Leadership

Why organisations work with Richard Nugee He wrote the climate strategy that a national defence ministry now operates against. That is a different order of evidence from advocacy work; he has done the institutional translation himself. He links climate to the things boards actually argue about: supply chain exposure, energy security, geopolitical instability, capital allocation under long horizons. He carries the credibility of a Lieutenant General with operational service in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans, which lands with audiences that tune out conventional sustainability messaging. He still sits inside the policy machinery. As Co-Chair of the advisory board of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security, and an advisor to the International Military Council on Climate and Security and the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, his framing reflects current government and alliance thinking. Biography highlights Lieutenant General (Retd), British Army, 36-year career in the Royal Artillery; CB, CVO, CBE; US Legion of Merit (2014) Chief of Defence People, Ministry of Defence, 2016 to 2020 Author, Ministry of Defence Climate Change and Sustainability Strategic Approach (March 2021); delivered a 2025 National Emergency Briefing to UK parliamentarians on climate and nature as a national security threat Co-Chair, Advisory Board, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security; former Non-Executive Director for Climate Change and Sustainability, Ministry of Defence Senior advisor, International Military Council on Climate and Security; advisor to the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the University of Oxford Climate Change & (In)Security Project Chief Executive, The Scar Free Foundation; Chair, Royal NAAFI Board Recent podcast guest on climate, food, and security, including Bloomberg’s Zero, Cleaning Up, Real Zero, and Farm Gate Leaders Biography The Ministry of Defence published its first formal climate strategy in March 2021. The author was a serving Lieutenant General who had spent the previous year inside the department turning climate from an environmental concern into a defence planning question. That strategy now shapes how UK Defence approaches emissions, estate, capability and resilience over a thirty-year horizon. Richard Nugee’s military career ran for thirty-six years in the Royal Artillery, with operational tours in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Cyprus and Afghanistan. As Chief of Defence People from 2016 to 2020 he was responsible for personnel policy across the armed forces, the civil service side of Defence, and the veteran community. His honours include the CB, CVO and CBE, and the US Legion of Merit for service in Afghanistan. The climate review changed his second career. He held the Non-Executive Director seat for Climate Change and Sustainability at the Ministry of Defence from 2021. He now co-chairs the advisory board of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Climate, Nature and Security. He advises the International Military Council on Climate and Security, the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the University of Oxford Climate Change & (In)Security Project, and is Chief Executive of The Scar Free Foundation and Chair of the Royal NAAFI Board. What he offers commercial audiences is the discipline of a defence planner applied to climate. He talks about resource competition, supply chain fragility, infrastructure exposure and the cost of inaction in language that boards used to hearing risk papers, not green narratives. The argument lands because it comes from someone who has had to make it stick inside a department that does not tolerate vague claims. Key speaking topics Climate change as a national security risk Defence and sustainability strategy Geopolitical implications of climate Supply chain and resource resilience Net zero and capital allocation Leadership in large, change-resistant institutions Veterans, personnel and people strategy Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, ESG and net zero strategy with real capital at stake CSOs, sustainability leads and risk officers wanting to reframe climate as security and operating risk Defence, aerospace, energy and critical infrastructure organisations with exposure to geopolitical and resource volatility Leadership audiences in large, regulated or change-resistant institutions Audience outcomes A working definition of climate as a security and supply chain risk, not a compliance or PR issue Specific examples of how a national defence ministry has translated climate into planning, capability and capital decisions A sharper view of the geopolitical second-order effects of climate, from resource competition to migration to alliance pressure Language for talking about climate to audiences that are sceptical of standard sustainability framing

Why organisations work with Tony Martignetti He gives senior leaders a working method for staying composed under chaos, the 6Cs of Grounded Leadership, drawn from coaching thousands of executives through transition and reinvention. His work draws on a finance and strategy career inside life sciences, so the conversation with a CEO or CFO is operator-to-operator, not coach-to-client. He has built one of the most listened-to long-form leadership interview shows, The Virtual Campfire, and brings 200+ executive conversations into his keynotes as material rather than anecdote. He is published by Routledge on the use of personal narrative in leadership, with a third book on integrated, multidimensional leadership due in 2026, a depth of authorship rare in the resilience and purpose category. He is equally credible with a founder team mid-scale-up and a Fortune 500 leadership group mid-restructure, because the underlying problem, leading from grounded clarity, is the same. Biography highlights Founder and Chief Inspiration Officer, Inspired Purpose Partners, after a finance and strategy career across high-tech and life sciences. TEDx speaker whose talk “Don’t Check Yourself at the Door” has passed two million views. Author of “Climbing the Right Mountain” (2021) and “Campfire Lessons for Leaders” (Routledge, 2024), with “Illuminating Hidden Brilliance” forthcoming in 2026. Host of The Virtual Campfire podcast, 200+ episodes of long-form leadership interviews. ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC); MBA, D’Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University. Writes a regular leadership column for Inc., and has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, CEOWORLD, and Life Science Leader; named a Top Voice in Leadership by Thinkers360. Biography Composure is now part of the senior leader’s job description. Decisions are sharper, cycles are shorter, and the people in the room read the leader for steadiness before they read the strategy. That is the territory Tony Martignetti works in. He came to it through operations, not theory. Before founding Inspired Purpose Partners, he spent a finance and strategy career across high-tech and life sciences companies, ran a financial consulting practice, and worked alongside founders and boards through capital events and reinvention. The coaching is shaped by that operator’s instinct for what actually moves a decision under pressure. His work runs on two linked ideas. The 6Cs of Grounded Leadership give senior leaders a frame for composure under sustained pressure. Multidimensional leadership, his own term, names a pattern he sees often: capable people fragment themselves to perform, and their sharpest thinking goes dormant. He developed both across two books, including “Campfire Lessons for Leaders,” published by Routledge in 2024, and more than 200 long-form interviews on his podcast, The Virtual Campfire. The audience is the senior leader who has the credentials, the team, and the strategy, and still needs a steadier internal frame to lead from. What they recognise is the substance: a clear, usable practice for leading well when conditions will not settle. That practice has travelled. He writes a regular leadership column for Inc., and his work appears in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Forbes. Thinkers360 names him among its Top Voices in Leadership, and his TEDx talk “Don’t Check Yourself at the Door” has passed two million views. Key speaking topics Grounded leadership under chaos Composure and decision-making for senior leaders Multidimensional leadership Purpose and direction for executives in transition Personal narrative as a leadership instrument Reinvention for founders and senior teams Coaching culture inside leadership teams Ideal for C-suite teams working through reorganisation, integration, or strategic reset Founder and scale-up CEOs entering a new operating phase Senior leadership programmes inside life sciences, technology, and professional services Executive offsites where the brief is composure, clarity, and direction Audience outcomes A working method, the 6Cs of Grounded Leadership, that a senior leader can apply on Monday morning Sharper criteria for which decisions deserve the leader’s attention and which do not A clearer read on the leader’s own ambition, and whether the current mountain is the right one Practical use of personal story as a tool for trust, alignment, and team direction Language for steadiness that travels across the leadership team, not just the individual

Why organisations work with Dominique Gisin A first-hand account of nine knee surgeries followed by an Olympic gold, used not as a story arc but as material for how leaders sustain commitment when each new attempt carries diminishing odds. A rare combination of elite sporting pedigree with a scientific frame of reference: a Sochi 2014 gold medal alongside an ETH Zurich MSc in Physics, which lifts the conversation above motivational anecdote. Co-delivery with Dr Christian Marcolli, her long-time sports psychologist, gives organisations a paired performance-and-psychology view in a single keynote rather than a one-voice talk. Operational credibility outside sport: a board seat at the listed TITLIS cable-car company, the CEO role she held at Schweizer Sporthilfe, and a spell flying as a commercial First Officer. The talk is anchored in real decision environments, not sport alone. Bilingual delivery in German and English, with strong relevance to Swiss, German-speaking, and international corporate audiences. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, Alpine Skiing Downhill, Sochi 2014, in the first ever Olympic alpine tie for gold (with Tina Maze). Swiss Sportswoman of the Year, 2014. Member of the Swiss National Alpine Ski Team, 2007 to 2015, with multiple World Cup podiums in downhill and super-G. MSc in Physics, ETH Zurich, 2022. CEO and board of trustees member, Schweizer Sporthilfe (Swiss Sports Aid Foundation), 2018 to 2022. Qualified commercial pilot; flew as a First Officer with Swiss carrier Fly7. Biography The downhill at Sochi 2014 produced the first tie for gold in Olympic alpine history. Dominique Gisin shared the podium with Tina Maze on identical times to the hundredth, ending a thirty-year wait for a Swiss women’s downhill gold. The medal arrived after nine knee surgeries and a career that had been written off more than once. What gives the talk its weight is what happened after. Gisin retired from the World Cup circuit in 2015 and was admitted to ETH Zurich, completing an MSc in Physics in 2022. She qualified as a commercial pilot in 2019 and flew as a First Officer for the Swiss carrier Fly7. From 2018 to 2022 she served as CEO and a board of trustees member of Schweizer Sporthilfe, the foundation that funds Swiss athlete development. For senior audiences, the relevant content is not the medal itself. It is the discipline of repeated comeback under thin evidence, paired with a working understanding of how performance, physiology, and decision pressure interact. Her keynote “Making It Happen” is co-delivered with sports psychologist Dr Christian Marcolli, which moves the material beyond personal narrative into a structured account of how composure is built and rebuilt. The pairing of Olympic-level performance, scientific training, and operational responsibility in two further professions is unusual. It gives leadership audiences something specific to take away: a credible read on what it takes to keep deciding well when the body, the data, or the team are all giving reasons to stop. Key speaking topics Resilience after serious setback Composure and decision-making under pressure Elite performance psychology Career reinvention and second-act leadership Team trust and individual accountability Inspiration from elite sport for corporate audiences Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and board awaydays facing a turnaround or post-shock phase HR, talent and L&D leaders running senior development programmes on resilience and performance Sales and commercial conferences anchored on sustained motivation through difficult cycles Audience outcomes A concrete account of how elite athletes prepare for, absorb, and recover from setback, applied to leadership decisions Language for talking about composure as a built capability rather than a personality trait A working frame, drawn from sports psychology, for how individuals and teams stay committed when results are slow to arrive A second-perspective view through Dr Christian Marcolli when the keynote is booked as a duo

Why organisations work with Sílvia Vidal She offers a first-person account of high-stakes performance with no team, no rescue, and no communication, on expeditions that run up to two months at a time and include weeks living alone on the wall, which translates directly into senior conversations about judgement under pressure. She holds international recognition at the top of her sport: a Special Mention at the Piolets d’Or 2021 in Briancon for two decades of solo big wall climbing, and Spain’s Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit in 2022. She speaks credibly about fear and uncertainty as managed working conditions rather than abstractions, drawing on first ascents in Patagonia, the Karakorum, the Himalaya, the Andes, and Alaska, among others. She is unusual in choosing complete communication blackout on every expedition: no radio, no phone, no GPS, no weather forecasts. She carries the same principle into daily life, where she has never owned a mobile phone, so the discipline is lived rather than performed. She presents internationally in both English and Spanish, with more than 25 years on stage for corporate and festival audiences across Europe, the Americas, and beyond. Biography highlights Special Mention at the Piolets d’Or 2021, Briancon, for outstanding contribution to solo big wall climbing over two decades Spanish Piolet de Oro (1996), Spanish Mountain Federation, for the solo first ascent of Principado de Asturias Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit (2022), Spanish High Council of Sports Honorary Member of the Spanish Geographic Society (2023) Solo first ascents on remote walls across five continents, including Sincronia Magica (Cerro Chileno Grande, Patagonia, 33 days on the wall) and Un pas mes (Arrigetch, Alaska, 53-day expedition) Master’s degree in Physical Education, INEFC-Barcelona Biography The west face of Cerro Chileno Grande in Patagonian Chile is a 1,200-metre granite wall in one of the least visited corners of the Aysen region. In 2020 Sílvia Vidal spent 33 days alone on it, opening a new route called Sincronia Magica, with no radio, no phone, no GPS, and no weather forecasts. The Piolets d’Or jury cited that climb, and the two decades behind it, when they awarded her a Special Mention in Briancon in 2021. Vidal was born in Barcelona in 1970, came into climbing through adventure racing during a Master’s in Physical Education at INEFC-Barcelona, and within a couple of years was climbing at the hardest aid grades, A5. The 1996 solo first ascent of Principado de Asturias in northern Spain earned her the Spanish Piolet de Oro from the Spanish Mountain Federation. Since then she has put up first ascents on remote walls in Patagonia, the Karakorum, the Himalaya, the Andes, and Alaska, including Un pas mes in the Arrigetch range, a 53-day expedition in 2017. What separates her from most extreme-environment speakers is the choice of complete communication blackout. She hauls her own gear, lives on the wall for weeks, and has no contact with the outside world until she walks out. Spain’s High Council of Sports awarded her the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit in 2022, and the Spanish Geographic Society made her an Honorary Member in 2023. Across more than 25 years she has presented to corporate and festival audiences in Europe, Canada, and Peru in English and Spanish. The argument she brings to a leadership audience is concrete. Composure under pressure is not a personality trait. It is built before the wall, tested every day on it, and rebuilt every time fear arrives without warning. The lessons that come back down with her are about preparation, self-honesty, and the difference between solitude and loneliness when there is genuinely no help available. Key speaking topics Decision-making under irreversible commitment Composure and self-leadership under sustained pressure Working with fear and uncertainty Preparation as the foundation of high-stakes performance Solitude, focus, and self-reliance Resilience in extreme environments Ideal for Executive and senior leadership off-sites focused on judgement and composure under pressure Risk, operations, and safety leadership audiences who want a practitioner-level account, not a metaphor Company-wide events looking for credible inspiration anchored in a verifiable record Leadership development programmes on resilience, self-management, and decision-making Audience outcomes A concrete benchmark for what sustained performance under pressure actually requires A practical relationship with fear and uncertainty as working conditions, not obstacles Specific language for talking about preparation and risk that leaders can carry into their own decisions A model of resilience built on preparation, daily routine, and self-honesty under sustained pressure A reset on what self-leadership looks like when no one is watching and no help is available A different reference point for attention and focus, from someone whose work depends on sustained concentration with no notifications, no inbox, and no way to call for help

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

Why organisations work with Mark Wilkinson Pairs an operational safety credential, Chartered Member of the Institute of Safety and Health, with personality diversity practice through Equilibria’s E-Colours framework. That combination is unusual on the speaker circuit, where wellbeing voices rarely carry frontline safety standing. Translates personality difference into safety behaviour. The argument that an extroverted risk-taker and a cautious analyst will hear the same toolbox talk in opposite ways gives leaders a concrete way to redesign briefings, supervision and incident review. Lived recovery from collapse, addiction, bankruptcy and depression gives the resilience material first-hand authority. The story is supported by a published book, Life Remixed, endorsed by Bob Proctor and Marci Shimoff. Works comfortably across heavy industry, energy and corporate audiences, including engagements such as Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival, and adapts the same material for a leadership offsite or a frontline safety stand-down. Brings the production craft of a former Ministry of Sound resident DJ into the room. Music, video and live elements are part of the delivery, which lands with audiences who switch off during conventional keynotes. Biography highlights Chartered Member of the Institute of Safety and Health (CMIOSH) and Fellow of the Institute of Leadership (FIoL). Certified E-Colours personality diversity practitioner through Equilibria, working with leadership teams across energy, sport and corporate sectors. Author of Life Remixed: Looking Beyond The Dance To Face The Music, published 2021, with foreword endorsements from Bob Proctor and Marci Shimoff. Host of the Life Remixed podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Former international house music DJ with a Ministry of Sound residency, performances in 65 countries and a UK Top 10 chart entry as part of Dab Hands with the remix of Lou Reed’s “Satellite of Love”. Speaker at Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival and across health, safety and leadership programmes for industrial and corporate clients. Biography Behavioural safety has a translation problem. Two people on the same site, given the same briefing, will walk away with different versions of what was said and different views of the risk in front of them. Wilkinson’s working argument is that personality difference is a structural variable in safety and engagement, not a soft factor to be managed around. He works that argument through Equilibria’s E-Colours framework, where he is a certified practitioner, and through his Chartered standing with the Institute of Safety and Health. The combination matters: the diagnostic of human difference is paired with operational health and safety credibility, which is what gives the work purchase in heavy industry and energy clients rather than only in leadership development settings. The personal story sits behind the professional one. A former Ministry of Sound resident DJ with a UK Top 10 chart credit, Wilkinson collapsed at 33 and lost income, home and relationship across an 18-month recovery. He rebuilt through health and safety work and personal development study, and wrote Life Remixed, endorsed by Bob Proctor and Marci Shimoff, as the account of that rebuild. For organisations, that biography is useful because it lets him hold a room of frontline operators and a room of senior leaders with the same material. The safety and personality work gives the talk its operational edge. The recovery narrative gives it the emotional weight that makes the safety message actually stick. Key speaking topics Behavioural safety and human factors Personality diversity in the workplace Resilience and personal recovery Mental wellbeing and mindset Leadership communication across personality types Engagement in high-risk operational environments Ideal for Heads of HSE, safety leadership teams and operational directors in energy, construction, aviation and manufacturing HR and culture leads designing engagement, wellbeing or behavioural change programmes Leadership and learning teams running offsites that need a credible voice on personal resilience Frontline conferences and toolbox events where a conventional academic keynote will lose the room Audience outcomes A working model for why the same safety message lands differently across a workforce and what to change about briefings as a result A vocabulary for personality difference that supervisors and team leads can use without specialist training A first-hand account of recovery from collapse and addiction that opens room for honest conversation about wellbeing A reframe of behavioural safety as a leadership and communication problem, not only a compliance one

Why organisations work with Chris Baréz-Brown Twenty-five years working the commercial creativity brief as an operator, first agency-side and then running his own firm. The view is from inside the work, not from a research perch. Five Penguin titles set out a coherent published thesis on creativity as a learnable behaviour, so buyers can read the argument before booking the room. His Unilever programme was written up in Harvard Business Review, a rare credential in this territory. He ships a behaviour-change tool with the keynote. TiO and the Elvis Energy Lab let the room run the method the next morning, not just remember the speech. A repeat-booking record on the brand side that other creativity speakers don’t match. Biography highlights Founder of Upping Your Elvis, a creativity and energy consultancy working with global brands. Former director at innovation consultancy ?What If!, leading offices in London, New York and Sydney. Author of five Penguin books: Shine, Wake Up!, Free!, How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas, and Upping Your Elvis. Penguin’s bestselling author in 2014. Creator of TiO, a workplace mental wellbeing app with research from the University of Bristol. Featured in Harvard Business Review for the impact of his work with Unilever. Media appearances include the BBC, The Guardian, The Sunday Times, Fast Company and Calm. Biography Most creativity programmes inside large organisations fail at the same point. The room leaves energised, the workstreams revert, and within a quarter the operating model has absorbed the change. The problem is rarely a shortage of ideas. It is the absence of a daily practice that lets ordinary employees produce original work under commercial pressure. This is the territory Chris Baréz-Brown has worked in for twenty-five years. He spent over a decade as a director at ?What If!, the innovation consultancy, running the business across London, New York and Sydney before founding Upping Your Elvis in 2010. The premise of the firm is that human energy, not strategy decks, is the variable that determines whether a creative culture survives contact with the operating model. His five Penguin titles, including the bestseller Upping Your Elvis, set out a body of practice that treats creativity as a learnable behaviour rather than a personality trait. The work has run inside Nike, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Unilever, Roche, Microsoft and the WPP agency network on the brand side, with Harvard Business Review featuring the impact of the Unilever programme. What sets the offer apart from a standard creativity keynote is the post-event mechanism. Through TiO, an app developed with research from the University of Bristol, and the Elvis Energy Lab, audiences leave with a method they can run themselves. The thesis underneath all of it is commercial: brave thinking is a function of human state, and human state can be designed for. Key speaking topics Commercial creativity and innovation practice Energy management and human performance at work Mental and emotional wellbeing in high-pressure roles Leadership of creative teams Behaviour change and habit design inside organisations Brand-side innovation case studies Ideal for CMOs and brand leaders looking to lift creative output across marketing organisations Heads of innovation and R&D in consumer-facing businesses Senior HR and people leaders responsible for engagement and wellbeing strategy Leadership offsites where the brief is renewal of energy and creative confidence, not a strategy refresh Audience outcomes A working definition of creativity as daily practice, not occasional inspiration Specific behavioural tools, including TiO, that audiences can use the next morning A sharper read on how their own energy state is shaping the quality of their commercial decisions Case material on what holds up when a creative culture meets the operating model

Why organisations work with Paris Norriss The Grit Code gives organisations a repeatable method for developing resilience: not a motivational moment, but a structured framework built from both extreme first-hand experience and interviews with more than 50 documented high performers. It can be applied, not just felt. His source material is verified broadcast content. The adventures Paris describes are not anecdotes: they are documented on productions distributed via Amazon Prime and Apple TV. When the Pacific storm or the 40-foot wave hits, no one questions whether the stakes were real. He draws a distinction most resilience speakers do not: between teams that perform well when conditions are manageable and teams that hold when those conditions break down. The gap between the two is where most organisational performance is actually lost. His career spans investment banking, media production, and extreme endurance sport, which means he can translate the mechanics of sustained performance directly into commercial and operational terms, without forcing the adventure metaphor. His speaking record runs from the US Military in Hawaii to DHL in Athens to COP28 in Dubai. The breadth of context is itself evidence that The Grit Code’s framework transfers across sector, culture, and seniority level. Biography highlights Creator of The Grit Code, a structured resilience framework built from extreme endurance experience and research with more than 50 high performers Rowed 4,800km across the Pacific Ocean (California to Hawaii) with the Brothers N Oars team over 39 days (2023), raising funds for the Blue Marine Foundation and the Invictus Games Completed the World Marathon Challenge: 7 marathons on 7 continents in 5 days and 21 hours (2025), having previously run a single marathon Host and Executive Producer of “Guy in Dubai” and “Guy in the Sky,” distributed on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, OSN, and Emirates Airlines across more than 120 countries Founder of Blazing Sand Studios (formerly GID Media Production), an Abu Dhabi-based production company established in 2017 Regular contributor to Dubai Eye radio; business columnist for The National MA (Hons), Business Studies (Finance), University of Edinburgh; earlier career in investment banking and private equity Biography Most organisations discover they have a resilience problem not during planning but when things go wrong. A skilled, well-resourced team will perform competently under normal conditions. Whether that same team can sustain judgement, cohesion, and output when conditions break down is a different question: and one that most leadership development programmes never directly test. Paris Norriss has spent a decade answering it under conditions where the cost of failure was not theoretical. In 2023 he rowed 4,800 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean with the Brothers N Oars team over 39 days: navigating two storms, 40-foot waves, and a near-collision with a cargo ship. In 2025, having previously run a single marathon, he completed the World Marathon Challenge across seven continents in 5 days and 21 hours. The experiences are not the argument. The argument is what they required: a decision-making framework that holds when resources, morale, and conditions are all working against you. The Grit Code is that framework. Structured from both Paris’s own extreme experiences and interviews with more than 50 high performers, it gives organisations a repeatable method for developing the mental durability that sustains performance under real pressure. Paris has applied it across audiences spanning the US Military, DHL, Nokia, and COP28; contexts with little in common except the fundamental challenge of keeping a team functional when nothing is going to plan. His parallel career as founder of Blazing Sand Studios and executive producer of “Guy in Dubai” and “Guy in the Sky”, distributed on Amazon Prime and Apple TV across more than 120 countries, separates him from other speakers working in the same space. He has not merely survived extreme experiences; he has spent a career converting them into narrative form for mass audiences. That capacity to distil high-stakes experience into something transferable and usable is precisely what The Grit Code delivers in an organisational setting. Key speaking topics Mental resilience and performance under pressure Team cohesion in high-stakes environments Leadership in adversity Decision-making under stress The Grit Code framework for building organisational resilience Visual storytelling and narrative in business Adventure filmmaking and destination media Ideal for Leadership and senior management teams preparing for high-pressure transformation, restructuring, or sustained competitive pressure Sales, operations, and commercial teams where consistent output under difficult conditions is a performance priority HR and L&D leaders looking to embed resilience as a systemic organisational capability rather than a wellbeing initiative Conference organisers serving Gulf, Middle East, and international markets seeking a speaker with verified regional credibility and global media distribution Audience outcomes A working definition of grit as a learnable, structured capability – not a fixed personality trait Practical tools for identifying the internal motivational triggers that determine how individuals perform under sustained adversity A clear framework for distinguishing teams that hold under pressure from teams that only perform when conditions are favourable Insight into the mechanics of leadership and decision-making during the specific period when resources, morale, and conditions are all depleted simultaneously Understanding of how internal purpose and motivational alignment sustain team output beyond the point where conventional incentives and management techniques lose traction

Why organisations work with Peter Nelson He has run the same flagship influence programme at Henley Business School for over fifteen years, which means executive cohorts arrive at a method that has been stress-tested across hundreds of senior leaders, not a workshop assembled for the brief. He pioneered the use of professional actors in corporate influence and pitching training, and built the rehearsal-led methodology now common across UK executive education before it was standard practice. His client base spans law firms, asset managers, oil majors, professional services, the European Commission and Army HQ, which gives him a working vocabulary for influence in highly regulated, technically complex and politically sensitive environments. He works at the level of behaviour and live performance, not frameworks: leaders rehearse the actual conversation, board moment or client pitch they will face, with feedback in the room. Biography highlights Executive Fellow, Henley Business School; lead faculty on the “Influence and Impact” programme for over 15 years. Member of the Executive Faculty, Southampton Business School. Works with Cambridge Judge Business School, Warwick Business School and Duke Corporate Education on senior executive development. Pioneered the use of professional actors in business roleplay for influence and pitching training in the 1990s. Client roster includes Man Group, BP, BMW, Motorola, Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie, Barclays, Deloitte, ING, McLaren, the NHS, the European Commission and Army HQ. Signature programmes: Influence and Impact, Influencing and Negotiating, Business Pitching, Client Relationship Management, Team Effectiveness. Biography Most executive education on influence stops at the framework. Leaders leave with a model of stakeholder mapping or persuasion archetypes, then walk into a board meeting and revert to slides. The gap between knowing the theory and behaving differently in the room is the practical problem of senior communication, and it is the problem Peter Nelson has spent more than three decades working on. At Henley Business School, where he is an Executive Fellow, Nelson has led the “Influence and Impact” programme for over fifteen years. The same method now runs across Cambridge Judge Business School executive clients, Warwick Business School corporate cohorts, Duke Corporate Education and Southampton Business School, where he sits on the Executive Faculty. Cohorts include senior partners in global law firms, asset managers, professional services boards and policy leaders inside the European Commission and Army HQ. The methodology is distinctive in its mechanics. Nelson brought professional actors into corporate influence and pitching training in the 1990s, before it was standard, so leaders rehearse the actual conversation they will face: the regulator briefing, the new business pitch, the board update, the difficult client renewal. Feedback is delivered live, in the moment, on behaviour rather than theory. The result is a body of practice rather than a body of writing. Clients include Man Group, BP, BMW, Motorola, Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie, Barclays, Deloitte, ING and McLaren, and Nelson is most often booked when an organisation has identified that its senior people are technically excellent and commercially under-converting in the moments that matter. Key speaking topics Influence and persuasion at senior levels Executive presence and leadership impact High-stakes business pitching Negotiation skills Senior client relationships Presentation skills for leaders Team effectiveness Ideal for Partners and senior leaders in law, professional services and asset management preparing for client pitches and renewals Executive committees and boards developing presence and senior communication capability Sales, business development and relationship management leaders selling to sophisticated buyers HR and L&D heads commissioning executive development on influence, negotiation and leadership impact Audience outcomes A concrete sense of how senior audiences read presence, and what to change in the next conversation that matters Sharper command of the pitch, the board update and the negotiation set-piece, rehearsed against live feedback rather than discussed in abstract Specific tools for moving from technical credibility to commercial conversion in client-facing moments A working vocabulary for coaching their own teams on influence and impact after the session

Why organisations work with Andy Storch He has facilitated talent and leadership programmes for Salesforce, Oracle, Google, Toyota, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, Cisco, Sony, and Tiffany & Co., which means he has tested his career-ownership material against the most demanding corporate L&D functions in the market. He runs the room where his buyers meet each other. The Talent Development Think Tank conference, community, and podcast give him a working view of what CHROs and L&D leaders are actually trying to fix, before they brief a speaker. His thesis is concrete and actionable: career ownership is a learnable practice, not a slogan. Own Your Career Own Your Life breaks it into specific steps employees and managers can apply on Monday. His 2025 follow-up with Mike Kim, Own Your Brand, Own Your Career, gives organisations a practical handle on personal brand as a retention and internal mobility lever, not a LinkedIn exercise. He works equally credibly as a keynote, workshop facilitator, and community host. For talent functions running multi-day events, that flexibility is rare. Biography highlights Author of Own Your Career Own Your Life (2020) and co-author with Mike Kim of Own Your Brand, Own Your Career (2025). Founder and host of the Talent Development Think Tank podcast, conference, and community, sponsored by Advantage Performance Group. Has consulted, taught, or facilitated for Salesforce, Oracle, Google, Toyota, State Farm, Red Bull, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, HP, Sony, Cisco, and Tiffany & Co. MBA, USC Marshall School of Business (President of the MBA programme); BS, University of Florida. Host of three podcasts: The Talent Development Hot Seat, Own Your Career, and My NFT Journey. Workshop facilitator for global enterprises since 2011. Biography Career development inside large organisations has become a quiet contract failure. Employees assume their employer will plot the path; employers assume employees will take initiative; the middle is where engagement and retention disappear. Storch built a practice around closing that gap from both sides. His book Own Your Career Own Your Life sets out a step-by-step approach to career ownership for individual contributors and managers. The 2025 follow-up with Mike Kim, Own Your Brand, Own Your Career, extends the argument into personal brand as an internal-mobility and retention lever rather than an external marketing exercise. Both books are direct and operational, not motivational. The proof point most relevant to corporate buyers is who he works with. Salesforce, Oracle, Google, Toyota, Deloitte, EY, KPMG, Cisco, Sony, and Tiffany & Co. have used him to facilitate leadership and talent programmes. He has been running these workshops since 2011, which is what allows the keynote material to land in language a senior L&D function recognises. The Talent Development Think Tank, his podcast, conference, and community, gives him an unusual position in the market. He is not commenting on the talent development field from outside it; he is the convener inside it. For a CHRO or head of L&D, that means the speaker on stage has heard, in private, the same problems they are trying to solve. Key speaking topics Career ownership and employee development Talent development strategy Personal brand and internal mobility Leadership for managers of professionals Employee engagement and retention Future of work and talent trends Ideal for CHROs, heads of L&D, and talent development leaders running enterprise development programmes Annual talent and leadership offsites for managers of professionals Employee resource groups and internal high-potential cohorts Sales and account leadership conferences focused on retention and growth of top performers Audience outcomes A working definition of career ownership that managers and employees can apply to weekly conversations Specific tools to make personal brand work as an internal mobility and retention asset A clearer line between what the employer owes the employee and what the employee owes their own career Language to frame development conversations that does not collapse into performance review template A view of where talent development practice is heading, drawn from a sitting community of CHROs and L&D leaders

Why organisations work with Jose Manuel Calderon Fourteen NBA seasons across seven franchises, each requiring a different role, system, and relationship with coaching staff. Few speakers can describe reinvention at that frequency from inside the experience. Captained the Spain national team through its most decorated era, winning the 2006 FIBA World Cup, the 2011 EuroBasket, and three Olympic medals across 2008, 2012, and 2016. Holds the NBA single-season free throw record at 98.05 percent. The story behind that statistic is a precise account of preparation, repetition, and composure that translates directly to high-stakes performance. Now operates inside the business of sport as Special Advisor to the Cleveland Cavaliers, strategic advisor to technology firm Sngular, and co-founder of sport technology venture OWQLO. The post-playing view is operational, not nostalgic. Biography highlights 14 NBA seasons with Toronto Raptors, Detroit Pistons, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Atlanta Hawks, and Cleveland Cavaliers. NBA single-season free throw record holder at 98.05 percent (2008-09, Toronto Raptors). 2006 FIBA World Cup champion and 2011 EuroBasket champion with Spain. Three Olympic medals with Spain: silver in 2008, silver in 2012, bronze in 2016. Special Assistant to the Executive Director at the National Basketball Players Association from 2019. Special Advisor to the Cleveland Cavaliers, strategic advisor to Sngular, co-founder of OWQLO, UNICEF Ambassador. Biography Fourteen seasons in the NBA is not a tenure. It is seven different working environments, seven coaching philosophies, and a constant negotiation of role. Across Toronto, Detroit, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Cleveland, the work was the same every season: arrive, read the room, and become useful to a group of people who did not pick you. That career line is the substance behind Jose Manuel Calderon’s speaking. He captained the Spain national team through the most decorated period in its history, winning the 2006 FIBA World Cup, the 2011 EuroBasket, and three Olympic medals across 2008, 2012, and 2016. The Spanish “golden generation” is studied because it sustained excellence across more than a decade, with changing coaches, ageing key players, and rising rivals. Calderon was a central figure in how that group held together. The detail that travels well into corporate rooms is his free throw record. In 2008-09 he made 151 of 154 attempts, a 98.05 percent season that still stands as the NBA’s highest. The talk that emerges from it is about repeatable performance, not natural talent, and it lands cleanly with audiences who are measured on consistency rather than peaks. After retiring, Calderon moved directly into the business of sport. He served as Special Assistant to the Executive Director of the NBA Players Association from 2019, advises the Cleveland Cavaliers, sits on the advisory board of Spanish technology firm Sngular, and co-founded sport technology venture OWQLO. He is also a UNICEF Ambassador. The result is a speaker who can speak to senior teams in the language they use, drawing on a playing career that is genuinely rare at the level it reached. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Team performance across changing line-ups High-stakes decision-making Captaincy and standards Inclusion and identity in elite sport Reinvention across cultures and systems The business of professional sport Ideal for Senior leadership teams under prolonged performance pressure CHROs and people leaders building cohesion across changing structures Sales and commercial leaders who manage on consistency rather than peaks Board and executive offsites looking for a credible outside voice on team dynamics Audience outcomes A practical account of how elite teams hold standards through line-up change, coaching turnover, and external scrutiny. A clear picture of what daily preparation looks like at the level that produces records, not anecdotes about motivation. A working language for captaincy, the responsibility of senior players inside a team, and how that maps to senior leaders inside an organisation. A perspective on inclusion built from a long career across multiple national, cultural, and locker-room contexts.

Why organisations work with Pau Gasol Two NBA championships, three Olympic medals and a FIBA World Cup title give him a working definition of high performance grounded in repeated wins across cultures, coaches and rosters, not a single peak. He speaks credibly about the operating reality of elite teams: ego management next to a generational star (Kobe Bryant), role clarity, and the unglamorous habits that hold a group together across an 82-game season. A Basketball Hall of Fame induction in 2023 and a retired Lakers jersey place him among the small group of athletes whose authority on team and leadership is taken seriously inside a boardroom, not only on a stage. His work outside sport (Gasol Foundation on childhood obesity, IOC Athletes’ Commission, Gasol16 Ventures) shows a leader who has built institutions, not only played in them. The J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award is the NBA’s formal recognition of that. He presents fluently in English and Spanish, with direct experience of US, European and global organisations, which suits international leadership audiences without translation overhead. Biography highlights Two NBA Championships with the Los Angeles Lakers (2009, 2010); six-time NBA All-Star; four-time All-NBA selection. 2002 NBA Rookie of the Year, the first non-American player to win the award. Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Class of 2023; jersey No. 16 retired by the Los Angeles Lakers. FIBA World Cup champion and MVP 2006; three EuroBasket golds with Spain (2009, 2011, 2015); two-time EuroBasket MVP. Three Olympic medals with Spain: silver in 2008 and 2012, bronze in 2016. President and co-founder of the Gasol Foundation; UNICEF Global Champion for Nutrition and Zero Childhood Obesity; member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission; 2012 NBA J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. Biography Two NBA Championships, three Olympic medals and a FIBA World Cup title are not won by the same individual playing in different teams. They are won by leaders who help different groups behave the same way under pressure. Pau Gasol spent two decades inside the highest-stakes team environments in professional sport, with Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, alongside his brother Marc on the Spanish national team, and across rosters in Memphis, Chicago, San Antonio and Milwaukee. The interest for senior leaders is not the trophy count. It is what it took to sit beside a generational star like Bryant and still deliver, year after year, in the locker room as much as on the court. Role clarity, ego management, honest conversations between named individuals, and a standard that did not move with the score. Gasol’s account of that period is one of the more credible insider readings of elite team performance available from any speaker in the market. His record off the court is unusually substantive for an athlete. He co-founded the Gasol Foundation in 2013 with Marc Gasol, working on childhood obesity and child wellbeing in Spain and the United States. He serves as UNICEF’s Global Champion for Nutrition and Zero Childhood Obesity, sits on the International Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission, and runs Gasol16 Ventures, an investment platform in sport, health and wellness. The NBA recognised the community work with the 2012 J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023, with his number retired by the Los Angeles Lakers the same year, Gasol now speaks to leadership audiences in English and Spanish on what it actually takes to build a team that wins more than once. Key speaking topics Leadership and team performance under sustained pressure Building trust and role clarity inside elite teams Resilience and self-leadership through injury, transition and setback Sport as a model for organisational culture and standards Purpose-driven leadership and life after a professional career Child health and the leadership case for long-term social investment Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and CEO conferences focused on team performance and culture Sales kick-offs and annual conferences seeking a credible voice on resilience and standards Sports, health and consumer-brand audiences engaging with athlete leadership International audiences requiring delivery in English or Spanish Audience outcomes A working picture of what elite team performance looks like behind the result, told by someone inside it A direct view of how leaders manage ego, role and trust around a dominant individual Specific reference points for resilience and decision-making through injury, transition and public scrutiny A leadership case for long-term investment in people and purpose beyond the immediate quarter