindset and learning from failure Peak performance in elite sport Women’s leadership and confidence in performance environments Olympic-level preparation and team dynamics Conference hosting, panel chairing and awards presenting Ideal for Sales, commercial and frontline teams rebuilding momentum after a tough cycle or restructure Women’s leadership networks and ERGs commissioning a credible elite-sport voice Conferences and awards events that need a senior host with broadcast pedigree, not only a keynote Sponsor and partner audiences in winter sport, automotive, outdoor and lifestyle categories Audience outcomes A direct, lived case study of returning to elite performance after a career-threatening injury A reframe of failure as usable information, anchored in specific Olympic-cycle decisions A practical view of how elite athletes manage public scrutiny, recovery and family life in parallel Energy and pace from a presenter who can host the rest of the day, not only deliver a keynote

Why organisations work with Dr Helena Boschi She brings neuroscience into the room with the credibility of someone who has sat on the executive side of HR. Senior roles at Shire Pharmaceuticals and Serono SA mean she speaks to leadership problems from inside, not from a lab. Her book Why We Do What We Do (Wiley, 2020) gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for why people behave as they do under pressure, which lasts beyond the event. She works at the intersection of chronic stress and cognitive performance, an area most leadership speakers skim and few treat as a board-level risk. She is a member of the British Psychological Society and has built Chequered Leopard Ltd since 2004 specifically to translate peer-reviewed research into operational practice, not keynote theatre. She is unusually sharp on the behavioural cost of hybrid working: trust erosion, risk attitudes, attention, empathy. Useful for any leadership team still making assumptions about what remote does to a workforce. Biography highlights Founder of Chequered Leopard Ltd (since 2004), a consultancy applying neuroscience to leadership, change and workplace behaviour. Author of Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Our Brain to Get the Best Out of Ourselves and Others (Wiley, 2020). Former Vice President of Talent Management at Shire Pharmaceuticals. Former Corporate Director and Head of Global Organisation Development at Serono SA (now part of Merck KGaA). Member of the British Psychological Society. Research interests include the impact of chronic, work-induced stress on cognitive ability in the workplace. Biography Most change programmes fail on the same fault line. Leaders model behaviour as a matter of willingness, when the brain is actually running on threat detection, bias and habit. Helena Boschi has built a twenty-year practice around closing that gap, translating applied neuroscience into the decisions senior teams actually have to make. Her consultancy, Chequered Leopard Ltd, was founded in 2004 after senior corporate roles inside Shire Pharmaceuticals, where she was Vice President of Talent Management, and Serono SA, where she led global organisation development. That sequence matters. She is not a researcher who later discovered business. She ran the people function at scale in listed multinationals and turned to neuroscience because the tools available to her were not explaining what she was seeing. Her book Why We Do What We Do, published by Wiley in 2020, sets out how the brain communicates, remembers, attends, leads and decides, and what organisations can do to stop working against it. The work that sits beneath it, including her interest in chronic work-induced stress and cognitive function, informs keynotes on change, cognitive bias, psychological safety, hybrid working and innovation. She is a member of the British Psychological Society. The argument she leaves in the room is specific. Most of what organisations call a culture problem is a biology problem being asked to behave. Once leaders see that, the interventions change. Key speaking topics Applied neuroscience at work The neuroscience of change Cognitive bias and decision-making Psychological safety and fear at work Trust, risk and hybrid working The neuroscience of innovation Chronic stress and cognitive performance Neuroplasticity and cognitive agility in an AI-driven world Ideal for CEOs, executive teams and boards working through sustained change or transformation programmes. CHROs, CPOs and senior HR, talent and organisation development leaders. Leadership development and learning teams designing programmes for senior cohorts. Cross-cultural and international leadership groups operating in hybrid conditions. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of why people resist, withdraw or underperform during change, grounded in how the brain responds to uncertainty. Named cognitive biases leaders can spot in their own decisions and in the decisions their teams make for them. A practical read on what hybrid working is doing to trust, empathy and risk appetite inside their organisation. Specific behavioural levers for psychological safety, rather than slogans. Language and evidence leaders can take back into their own teams without needing to cite academic research.

Why organisations work with Kate Cook Twenty-five years running a Harley Street nutrition practice gives her a clinical evidence base that most wellbeing speakers do not have. Audiences hear from a practitioner, not a motivational presenter. A defined corporate proposition built around three named talks (Sugar Bites Back, Genes Load the Gun, Lifestyle Pulls the Trigger, Vibrant Energy) rather than a single generalist wellness keynote. Author of The Corporate Wellness Bible, a workplace-specific text that frames nutrition and energy as organisational concerns, not personal lifestyle advice. Track record with demanding employers, including Bank of England, JP Morgan, Shell, Accenture and GE Healthcare, where the audience is sceptical and time-poor. TEDx speaker for Fidelity International, with a media presence in The Sunday Express, Marie Claire and Red that gives her communication credibility outside the wellness echo chamber. Biography highlights Founder of The Nutrition Coach, Harley Street, since 2000. Trained at the Institute for Optimum Nutrition; Master’s in the Anthropology of Food; undergraduate degree from Royal Holloway, University of London. Author of The Corporate Wellness Bible, Get Healthy for Good and Be Incredibly Healthy (with Sally Brown). TEDx speaker for Fidelity International on workplace wellness. Corporate clients include Bank of England, JP Morgan, EDF Energy, Accenture, Shell, GE Healthcare and Pret a Manger. Columnist for The Sunday Express and Marie Claire; television appearances, including The Truth of Beauty. Biography Corporate wellbeing is one of the easier line items to fund and one of the harder ones to measure. Programmes proliferate, engagement stays patchy, and the link between workforce health and commercial output remains anecdotal. Kate Cook has spent twenty-five years working on that gap from the practitioner side. She founded The Nutrition Coach on Harley Street in 2000 and has since worked with more than 7,000 individual clients alongside an international corporate practice. The mix matters. Clinical work with senior professionals informs the corporate sessions; the corporate sessions stress-test what actually changes behaviour at scale inside a working week. Her writing reflects the same orientation. The Corporate Wellness Bible treats workplace nutrition, energy and stress as organisational concerns rather than personal projects. Get Healthy for Good and Be Incredibly Healthy, co-authored with Sally Brown, sit alongside columns for The Sunday Express and Marie Claire and a TEDx talk delivered for Fidelity International. The audience she is built for is an employer trying to make wellbeing operational. Clients have included Bank of England, JP Morgan, Shell, EDF Energy, Accenture and GE Healthcare, organisations where the standard for an external voice is high and the tolerance for generic wellness messaging is low. Key speaking topics Workplace wellbeing and productivity Nutrition and sustained energy at work Sugar, stress and behavioural change Lifestyle, genetics and long-term health Corporate wellness strategy and programme design Mental and physical health in high-pressure roles Ideal for CHROs, heads of wellbeing and culture leads are designing or refreshing corporate wellness programmes. Senior leadership offsites where energy, focus and resilience are part of the agenda. Employee conferences in high-intensity sectors such as financial services, professional services and energy. Health and wellbeing weeks where the brief calls for clinical credibility alongside accessible delivery. Audience outcomes A working understanding of how nutrition, sleep and stress interact to shape daily performance. Practical changes audiences can make the same week, drawn from clinical practice rather than wellness trend cycles. A clearer organisational case for why wellbeing investment should be measured against engagement and productivity, not participation. Specific tools for managing energy through long days, travel and high-cognitive-load periods. Confidence to challenge the sugar, caffeine and convenience defaults built into corporate working life.

Why organisations work with Dr Ranj Singh Clinical authority on health and wellbeing, drawn from active NHS paediatric emergency practice and membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, not a wellness brand. A broadcast track record that translates into the room: five years as resident doctor on ITV’s This Morning, two BAFTA Children’s Awards for Get Well Soon, and a Sunday Times bestseller in Save Money Lose Weight. First-person credibility on LGBTQ+ inclusion as a Sikh-heritage gay clinician, recognised with the 2019 Attitude Award for advocacy on ethnic minority and LGBTQ+ representation. A communicator who has spent a career simplifying medical information for non-specialist audiences, including pandemic misinformation work, which means complex health and inclusion content lands with employees who would tune out a textbook talk. Biography highlights NHS clinician specialising in paediatric emergency medicine; member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health since 2007. Resident doctor on ITV’s This Morning, 2016 to 2021. Co-creator and host of CBeebies’ Get Well Soon and Get Well Soon Hospital; winner of BAFTA Children’s Awards in 2016 and 2018. Sunday Times bestselling author of Save Money Lose Weight (Transworld, 2019); children’s titles with Oxford University Press and Hachette. Attitude Award winner, 2019, for representation of ethnic minorities and LGBTQ+ people in media. Honorary doctorate from Canterbury Christ Church University, February 2025, for contributions to public life and medical science. Biography Most workforces have heard the wellbeing message before. They have sat through resilience modules, downloaded the meditation app, and still report record sickness absence. The reason is rarely the content. It is who is delivering it. That is the problem Singh’s profile is built to solve. He is a working NHS paediatric emergency doctor and a member of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, with the clinical grounding to talk about physical and mental health without slipping into the language of corporate wellness. Five years as the resident doctor on ITV’s This Morning, alongside two BAFTA Children’s Awards for Get Well Soon, gave him the rarer skill of making medicine intelligible to viewers who are not patients yet. The same mix shapes his work on inclusion. As a gay clinician from a Sikh background, Singh writes and speaks about LGBTQ+ representation with the authority of someone who has lived the question. The Attitude Award in 2019 recognised that body of media advocacy. His Sunday Times bestseller Save Money Lose Weight, columns for Attitude and NetDoctor, and his pandemic work countering health misinformation extend the same instinct into print and public health. In February 2025 Canterbury Christ Church University awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contribution to public life and medical science, a useful marker of how seriously the clinical and academic community takes the broadcast persona. Key speaking topics Employee mental health and wellbeing Health communication for non-clinical audiences LGBTQ+ inclusion and intersectional identity Burnout and pressure in high-stakes professions Public health, misinformation and trust Diversity, representation and lived experience Ideal for CHROs, heads of wellbeing and DEI leads building credible mental health and inclusion programmes Healthcare, life sciences and public-sector audiences seeking a clinician’s voice Internal conferences and employee networks marking Pride, Mental Health Awareness Week, or South Asian heritage moments Leadership audiences in regulated industries where trust and communication matter as much as policy Audience outcomes A clearer language for talking about mental and physical health at work, grounded in clinical reality rather than wellness slogans Sharper understanding of how identity, family expectation and culture shape who speaks up about health and who stays silent Practical reframes for managers on supporting LGBTQ+ employees and ethnic minority staff without performative gestures Confidence to address health misinformation in workforces, including on vaccines, diet and mental health A more honest conversation in the room about pressure, burnout and asking for help

Why organisations work with Christian Jessen Clinical authority paired with a household-name broadcast platform. GMC-registered, UCL-trained, and the public face of Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies for eight years, which gives him a rare ability to hold a corporate audience on subjects most staff avoid. Substantive expertise in sexual health, HIV and LGBT+ health equity, including work in Kenya and Uganda and an appointment as National HIV Testing Week Ambassador in 2015. Useful when inclusion and health intersect with real clinical content. First-person testimony on depression, bulimia and muscle dysmorphia, delivered without performance. Audiences hear from a clinician who has been the patient, which moves the conversation past awareness scripts. A communication style built over two decades of primetime television: plain language, comfort with discomfort, no euphemism. The right register for a room where leaders have been told mental health matters but do not know what to say next. Biography highlights MBBS, University College London (2001). MSc in sexual health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Co-presenter, Embarrassing Bodies, Channel 4 (2007 to 2015), alongside Pixie McKenna and Dawn Harper. Co-presenter, Supersize vs Superskinny, Channel 4 (2008 to 2014). National HIV Testing Week Ambassador, 2015. Author of Can I Just Ask? (2010) and a three-book Scholastic series for adolescents covering growing up, sensitive subjects and the self. Patron of Humanists UK. Biography Stigma is the reason health conversations stall inside organisations. People know what they should disclose, and they know what their employer says it supports, and they still do not speak. Christian Jessen has spent two decades working at the point where that silence breaks, first as a clinician in sexual health and infectious disease, then as the face of Channel 4’s most successful health franchise. The medical training is substantive. UCL for the MBBS in 2001, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine for an MSc in sexual health, with field experience on HIV and malaria in Kenya and Uganda. That clinical grounding ran through eight years co-presenting Embarrassing Bodies and six years on Supersize vs Superskinny, where the production worked because the doctor on screen was a doctor, not a presenter playing one. His written work for younger readers, the Scholastic trilogy on growing up and the everyday questions adolescents will not ask aloud, shows the same instinct. Take subjects coded as awkward, name them in plain language, treat the audience as intelligent. The 2015 appointment as National HIV Testing Week Ambassador reflected the same trust in his communication: clinical accuracy without moralising. In corporate rooms the relevance is specific. He has spoken openly about his own experience of depression, bulimia and muscle dysmorphia, which lets him hold a discussion on workplace mental health that does not collapse into either policy summary or personal anecdote. For organisations moving beyond awareness campaigns into harder questions about disclosure, manager capability and clinical literacy, that combination of credentials and lived experience is the value. Key speaking topics Mental health in the workplace Body image and eating disorders Sexual health and LGBT+ health equity Stigma and disclosure in organisational settings Men’s health Health communication and behaviour change Ideal for CHROs, wellbeing leads and chief people officers building substantive mental health programmes DEI and ERG leaders running health-equity sessions, particularly around LGBT+ inclusion Employee Assistance Programme partners and benefits leaders looking for clinical credibility on stage All-staff wellbeing weeks and Mental Health Awareness events that need a clinician, not a motivational act Audience outcomes A clearer line between what wellbeing programmes can do and what clinical support is for Confidence to talk about eating disorders, body dysmorphia and men’s mental health in plain terms at work A working understanding of why stigma persists even where policy support exists A sharper sense of what good disclosure conversations sound like between staff and managers

Why organisations work with Leon Rolle A first-hand recovery story told by a working musician with a Grammy-nominated, BRIT-winning back catalogue, not a wellness practitioner reaching for cultural relevance. Credibility with younger employees and apprentice cohorts that traditional wellbeing speakers struggle to hold, built on Rudimental’s chart presence and his media profile. Physical proof behind the mental health argument: completion of Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins and the London Marathon, used to make the link between body and mind concrete rather than abstract. A voice that travels across audience types in one event, from an apprentice intake to a leadership dinner, because the source material is biography, not theory. Biography highlights Member of Rudimental, the British drum and bass band behind the UK number one single “Feel the Love” featuring John Newman. BRIT Award winner for British Single of the Year in 2014 for “Waiting All Night”. MOBO Award winner for Best Album in 2013 for the debut record “Home”. Former Arsenal FC academy footballer before moving full-time into music. Completed Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins, one of only two recruits to finish the selection process in his series. Soccer Aid participant in 2019, playing for Harry Redknapp’s Rest of the World team, and Celebrity MasterChef contestant in 2023. Biography Most workplace mental health conversations stall in the same place. The language is correct, the policies are in place, and the people the message is meant to reach quietly opt out. Locksmith is what changes the temperature in the room. He arrives with the credibility of a working career, a chart-topping band, and a recovery story that he has lived rather than studied. Leon Rolle came up through the Arsenal academy before music took over. As one third of Rudimental with Piers Aggett and Kesi Dryden, he is part of the group behind “Feel the Love” with John Newman, which went to number one in the UK in 2012, and the debut album “Home”, which took the 2013 MOBO Award for Best Album. “Waiting All Night” won the BRIT for British Single of the Year in 2014. The platform is real and the audience knows it. What he speaks about is the part the platform did not fix. Tour cycles, anxiety and the practical work of getting back to a functioning baseline sit at the centre of the keynote. Fitness is the mechanism he points to: training, running, and the long endurance commitments that gave him a way back. He completed Celebrity SAS: Who Dares Wins as one of only two recruits to finish his series, and has run the London Marathon. These are evidence points, not anecdotes. For corporate audiences the value is reach. Apprentice intakes and younger employees listen to him because of the music. Senior teams listen because the story is specific, structured and free of the wellness vocabulary that has worn thin in most organisations. Key speaking topics Mental health in the workplace Resilience and stress management Fitness and physical health as recovery infrastructure Motivation and inspiration for apprentice and early-career audiences Mental health storytelling for younger workforces After-dinner and entertainment speaking Ideal for HR, wellbeing and culture leads commissioning mental health programming for mixed audiences Apprentice intakes, graduate cohorts and early-career employee networks Internal town halls, conferences and away-days where the wellbeing slot needs to land rather than fill time After-dinner and entertainment briefs that also need a substantive personal story Audience outcomes A concrete account of what mental health recovery looked like for a working professional, not a clinical overview A working link between physical training and psychological resilience, evidenced by named endurance commitments Language that younger employees and apprentices recognise and respond to Renewed permission for senior teams to talk about their own pressures in workplace settings

Why organisations work with Jonny Benjamin He brings a globally tracked story (the Find Mike campaign reached more than 319 million people) into a corporate room without it becoming a tribute act. The point is what changed in the bystander, not the bridge. He has built two of the institutions he speaks about. Beyond, the youth mental health charity, and This Can Happen, the workplace conference, are not anecdotes; they are operating organisations he co-founded. He pairs lived clinical experience of schizoaffective disorder with a public campaigning record recognised by Rethink Mental Illness (first Janey Antoniou Award) and an MBE for suicide prevention. That combination changes how senior audiences listen. His material works as a managerial primer, not a memoir reading. Audiences leave with a clearer sense of what to say in the first ninety seconds when a colleague signals they are not okay. Biography highlights Awarded an MBE in 2017 for services to mental health and suicide prevention. Founder of Beyond, a youth mental health charity established in 2018 funding interventions in UK schools and colleges. Co-founder of This Can Happen, the workplace mental health conference launched in 2017. First recipient of the Janey Antoniou Award from Rethink Mental Illness (2013) for campaigning on severe mental illness. Co-author with Britt Pfluger of “The Stranger on the Bridge” (Pan Macmillan, 2018, foreword by HRH The Duke of Cambridge) and “The Book of Hope: 101 Voices on Overcoming Adversity” (Pan Macmillan, 2021). Subject of the Channel 4 documentary “The Stranger on the Bridge” (2015), which charted his successful search for Neil Laybourn, the stranger who intervened on Waterloo Bridge in 2008. Biography Most workplace mental health programmes are well written and quietly underused. The policy is in the handbook, the EAP is on the intranet, and the manager who notices a struggling colleague still hesitates to say the first sentence. Jonny Benjamin’s work sits in that hesitation. His own story explains the angle. Diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in his early twenties, he wrote “The Stranger on the Bridge” with Britt Pfluger to chart how he came to be on Waterloo Bridge in 2008 and what the stranger, later identified as Neil Laybourn, actually did in those minutes. The 2014 Find Mike campaign that reunited them reached more than 319 million people and became a Channel 4 documentary the following year. What followed is what makes him useful to serious organisations. He co-founded This Can Happen in 2017, the workplace mental health conference now used by HR and wellbeing leads to benchmark practice, and founded the youth charity Beyond in 2018 to fund early intervention in UK schools. Rethink Mental Illness gave him the first Janey Antoniou Award in 2013; the MBE followed in 2017. In a corporate room he resists the inspirational frame. The talk is closer to a briefing for managers and colleagues on the specific moves that make a workplace one where people speak up early, and the specific failures that keep them quiet. Key speaking topics Workplace mental health and psychological safety Suicide prevention and early intervention Severe mental illness and stigma in the workplace Wellbeing strategy and line-manager capability Youth mental health and the school-to-work transition Storytelling as a tool for cultural change Ideal for CHROs, wellbeing leads and DEI directors building the next iteration of a mental health strategy. Line manager and senior leadership development programmes where the brief is on confidence in difficult conversations. All-staff conferences where the organisation wants a mental health session that engages the room without slipping into platitude. Education sector audiences (schools, universities, sector bodies) addressing youth mental health and pastoral practice. Audience outcomes A direct account of what helped and what did not, from someone with diagnosed severe mental illness rather than a generalist commentator. A clearer sense of the small interventions that change outcomes, drawn from the bystander side of his own story. Practical language for managers and colleagues to use in the first conversation, not the third meeting. A sharper read on why workplace wellbeing programmes underperform and what closes the gap between policy and behaviour. An informed view of youth mental health drawn from Beyond’s grant-making and school work in the UK.

Why organisations work with Matt Haig A first-person account of severe depression and suicidal crisis that has shaped public mental health conversation in the UK, told by someone whose books on the subject have topped national bestseller charts. A literary platform of unusual scale: The Midnight Library alone has sold over ten million copies and won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction, which means his name lands with employees and leaders before he opens his mouth. Notes on a Nervous Planet gives him a developed argument about anxiety and the digital environment that maps directly onto how work now feels for most knowledge workers. He sits outside the clinical and HR registers that dominate workplace wellbeing content. The voice is a working writer’s, which is why audiences listen rather than tolerate. Biography highlights Author of Reasons to Stay Alive, a number one Sunday Times bestseller that spent 46 weeks in the UK top 10 and won the 2016 Books Are My Bag Readers’ Award for Non-Fiction. Author of The Midnight Library, winner of the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction and a New York Times bestseller with more than ten million copies sold worldwide. Author of the Sunday Times number one bestseller Notes on a Nervous Planet, on anxiety, social media, and modern life. Novelist whose adult fiction includes The Humans, How to Stop Time, The Radleys, The Comfort Book, and The Life Impossible. Children’s author whose Shadow Forest won the Nestle Smarties Book Prize Gold Award and whose A Boy Called Christmas was adapted into a feature film with Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent, Sally Hawkins, and Kristen Wiig. Translated into more than fifty languages, with a public platform on mental health that reaches well beyond the literary audience. Biography The honest conversation about anxiety and depression inside organisations is harder than the policy version. Most employees have read the wellbeing email. Far fewer have heard a senior voice describe what panic actually feels like at three in the morning, or why the always-on environment makes recovery slower than it should be. That is the gap Matt Haig’s writing has been filling for a decade. Reasons to Stay Alive, his memoir of a near-fatal breakdown at twenty-four, was a number one Sunday Times bestseller and stayed in the UK top ten for forty-six weeks. It won the 2016 Books Are My Bag Readers’ Award for Non-Fiction and changed how a generation of British readers spoke about depression. Notes on a Nervous Planet followed in 2018 with a sharper argument: that the texture of modern life, especially digital life, is a major part of why so many people feel ill. Both books are short, plain, and unguarded, which is why they have travelled. Alongside the memoirs is a serious fiction career. The Midnight Library won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction, became an instant New York Times bestseller, and has sold over ten million copies worldwide. The Humans, How to Stop Time, The Radleys, The Comfort Book, and The Life Impossible sit alongside it. Children’s titles include Shadow Forest, a Nestle Smarties Gold winner, and A Boy Called Christmas, adapted in 2021 into a feature film with Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent, Sally Hawkins, and Kristen Wiig. For organisations, the value is straightforward. Haig is not a clinician and does not pretend to be. He is a working writer with a global readership who has thought longer and more publicly about anxiety, depression, and modern overload than almost any non-specialist alive. Audiences listen because he has earned the subject, and because the language is recognisably his own. Key speaking topics Mental health in the workplace Depression and anxiety in modern life Digital overload and always-on culture Resilience and recovery Storytelling and the language of wellbeing Creativity under pressure Ideal for CHROs and heads of wellbeing programming a serious-register keynote on mental health. Internal events tied to World Mental Health Day, Mental Health Awareness Week, or wider EVP and culture moments. Leadership offsites where the brief is to model open conversation about anxiety, burnout, and pressure rather than to brief on policy. Employee audiences in high-intensity sectors (finance, professional services, media, tech) where always-on working is part of the culture. Audience outcomes A first-person account of severe depression and recovery that gives employees permission to talk about their own experience. A clearer argument for why digital life and modern work conditions amplify anxiety, drawn from Notes on a Nervous Planet. Practical anchors for managing low moods, panic, and the social media environment, in language that does not sound like a wellness pamphlet. A reminder, useful for leaders, that the most credible communications about mental health do not sound like communications. Permission to treat mental health as a normal subject of adult conversation rather than a compliance topic.

Why organisations work with Kellie Maloney A first-hand account of coming out inside professional boxing, one of the least forgiving commercial environments in sport, given by someone who managed a world heavyweight champion. A direct, unsanitised perspective on suicide, depression and recovery in the LGBT+ community from someone who has lived it and chosen to talk about it publicly. Credibility on female participation in sport grounded in actual commercial activity, having returned to promotion in 2020 to back female boxers at the start of their careers. Public profile built through Celebrity Big Brother, two documentaries and a published autobiography, giving the story reach beyond a corporate audience. Biography highlights Managed Lennox Lewis to the undisputed world heavyweight title between 1989 and 2001. Guided four further fighters to world titles plus British, European and Commonwealth champions. Named Transgender Champion at the 2015 Glamour Women of the Year Awards. Author of Frankly Kellie: Becoming a Woman in a Man’s World, Blink Publishing, 2015. Subject of Amazon Prime documentary From Frank to Kellie (2020) and feature documentary Knock Out Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story (2025). Returned to boxing promotion in 2020 with a focus on female fighters at the start of their careers. Biography Professional boxing is not where most people would expect a public gender transition to begin. Kellie Maloney spent nearly three decades inside it, managing Lennox Lewis from 1989 to 2001 to the undisputed world heavyweight championship and steering four more fighters to world titles. Her standing in the sport was earned in a culture that did not make room for what came next. In August 2014 she announced publicly that she would live as Kellie. The decision was effectively forced by tabloid pressure rather than chosen on her own timing, a detail that matters when organisations talk about psychological safety. The aftermath included Celebrity Big Brother, the 2015 Glamour Women of the Year Transgender Champion award, the autobiography Frankly Kellie: Becoming a Woman in a Man’s World, and a period of severe depression that culminated in a suicide attempt and recovery. She now speaks about identity, mental health and inclusion from inside the experience, not from theory. The Amazon Prime documentary From Frank to Kellie and the 2025 feature Knock Out Blonde: The Kellie Maloney Story give the material a reach most corporate speakers do not have. Her audience is HR, DEI and wellbeing leaders who want a session that lands emotionally and tells the truth about what inclusion costs the people it is aimed at. In 2020 she returned to boxing promotion with a stated commitment to female fighters at the start of their careers. That detail closes the circle. The story is not only about transition; it is about going back into the same hard commercial environment as a different person and changing what it is willing to back. Key speaking topics Identity and transition in commercial environments LGBT+ inclusion in male-dominated cultures Mental health, depression and suicide prevention Resilience after public exposure Female participation in sport Personal courage and reinvention Ideal for HR, DEI and ERG leads designing inclusion programmes that have to work in practice Wellbeing and mental health leads building suicide prevention and crisis support content Sports, security, construction, manufacturing and other traditionally male-dominated sectors Internal events tied to Pride, Mental Health Awareness Month, or International Women’s Day Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what inclusion policies look like from the perspective of the person they are written about. A direct, lived account of depression, suicidal crisis and recovery in the LGBT+ community. An honest read on how hard cultures can change, and what individuals inside them carry when they do. Renewed willingness to ask colleagues about mental health rather than assume.