Executive Development

Why organisations work with Adam Markel Author of three books on resilience and culture, including the Wall Street Journal bestseller Pivot and Change Proof (McGraw-Hill), with Re-Culture (Post Hill Press, 2026) setting out the WORK WELL TOGETHER framework for rebuilding trust and connection in teams. Leadership audiences get a researched body of work, not a personal story repurposed as advice. Co-Founder and Chief Researcher of WORKWELL, where his work translates resilience research into measurable cultural inputs for senior teams. Operator credibility from 18 years as a trial attorney and a multi-year run as CEO of a professional training business; senior buyers get someone who has run a P&L, not only studied one. His formats are built for application. Drawing on the Re-Culture argument that culture forms through repeated shared practice, sessions are structured to move a leadership team to specific commitments while still in the room. Track record with operating businesses under pressure, including Medtronic and Jack in the Box, working with leadership audiences rather than only HR and L&D. Biography highlights Author of three books on resilience and culture: Pivot (Wall Street Journal bestseller), Change Proof (McGraw-Hill, 2022), and Re-Culture (Post Hill Press, 2026) Co-Founder and Chief Researcher, WORKWELL Host of The Change Proof Podcast TEDx speaker Former CEO of Peak Potentials/New Peaks, a professional training enterprise; previously an 18-year trial attorney Corporate engagements with operating businesses including Medtronic and Jack in the Box Biography Most senior leaders do not have a resilience problem in the wellness sense. They have a decision-quality problem. Repeated restructures, AI rollouts, and cost programmes compound, and the cost shows up in slower judgement long before it shows up in attrition. That is the gap Adam Markel’s work addresses. His framework, set out in Change Proof (McGraw-Hill, 2022), treats resilience as a capacity organisations build into how leaders work, not a personal trait. The earlier Pivot, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, traced the same logic across career and business reinvention. Both sit on top of his research practice at WORKWELL, where he is Co-Founder and Chief Researcher. Re-Culture (Post Hill Press, 2026) extends that work from the individual leader to the team. Its argument is that culture forms through what people repeatedly practise together, and it sets out a framework, WORK WELL TOGETHER, for rebuilding trust in organisations strained by constant change. That argument shapes how he runs a room: sessions are structured so a leadership team leaves with specific commitments it has agreed together. The credibility comes from a layered career. Eighteen years as a trial attorney, a multi-year run as CEO of the professional training business Peak Potentials, and seven seasons as an ocean lifeguard before any of it. That operator history is what senior audiences respond to, and it stays tested against current briefs through the Change Proof Podcast and engagements with operating businesses such as Medtronic and Jack in the Box. Key speaking topics Leadership resilience under sustained change Change Proof: building organisational capacity for uncertainty Re-Culture: designing culture through shared practice Workplace culture, trust, and engagement Leading through restructure and reinvention Burnout prevention in senior teams Ideal for CEOs and executive committees facing repeated change cycles CHROs and people leaders responsible for senior-team resilience Leadership offsites and annual conferences for operating businesses Transformation and change leads owning multi-year programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of resilience as an operating capacity, not a personal trait A diagnostic for where change fatigue is degrading senior decision quality Specific practices for recovery and renewal that fit inside a leader’s working week A frame for translating resilience research into culture and engagement decisions Language to use with their own teams about why this matters now

Why organisations work with Andrew and Gaia Grant The co-presenting format is its own offer. The audience hears two voices working a leadership problem in real time, with the academic and the facilitator perspectives playing off each other. The frameworks come out of Gaia Grant’s PhD research in the Discipline of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney Business School. The Innovation Climate Leadership Indicator (iCLi) is an academically validated diagnostic, which matters when the work has to defend itself in front of a board or audit committee. They treat the explore-preserve tension as the actual problem. Most innovation speakers present innovation as a simple acceleration story, which leaves leaders without a useful answer for the part of the business that has to stay reliable. The thirty-year working partnership is itself the case study for the leadership content. Andrew and Gaia have built a co-authored body of research while running a global consultancy together, and that lived material reads in the room as something that cannot be performed. Biography highlights Co-authors of The Innovation Race: How to Change a Culture to Change the Game (John Wiley & Sons, 2016) and the international bestseller Who Killed Creativity?…And How Do We Get it Back? (Wiley, 2012) Dr Gaia Grant: PhD researcher and lecturer in the Discipline of Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney Business School Andrew Grant: founder and director of Tirian International Consultancy and a TEDx speaker, with three decades of executive facilitation across more than thirty countries Developers of the academically validated Innovation Climate Leadership Indicator (iCLi) and the Dynamic Polar Positioning (DPoP) framework, used with executive teams from Fortune 500 firms and government innovation programmes Keynote work at YPO Global Leadership Conference, APEC CEO Summit, the PwC US National Conference, Gartner ITxpo, TEDx and the Salesforce ANZ Roadshow Clients include Google, Nestlé, Boeing, Disney, Salesforce, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, Citibank, Visa, Goldman Sachs, UBS and the UAE Prime Minister’s Office Biography The hardest part of innovation is not coming up with new ideas. It is running the rest of the business while you do it. That tension is the central argument of two books co-authored by Andrew and Gaia Grant: The Innovation Race and Who Killed Creativity?. It is also the problem most organisations get wrong when they accelerate AI adoption. The research backbone is Dr Gaia Grant’s doctoral work in Strategy, Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the University of Sydney Business School. Her PhD examined what lets some organisations innovate sustainably while others stall. Two tools came out of it: the academically validated Innovation Climate Leadership Indicator (iCLi) and Dynamic Polar Positioning (DPoP), both now used by executive teams worldwide. Andrew Grant founded Tirian International Consultancy and is the working other half of the research in the room. Gaia anchors the academic case; Andrew runs the live facilitation, with simulations, audience experiments and the kind of pacing that keeps a three-thousand-person Salesforce roadshow following the argument. The partnership is thirty years old, which is why the co-presented sessions read as a working dialogue, not a stitched-together keynote. The work has been used by Google, Nestlé, Boeing, Salesforce, Four Seasons and the UAE Prime Minister’s Office, often delivered with partner institutions including Duke Corporate Education. What gets repeated is the clearest signal of fit: roadshows that return, leadership programmes that scale, teams running iCLi diagnostics by the next planning cycle. Key speaking topics Innovation leadership and culture The explore-preserve paradox in AI adoption Sustainable innovation in complex organisations Creative intelligence and critical thinking Ambidextrous leadership Innovation diagnostics and culture transformation Ideal for C-suite teams running concurrent AI adoption and core-business protection mandates Heads of innovation, transformation and strategy in large, complex organisations Boards and CEOs designing a programme of cultural change with a long delivery arc Executive education and leadership programmes that need academically defensible content Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the explore-preserve tension that surfaces in every AI and innovation programme An honest read on where the organisation sits on innovation readiness, supported by the Innovation Climate Leadership Indicator (iCLi) A workable distinction between creative thinking and innovation execution, and where each is breaking down inside the audience’s own teams Visibility into which leadership archetypes in the room pull toward exploration and which pull toward preservation Decisions that hold up in a board paper because the framework behind them is academically validated

Why organisations work with Albert Riba A five-book catalogue spanning twelve years, from Mamut o Sapiens (2013) to Mamut o Humanoide (2025), gives clients a sustained body of writing to reference rather than a one-off keynote thesis. The Expansión column, monthly since September 2012, anchors his material inside the conversation Spanish-speaking executives are already reading. The combination of InPreneur (entrepreneurial culture inside corporations) and Sapiens Mindset (founded March 2019) gives him two distinct delivery vehicles for different client problems. Twenty-plus years of technology-sector operating experience, including a decade leading Kinetical Business and a partnership at Innova B2B, gives the mindset material commercial grounding rather than purely motivational framing. Bilingual English and Spanish delivery makes him particularly useful for Spanish, Latin American and pan-European leadership events where a regional voice is required alongside Anglo-American content. Biography highlights Founder of InPreneur and Sapiens Mindset (established March 2019) Author of five books including Mamut o Sapiens (2013) and Mamut o Humanoide (2025) Monthly opinion columnist in Expansión since September 2012 Twenty-plus years in the technology sector; former leader of Kinetical Business; partner at Innova B2B Regular radio contributor on Rac1, RNE R4, Catalunya Ràdio and Cadena Ser Catalunya Three master’s degrees in technology-related fields Biography The book Albert Riba is most associated with, Mamut o Sapiens, carries his argument in the title: organisations either adapt or they extinct themselves. Over the past twelve years he has extended that thesis across a five-book catalogue, from the 2013 original to Mamut o Humanoide: De la extinción a la IA in 2025. The books are in Spanish and circulate mostly through Spanish-language corporate audiences, but the underlying frame, entrepreneurial mindset applied to incumbent organisations, translates cleanly into English delivery. He runs two linked vehicles. InPreneur is his intrapreneurship advisory, focused on building entrepreneurial behaviour inside corporations, and Sapiens Mindset, founded in March 2019, delivers his keynote and coaching work on mindset and adaptation. Earlier in his career he led Kinetical Business for a decade and continues as a partner in the Innova B2B technology company, which gives the material its operating base. His public presence in Spain is longer-standing than his international bureau listing suggests. He has written a monthly opinion column in Expansión, Spain’s leading business daily, since September 2012, and contributes regularly to Rac1, RNE R4, Catalunya Ràdio and Cadena Ser Catalunya. His personal story of late academic start, three subsequent master’s degrees and a twenty-plus year technology career often shows up in his speaking work as a live illustration of the adaptation thesis. For Spanish, Latin American and European leadership audiences looking for a mindset and intrapreneurship voice with a published track record, a working corporate practice and a current column in Expansión, Riba sits inside a small group of regional thinkers who operate fluently in both English and Spanish. Key speaking topics Mindset and adaptation in the age of AI Intrapreneurship and entrepreneurial culture in established companies Change management and organisational transformation Digitalisation and corporate culture Resilience and burnout prevention Ancient and monastic practices applied to modern organisations Ideal for Spanish and Latin American corporate leadership audiences Pan-European events where a senior Catalan voice complements an English-language programme Technology firms and incumbents working on entrepreneurial culture and AI-driven change Leadership offsites and change programmes requiring a mindset-focused keynote Audience outcomes A working frame for adaptation and mindset change drawn from the Mamut o Sapiens and Mamut o Humanoide thesis Practical techniques for building entrepreneurial behaviour inside established organisations A Spanish-market view of digital and AI transformation A set of reference books and Expansión columns for internal follow-up

Why organisations work with Shil Shanghavi His methodology has been stress-tested against the hardest possible conditions. Shanghavi manages a severe stutter and has built his entire framework from the requirement to communicate fluently under pressure. When he teaches communication, there is no abstraction – the techniques work because they had to. He turns a soft skill into a data problem. The SpeakerLab AI platform he developed measures pace, structure, eye contact, jargon, repetition, and narrative flow, giving organisations a means to track communication development in the same way they would any other performance metric. The music-based delivery technique is genuinely novel. His method of using musical time signatures and rhythm to manage presence, pacing, and fluency is not borrowed from conventional coaching. It is proprietary, demonstrably effective, and unmatched by other communication speakers in the market. His coaching background shapes the quality of practical output. As former Head of Speaker Coaching for TEDxPerth, he has worked with speakers whose performance is publicly scrutinised against one of the most demanding spoken-word formats in the world. That standard transfers to boardroom and conference work. Cross-cultural reach is operationally demonstrated. He has delivered keynotes and workshops to audiences across more than 70 countries, which means his frameworks have been tested for cultural transference, not just constructed for a single market. Biography highlights Former Head of Speaker Coaching, TEDxPerth Creator of SpeakerLab, an AI-powered platform that measures and analyses communication performance LinkedIn Top Voice for Public Speaking Subject of SHIL, an award-winning short film documentary (2021) chronicling his communication journey Presentation mentor, IMPACT 100 WA Has delivered keynotes and workshops to audiences across more than 70 countries Developed a proprietary communication technique using musical time signatures to manage fluency and stage presence Biography The most persistent failure in leadership development is not a shortage of smart people. It is a shortage of leaders who can make their thinking land. Communication breakdowns are rarely about content; they are about trust, presence, and the ability to make an audience believe that the person speaking has actually lived what they are saying. That problem sits at the centre of Shil Shanghavi’s work. Shanghavi built his communication framework from necessity. Managing a severe stutter since childhood, he developed a proprietary technique rooted in musical time signatures: using rhythm, pace, and structure drawn from progressive house music to achieve fluency and presence on stage. What began as a personal survival mechanism became a coaching methodology, tested over decades of practice and refined through his role as Head of Speaker Coaching for TEDxPerth, one of the most demanding public speaking environments in the world. His contribution to the field extends beyond technique. Shanghavi developed SpeakerLab, an AI platform that analyses communication performance across dimensions including eye contact, pacing, structure, jargon, and narrative coherence – translating what most coaches treat as intuition into measurable, actionable data. For organisations that have tried conventional presentation training and found it evaporates within weeks, the ability to quantify progress changes what improvement looks like in practice. His work spans more than 70 countries and a range of industries, with clients that include senior executives, leadership teams, and TEDx speakers preparing for high-scrutiny environments. He is a LinkedIn Top Voice for Public Speaking and the subject of a 2021 award-winning documentary, SHIL, which traces his journey from communication fear to global platform. Key speaking topics Storytelling as a leadership and trust-building discipline Communication under pressure and high-stakes environments AI and measurement in communication development Executive presence and authentic leadership communication Building organisational culture through narrative Cross-cultural communication and global audiences Overcoming communication fear and building confidence Ideal for CHROs and L&D leads commissioning leadership communication programmes Senior executive and C-suite teams preparing for high-visibility engagements Conference organisers seeking a keynote that combines personal narrative with practical communication frameworks Organisations embedding authenticity and trust as cultural values at senior level Audience outcomes A practical framework for structuring stories in professional contexts – pitches, presentations, and leadership communications Familiarity with the SpeakerLab AI approach to measuring and improving communication performance Techniques for managing pressure, presence, and fluency in front of audiences of varying sizes and seniority A reframed understanding of authenticity as a practical communication tool, not a personality trait Confidence in applying storytelling principles to business communication across digital and in-person formats

Why organisations work with Lilah Jones She has run the room she is now coaching. Two decades inside Microsoft, Oracle, and Google Cloud, including a stint as head of corporate sales for North Central U.S., means her advice carries the weight of someone who carried a number. Her Activation Methodology gives leaders a structured way to break decision deadlock, not a pep talk. Audiences leave with a sequenced plan for the next ninety days, owned by named people. She speaks to the operator’s problem during transitions: how to keep a team executing while the strategy, structure, or leadership above them is still being rewritten. She built and led inside a sales organisation that grew Google Cloud from a standing start into one of the largest enterprise franchises in tech, and she draws her examples from that environment rather than from secondary research. Biography highlights Roughly nine years at Google, including a role on Google Cloud’s founding sales team and head of corporate sales for North Central U.S. Earlier enterprise sales and sales-management roles at Microsoft and Oracle. Adjunct faculty at Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School, teaching working professionals. Creator of the Activation Methodology, the framework behind The Activated Leader keynote and her eight-week Activated Leader group coaching programme. Has spoken for and worked with organisations including Microsoft, Google, HP, WISE, DePaul University, NIST, Lesbians Who Tech, and Women of Influence. Biography Most leadership programmes assume the bottleneck is skill. Inside large enterprises during a restructure or strategy reset, the bottleneck is usually decisions. Capable managers stop committing because the next layer up is still moving, and entire quarters disappear into preparation that never ships. Lilah Jones spent roughly two decades inside that environment. She joined Google Cloud’s founding sales team and later ran corporate sales for the North Central U.S., after earlier sales and management roles at Microsoft and Oracle. The through-line of that career is selling and managing while the surrounding business is being rebuilt, which is the same condition most of her clients now face. The work she does today turns that operator experience into a method. Her Activation Methodology, taught through The Activated Leader keynote and an eight-week group coaching programme, is built around a single move: getting leaders from analysis to commitment with a clear, sequenced plan and named owners. The named keynotes around it, including Courage as a Carry-On and Manage Your Blindspots, address the adjacent problems of feedback, self-advocacy, and the personal cost of stalled decisions. She also teaches, as adjunct faculty at Suffolk University’s Sawyer Business School, and has worked with organisations including Microsoft, Google, HP, WISE, DePaul University and NIST. The audience she is most useful to is the layer of senior managers and directors who are expected to drive a transition without the authority to redesign it. Key speaking topics Leading through transitions and restructures Executive decision-making under uncertainty Sales leadership and high-performing commercial teams Psychological safety and feedback culture Career transitions for senior operators Transformation execution inside large enterprises Ideal for CROs, CCOs and sales leadership running through reorganisation, integration or new go-to-market models Heads of leadership and executive development designing programmes for director and VP populations CHROs and transformation leads running enterprise-wide change where middle-layer execution is the constraint Women in leadership networks and senior-women development programmes inside large organisations Audience outcomes A named method for moving a stalled leadership team from review to commitment within a defined window. Specific language for separating the decisions that need more analysis from the ones that have been ready to make for weeks. A clearer view of how feedback culture and psychological safety either accelerate or quietly block execution. Concrete examples from inside Google Cloud, Microsoft and Oracle of how senior leaders behave when their own ground is shifting.

Why organisations work with Brian Burke He has run four NHL franchises and acted as the league’s chief disciplinarian, so the material on accountability, conduct, and hard personnel calls is drawn from decisions he actually made, not cases he studied. He built the Anaheim Ducks team that won the 2007 Stanley Cup and the U.S. squad that took Olympic silver in 2010, giving him a credible answer to how standards and culture translate into results. He co-founded the You Can Play Project after the death of his son Brendan, an inclusion initiative that became the operating standard for LGBTQ+ acceptance across professional sport. As first Executive Director of the Professional Women’s Hockey League Players’ Association, he has worked on institution-building inside a league designed from scratch, not just running established franchises. Harvard Law School training and five years as NHL Executive Vice President mean he speaks to the legal, governance, and reputational dimensions of leadership with specific authority. Biography highlights Juris Doctor, Harvard Law School, 1981 Captain of Providence Friars men’s ice hockey, NCAA (1976-77) NHL Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations, 1993-1998 General manager of Hartford Whalers, Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks (Stanley Cup, 2007), and Toronto Maple Leafs General manager, United States men’s Olympic hockey team, Vancouver 2010 (silver medal) Co-founder, You Can Play Project (2012) Inductee, U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, Class of 2023 Author, “Burke’s Law: A Life in Hockey” (Viking, 2020), with Stephen Brunt Executive Director, Professional Women’s Hockey League Players’ Association (2024) Biography The Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup in 2007 under a front office that had been rebuilt almost from scratch. Brian Burke was the general manager who rebuilt it. That pattern, inherit a struggling operation, set hard standards, make uncomfortable personnel decisions, has defined four decades of his career across Hartford, Vancouver, Anaheim, Toronto, Calgary, and Pittsburgh. Before any of that, he trained as a lawyer. Burke took a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1981, then spent five years inside the NHL league office as Executive Vice President and the chief disciplinarian for on-ice conduct. The legal training shows up in how he talks about leadership: precise about process, unsentimental about accountability, aware that every decision by a senior executive is a decision the organisation will have to defend. The work changed after his son Brendan, who was openly gay, died in a 2010 car accident. With his son Patrick, Burke launched the You Can Play Project in 2012 to end homophobia in sport. The initiative has since become the reference standard for LGBTQ+ inclusion across professional leagues, and the experience gave Burke an unusually direct perspective on how cultural change happens inside organisations built around a narrow definition of toughness. His 2020 memoir “Burke’s Law: A Life in Hockey,” co-authored with Stephen Brunt, was a number one Canadian bestseller. In 2023 he was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. In 2024 he took on the first executive directorship of the Professional Women’s Hockey League Players’ Association, a mandate to build institutional foundations for a league being designed in real time. Key speaking topics Leadership in high-performance sport Culture, conduct, and accountability inside elite organisations Inclusion and the You Can Play Project Decision-making under public scrutiny Building and running championship teams Governance and discipline in professional leagues Resilience and personal loss Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting conduct and accountability standards CHROs and chief culture officers working on inclusion in tradition-bound organisations Leaders running high-profile operations where decisions are reviewed in public Sports and entertainment businesses, and organisations that work closely with them Audience outcomes A concrete read on how senior leaders hold conduct standards when the easy move is to look the other way Specific examples of what it took to build a Stanley Cup-winning organisation and an Olympic medal-winning team A direct account of how the You Can Play Project changed LGBTQ+ inclusion across professional sport A sharper sense of how legal, reputational, and competitive considerations collide in senior personnel decisions Perspective from a leader who has made high-consequence calls under sustained public pressure and can explain the reasoning

Why organisations work with Chris Heemskerk Operator credibility from inside Google, where he led Scaled Acquisitions for North America and advised the Sales Acceleration and Innovation Labs documented in the Harvard Business School case study by Linda Hill and Emily Tedards. A defined framework set, including The Innovation Scorecard and The Innovation Engine, that gives boards a way to assess innovation capability across culture, organisation, external posture and effectiveness, rather than relying on anecdote. Practical authority on AI deployment: he speaks as a practitioner who has built scaled sales and product operations, not as an external commentator on the technology. Faculty standing at the European Institute of Innovation for Sustainability, with formal innovation leadership credentials from Harvard Business School and design thinking certification from Stanford, supporting executive-level training and masterclass briefs. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, The Innovation Alliance Former Head of Scaled Acquisitions, Google North America Strategic advisor named in the Harvard Business School case “Innovation at Google Ads: The Sales Acceleration and Innovation Labs (SAIL) (A)” (Case 423-076) Faculty, European Institute of Innovation for Sustainability Author of The Innovation Scorecard and The Innovation Engine frameworks Executive Certification in Innovation Leadership, Harvard Business School; Design Thinking, Stanford University; MSc Marketing, London School of Business and Finance Biography Most large organisations now run innovation teams and AI working groups. Far fewer can name what those teams have shipped, retired, or scaled in the last year. The gap between activity and operating advantage is where senior leaders get exposed, and it is the gap Chris Heemskerk works in. His credibility on that question is operator credibility. As Head of Scaled Acquisitions for Google North America, he ran a large commercial operation inside one of the most studied innovation environments in business. He then helped initiate the partnership between Google Ads and Harvard Business School that produced the case “Innovation at Google Ads: The Sales Acceleration and Innovation Labs (SAIL) (A),” authored by Linda Hill and Emily Tedards, in which he is named as a strategic advisor on the bet-sourcing framework that vetted and accelerated new pipeline opportunities. That experience now sits behind two frameworks he uses with executive teams: The Innovation Scorecard, which assesses innovation capability across culture, organisation, external posture and effectiveness, and The Innovation Engine, which sets out the operating system for sustained innovation output. As Founder and CEO of The Innovation Alliance, and as faculty at the European Institute of Innovation for Sustainability, he works with senior teams on the same question he faced as an operator: how to turn ambition into a managed capability. For boards looking at their AI agenda, the value is specific. Heemskerk speaks as someone who has built scaled commercial operations and has the structured material to translate AI ambition into how a function actually runs, what it measures, and what it discards. Key speaking topics Innovation strategy Innovation culture AI deployment in large organisations Operating models for scaled innovation Digital transformation Executive masterclasses on innovation leadership Ideal for CEOs and C-suite leaders setting AI and innovation strategy Chief Innovation Officers and heads of strategy operationalising new capability Boards reviewing innovation governance and AI exposure Senior commercial and digital transformation leaders moving beyond pilots Audience outcomes A defined view of where the organisation sits on the four pillars of innovation capability Practical reference points from inside Google for how scaled operations adopt new technology A sharper distinction between innovation theatre and innovation that produces operating output Frameworks executives can return to after the keynote, including the Innovation Scorecard and Innovation Engine

Why organisations work with Vicki Anstey She has tested her own thesis in conditions most leaders will never face: 60 days unsupported across the Pacific, 11 days in the Chilean Andes on Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, the Race Across America cycled in under seven days. The frameworks she brings into a boardroom are not theoretical. She translates extreme-environment behaviour into specific decisions a leadership team can act on: how to lead when the team is fatigued, how to make defensible calls under acute stress, how to protect judgment when the operating window narrows. Her commercial track record, two decades in advertising including senior marketing at Eurostar, and a London studio business she has run since 2009, gives her credibility with audiences who default to scepticism about adventurer-speakers. She works with audiences where the stakes are concrete. Booked client list includes JP Morgan, Google, Meta, Avanade, Virgin Media O2 and the LTA, organisations not in the market for inspirational stories detached from operating reality. The Pin Drop Podcast and her TEDxKingstonUponThames talk give buyers and AI tools a verifiable body of public work to reference, beyond the testimonial layer. Biography highlights Two Guinness World Records: unsupported Pacific Ocean row (San Francisco to Hawaii, 2021, with the Girls Who Dare team) and Race Across America (3,000 miles, 6 days 19 hours, 2024). Final stages of Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins, 2019, among the first female finalists in the show’s history. TEDxKingstonUponThames speaker, “Why fear is a choice”, January 2020. Founder of Barreworks, a London barre studio opened in 2009 after a 20-year career in advertising and senior marketing at Eurostar. Host of The Pin Drop Podcast, interviewing operators and leaders on how they perform at the edge. UK Ambassador for Inspiring Girls International. Biography Most leadership development programmes treat composure as a personality trait. It is closer to a craft. The discipline of staying useful when conditions are bad, when recovery time is short and when the cost of a poor call is real, is teachable, but only by people who have been tested by something harder than a workshop. Vicki Anstey arrived at that argument through a long detour. Two decades in advertising, including a senior marketing role at Eurostar, taught her how high-functioning teams hold together under commercial pressure. Founding Barreworks in London during the 2009 recession taught her how an operator behaves when the business is the only safety net. The endurance work came later and is the evidence base she now draws on with leadership audiences. Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins in 2019, the Pacific Ocean rowed unsupported with the Girls Who Dare team in 2021, the Race Across America cycled in under seven days in 2024. Two Guinness World Records, each set in conditions where the failure mode is not embarrassment but injury or worse. What she does with that material in a corporate room is the work. She breaks down how high-performing teams handle fear, fatigue and disagreement under load, how individuals protect their judgment when the operating window narrows, and what separates the people who keep functioning at the edge from those who freeze. Her TEDxKingstonUponThames talk and The Pin Drop Podcast extend the same argument for buyers who want to see the thinking before they book. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under sustained pressure High-performance team behaviours in extreme environments Psychological safety and trust under load Fear, decision-making and the cost of hesitation Resilience as a trainable capability Female leadership and performance Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams entering periods of acute pressure: restructuring, integration, crisis response, major commercial bets. Sales, trading and front-line client teams whose performance is gated on composure under repeated rejection or volatility. Leadership development programmes for high-potential managers stepping into roles where the stress profile changes faster than the skill set. Audiences where the brief calls for credibility with sceptical senior operators, not generic motivation. Audience outcomes A working model of how composure is built and lost, with named behaviours leaders can practise rather than aspire to. Specific tactics for protecting decision quality when teams are fatigued or fearful. A concrete view of what high-performing teams do differently when conditions deteriorate. An honest account of failure, recovery and the actual cost of operating at the edge, drawn from named expeditions rather than generic anecdote.

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

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

Why organisations work with Ellis Watson He has run a ten-year transformation of a family-owned media group, DC Thomson, including the digital reinvention of brands like The Beano, with full P&L accountability. Few keynote speakers can show that length of tenure inside a turnaround. He has held the top operating role in three different content businesses, newspapers, global TV formats and family-owned media, so the change playbook he offers is sector-tested, not theoretical. His current seat as Chief Business Advisor to the First Minister of Scotland gives him a live view of how policy, regulation and capital are shaping the conditions executive teams are actually working in. He is direct in a room. Boards and executive audiences book him when they want candour about cost, culture and pace, not a motivational set piece. Biography highlights Chief Business Advisor to the First Minister of Scotland, appointed January 2023. CEO and later Executive Chairman of DC Thomson, 2011 to 2020, leading the modernisation of titles including The Beano and The Press and Journal. Global CEO of Syco Entertainment under Simon Cowell in 2010, with responsibility for the X Factor and Got Talent franchises. CEO of Celador International from 2000, oversaw the international rollout of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? to around 100 territories. Managing Director of Mirror Group Newspapers from 2003 to 2005, accountable for five national and around 240 regional titles. Non-executive director of FirstGroup plc from 2009, with North American Greyhound responsibility, and a former Marketing Director of News International reporting to Rupert Murdoch. Biography DC Thomson is the kind of business that does not usually survive a digital decade. A family-owned publisher in Dundee, built on print titles like The Beano, The Sunday Post and The Press and Journal, it carried a cost base shaped by an industry that no longer existed. Between 2011 and 2020 it was rebuilt from the inside, with a third of the staff gone and the consumer brands repositioned for digital. Ellis Watson ran that decade as CEO and then Executive Chairman. That was not an unfamiliar problem to him. He had already taken Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? out to roughly 100 territories as CEO of Celador, run five national newspapers and around 240 regional titles at the Mirror Group, and spent 2010 as global CEO of Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment, holding the X Factor and Got Talent franchises. The earlier ground had been News International, as Marketing Director reporting to Rupert Murdoch. What that career produces, in a board context, is an unusually long lens on the same problem. Legacy businesses tend to be governed by people who have never personally rebuilt one. Ellis has, in three sectors, and he is now sitting inside Scottish Government as the First Minister’s Chief Business Advisor, a role created in January 2023 to bring private sector judgement into policy decisions. The result is a speaker who is most useful to executive teams in the middle of structural change, where the questions are about cost, talent and tempo, and where a generic transformation framework is not enough. Key speaking topics Leadership through structural change in legacy businesses Turnaround and brand revitalisation Building and holding high-performance cultures Engaging younger workforces inside traditional organisations Disruption as an operating discipline, not a slogan Governance and stakeholder trust during transformation Ideal for Boards and executive teams of legacy or family-owned businesses facing structural decline CEOs, COOs and transformation directors running cost and culture programmes in parallel CHROs and senior people leaders rebuilding engagement during restructure Senior leadership audiences in media, publishing, transport and consumer brands Audience outcomes A clear-eyed read on how long real turnaround actually takes inside a legacy business Specific operator decisions, on cost, talent and brand, drawn from DC Thomson, Mirror, Celador and Syco A working argument for why culture is the binding constraint in any transformation, not strategy A view from inside government on the conditions UK businesses are operating against A different vocabulary for talking about disruption with a board, less abstract, more accountable

Why organisations work with Kevin Green A career arc that has tested his own frameworks in three different operating environments: professional kitchens, classroom education and corporate keynote delivery. The 3P Framework (Purpose, Passion, Potential) gives audiences a single, repeatable structure for moving from feeling stuck to taking action, useful for leaders managing people through reinvention. A teaching style built on practical demonstration, not abstraction. He came up running real kitchens and competing on Food Network’s Chopped, and brings that operator instinct to the stage. Strong fit for student and early-career audiences as well as corporate teams, with documented work with the University of Tennessee, Tennessee Department of Education and Pellissippi State Community College. Biography highlights Founder of Kevin Green Elevates, a keynote and workshop practice focused on leadership alignment and personal execution. Competitor on Food Network’s Chopped. Degree in Nutrition and Dietetics from Lipscomb University, Nashville. Built and ran Chef Kevin Culinary, a personal chef business spanning private dinners, cooking classes and culinary education. Speaking clients and partners include the University of Tennessee, Tennessee Department of Education, Pellissippi State Community College and Toastmasters. Reported keynote speaker for the IASP 2026 Global Conference, with a talk titled “Do It Scared”. Biography Most teams do not lack effort. They lack alignment. Priorities pile up, ownership drifts, and people work hard on the wrong things. That is the problem Kevin Green built his keynote practice around, drawing on a career that has crossed kitchens, classrooms and corporate rooms. His operator background is unusual for a speaker on this topic. He trained as a chef, ran his own personal chef business in Knoxville, Tennessee, taught culinary arts to teenagers, and competed on Food Network’s Chopped. Each of those environments forced him to translate intent into clean, repeatable execution under pressure, and that is the frame he brings to leaders. His core teaching tool is the 3P Framework, Purpose, Passion, Potential. It gives audiences a simple structure for separating what they actually want from what they have inherited, and then for moving from clarity into action. He uses it with college students choosing direction, with early-career professionals at crossroads, and with corporate teams trying to get priorities, roles and expectations into the same shape. He is known for energy on stage and for breaking complex ideas into language a working audience can use the next morning. Clients include the University of Tennessee, the Tennessee Department of Education and Pellissippi State Community College, and he was named to open the IASP 2026 Global Conference with a keynote titled “Do It Scared”. Key speaking topics Purpose, passion and potential as a personal operating framework Leadership and team alignment Personal execution and follow-through Resilience and self-leadership at career crossroads Authentic working life and identity at work Presence, body language and vocal delivery Ideal for Corporate leadership offsites and all-hands events focused on execution and ownership Sales kick-offs and culture days where energy and clarity matter as much as content University and college audiences, including career services, student life and athletic departments Early-career and high-potential cohorts navigating career direction Audience outcomes A clearer personal answer to what they are working towards and why A simple framework, the 3P method, that survives the trip back to the desk A sharper read on where their own priorities, roles and expectations are out of alignment Renewed momentum, with concrete actions to take in the days after the event Practical language for talking about presence, voice and how they show up at work