Mental Health in the Workplace

Why organisations work with Clare Kenny Her role as Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry, responsible for a strategy covering 9,000 employees globally, gives her credibility with CHROs and operational leaders alike. She built the business case for wellbeing investment at scale, not just the human one. Prior career at YSC Consulting (part of Accenture) and MindGym grounds her frameworks in leadership psychology and behavioural science, not wellness trends or personal experience alone. Her TEDx talk reframes addiction as a spectrum behaviour present in most high-performance cultures, shifting the conversation from individual stigma to a risk organisations are actively creating through their own culture. Her work on ADHD and neuroinclusion moves beyond awareness. She helps organisations identify the specific leadership and structural conditions that enable neurodivergent talent to perform, and the ones that quietly prevent it. She moves wellbeing from a programme organisations fund to a behaviour leaders practise. That shift is what determines whether culture actually changes. Biography highlights BSc in Psychology, University of Manchester Former Global Wellbeing Lead, Burberry: led the global wellbeing strategy for a 9,000-person workforce Former Head of Client Operations (Europe), YSC Consulting (part of Accenture), leadership advisory Former Client Executive, MindGym, behavioural science learning and development consultancy TEDx speaker on rethinking addiction as a spectrum issue present in high-performance environments Clients include Warner Bros Discovery, KPMG, Ministry of Justice, Channel 4, Specsavers, Fidelity International, Avanade, and HSBC Biography At Burberry, the global wellbeing strategy covered 9,000 employees across multiple continents. Building that infrastructure required a specific kind of credibility; part organisational psychology, part leadership consultancy experience, and a willingness to name what most organisations actively avoid. Clare Kenny holds a BSc in Psychology from the University of Manchester and built her professional foundations at MindGym, a behavioural science learning and development consultancy. She moved into leadership advisory at YSC Consulting (part of Accenture), running client operations across Europe. That sequence; psychology, behavioural science, leadership consulting, shapes how she approaches wellbeing as an organisational systems problem, not a personal one. Her most defining role was Global Wellbeing Lead at Burberry, where she designed and ran the company’s wellbeing strategy across its global workforce. That experience directly informs her current work with organisations including KPMG, Warner Bros Discovery, Channel 4, and the Ministry of Justice, where her focus is on psychological safety, neuroinclusion, and the leadership behaviours that create or undermine mentally healthy cultures. Clare also speaks from personal experience of ADHD, addiction, anxiety, and grief. Her TEDx talk reframes addiction as a spectrum behaviour recognisable in most high-performance environments: not a personal failing confined to a few. That willingness to name what organisations routinely avoid is what makes her work function as more than awareness-raising. It becomes a credible basis for sustained culture change. Key speaking topics Psychological safety and workplace mental health Neuroinclusion and ADHD at work Sustainable leadership under pressure Addiction and numbing behaviours in high-performance cultures Wellbeing strategy and culture transformation Leadership resilience Ideal for CHROs and people directors designing or resetting a wellbeing strategy Senior leaders and executive teams navigating burnout or culture health HR and organisational development teams in professional services, media, financial services, and retail Organisations building neuroinclusive cultures or addressing gaps in psychological safety Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of why wellbeing strategies fail to shift culture – and what actually changes leader behaviour Practical tools for recognising and responding to psychological safety issues at team level A reframed understanding of neurodivergence and addiction as organisational conditions, not individual ones Confidence to have honest leadership conversations about mental health in high-performance settings Specific practices for sustaining performance without burning people out

Why organisations work with Thimon de Jong His Trust Pendulum framework gives leadership teams a structured account of why institutional trust has declined – and what leaders must do differently as a result His book Future Human Behaviour (Routledge) maps the behavioural shifts most likely to affect strategy over the next decade, making his frameworks referenceable long after the event As a lecturer in social psychology at Utrecht University, he brings academic grounding that makes his arguments credible to analytically rigorous leadership teams, not just receptive conference audiences His Polycrisis framing helps organisations move from crisis-by-crisis reaction to a coherent leadership posture designed to absorb the next disruption – whatever form it takes He holds together trust, generational change, technology adoption, and mental health as an integrated account of how human behaviour is shifting – not as a list of separate topics Biography highlights Founder of WHETSTON / strategic foresight, an Amsterdam-based think tank established in 2014, specialising in future human behaviour and societal change Author of Future Human Behaviour: Understanding What People Are Going To Do Next, published by Routledge Lecturer in social psychology at Utrecht University, teaching master’s-level students how to apply academic research to business strategy Master’s degree in Cultural Studies with a minor in International Business Studies Former Insights & Strategy Director at TrendsActive; researcher at FreedomLab Future Studies; Editor-in-Chief of RELOAD Magazine Clients include Morgan Stanley, Vodafone, IKEA, Google, L’Oréal, BNP Paribas, and the European Central Bank Biography Human behaviour is changing faster than most organisations’ ability to read it. The gap between how people actually think, trust, and act – and how leaders assume they do – is the problem Thimon de Jong has spent fifteen years researching. De Jong is the founder of WHETSTON / strategic foresight, an Amsterdam-based think tank focused on the implications of societal and behavioural change for leadership and business strategy. His Routledge book, Future Human Behaviour: Understanding What People Are Going To Do Next, maps the key shifts across trust, technology adoption, generational expectations, and mental health – and translates each into practical strategic implications. Routledge described it as an example of the future of publishing: part business book, part academic work, designed to be used, not shelved. His academic grounding matters. De Jong lectures in the social psychology department at Utrecht University, teaching master’s students how research applies directly to business decisions. That dual footing – practitioner and academic – gives his frameworks a rigour that is uncommon in the foresight and futures space. The organisations that work with him – Morgan Stanley, IKEA, BNP Paribas, the European Central Bank – are not looking for trend lists. They are looking for a coherent way to lead in a world where the assumptions that underpinned past decisions no longer hold. That is the territory his work occupies, and has done for over a decade. Key speaking topics Behavioural foresight and societal change Trust dynamics and institutional decline Technology adoption and human response Generational change and multigenerational leadership Leadership under polycrisis conditions Mental health and leadership responsibility Future of work and evolving workplace expectations Strategic foresight for leadership teams Ideal for Senior leadership teams preparing for medium-term strategy cycles or leadership offsites CHROs and people directors navigating generational change and shifting employee expectations Transformation leads and innovation functions applying foresight to organisational planning Board-level audiences seeking a research-grounded view of societal and behavioural risk Audience outcomes A structured framework – the Trust Pendulum – for understanding how trust is shifting and what it demands of leaders today Clearer thinking about the behavioural and societal shifts most likely to affect their organisation in the next five years Practical perspective on how emerging technologies are adopted and resisted across different generations and groups Tools for distinguishing meaningful signal from noise in an era of overlapping, compounding disruption Greater confidence in leading through sustained uncertainty – without defaulting to reactive, short-term decision-making

Why organisations work with Helen Lawal Clinical credibility that few wellbeing speakers match: 15 years as an NHS GP, MRCGP, and a postgraduate qualification in nutrition, so the science in the room is hers, not borrowed. A rare specialism in ADHD and AuDHD in women, shaped by a private practice focused on nutrition and sustainable behaviour change for this group. Named ambassador for ADHD UK and trainer on the National Autism Training Programme, so the neurodiversity content is informed by advocacy and training work, not a topic pick-up. Television presenting experience on Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped and How to Lose Weight Well, which translates into a speaker who can hold a large room and explain science without losing it. Lived experience as a late-diagnosed AuDHD woman, which grounds the work in something buyers trust more than a deck. Biography highlights NHS GP with 15 years of clinical experience, MRCGP, MBBS (Hull York Medical School), BSc Sport and Exercise Science (University of Leeds), DFSRH, MNutr. Celebrity Ambassador for ADHD UK (charity number 1188365). Trainer on the National Autism Training Programme. Presenter on Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped; co-presenter of How to Lose Weight Well with Dr Javid Abdelmoneim. Runs a private practice supporting ADHD and AuDHD women with nutrition, eating habits, and sustainable health behaviour change. Media contributor across BBC, ITV’s This Morning, Steph’s Packed Lunch, and BBC Radio Leeds on women’s health, nutrition, and neurodiversity. Biography Most corporate wellbeing content still assumes a neurotypical employee. For the quarter of any workforce that is neurodivergent, and especially for the women diagnosed in their thirties and forties after years of being told they were simply disorganised, the standard advice lands badly. That gap is where Dr Helen Lawal’s work sits. She came to it through clinical practice. Fifteen years as an NHS GP, MRCGP-qualified, with a medical degree from Hull York Medical School and a first degree in sport and exercise science from Leeds, gave her the grounding. A postgraduate qualification in nutrition and a specialism in ADHD turned it into a defined practice area. She now runs a private service for ADHD and AuDHD women focused on eating, energy, and sustainable behaviour change, the areas where standard GP time runs out. The public-facing side has been built in parallel. She presents Channel 4’s Food Unwrapped and co-presents How to Lose Weight Well, work that has trained her to explain food science and weight management to a mainstream audience without losing the evidence base. She is a Celebrity Ambassador for ADHD UK and a trainer on the National Autism Training Programme, which keeps the neurodiversity content anchored in advocacy and training, not marketing. For an organisation, the value is a speaker who can talk credibly to HR, DEI, and wellbeing leads about what actually helps neurodivergent employees, particularly women, and who can do it in a register that works for an all-staff audience as well as a clinical one. Key speaking topics ADHD and AuDHD in women Neurodiversity in the workplace Nutrition and eating behaviour Women’s health and hormones Sustainable weight management Neuroaffirming health and wellbeing Health communication and behaviour change Ideal for HR, DEI, and wellbeing leads designing neuro-inclusive programmes Employee networks and ERGs focused on women’s health, neurodiversity, or both Healthcare, pharma, and insurance organisations briefing clinicians and communicators Conferences and internal events that need a clinician who can present to a non-clinical audience Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how ADHD and AuDHD present in women, and why late diagnosis is common Specific, evidence-based guidance on nutrition and eating behaviour for neurodivergent adults Language and framing for neuroaffirming conversations at work A realistic view of what sustainable behaviour change looks like, separate from diet-industry claims Practical signals managers and HR can use to support neurodivergent colleagues

James is a multi-bestselling author whose books span sport, comedy, mindset, performance and fitness, all delivered with his trademark honesty, humour and unfiltered storytelling. Since retiring from professional rugby in 2019, James has built a hugely successful career as a podcaster, presenter, author, DJ and high-demand public speaker. He is co-host of the smash hit weekly podcast The Good, The Bad & The Rugby, one of the UK’s most popular sports shows with over 120,000 listeners per episode. He has also launched a host of other successful podcasts including What A Flanker, Couple’s Quarantine, Backrow Radio, and the comedy led Amuse Douche, collectively amassing more than 500 episodes and 500+ hours of content.

Why organisations work with Ben McBean He turns disability inclusion from a compliance topic into a human conversation audiences keep having after the session ends. His recovery from catastrophic injury gives mental health and resilience messaging a weight that consultants and clinicians cannot replicate. As presenter of ITVX’s “For Crown and Country,” he has a documented public-facing body of work on race and the British Armed Forces, which makes him credible for DEI briefs that demand more than personal story. He has spoken to Chelsea FC, Lloyds Bank, JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Vodafone, and Citigroup, so he reads corporate rooms with the same ease he reads public ones. He is comfortable with young audiences, employee resource groups, and senior leadership sessions, which lets a single booking do work across an organisation. Biography highlights Former Royal Marine, 40 Commando, medically discharged in 2010 after an IED injury in Helmand Province. Overcoming Adversity winner at The Sun Military Awards 2009 for becoming the first double amputee to finish the London Marathon. Outstanding Global Achievement Award at Britain’s Best Award 2008, presented by the Prime Minister. Rotary Young Citizen Award, 2012. Presenter, “For Crown and Country,” ITVX Fresh Cuts, 2023. Corporate client list includes Chelsea FC, Lloyds Bank, JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Vodafone, and Citigroup. Biography An IED exploded near Kajaki Dam, Helmand Province, on 28 February 2008. Ben McBean lost his left arm and right leg and was flown home on the same aircraft as Prince Harry, who later called him the “real hero” of that flight. He was twenty years old. A year later he finished the London Marathon in six hours and twenty minutes, the first double amputee to complete the course. He did it again the following year, faster. The Sun Military Awards recognised him for Overcoming Adversity in December 2009. What McBean does for organisations now grew out of what happened after the marathons. He spent years speaking in schools, at veterans’ events, and inside companies that were trying to make inclusion and mental health feel real rather than performative. In 2023 ITVX asked him to present “For Crown and Country,” a Fresh Cuts documentary on the contribution of Black British servicemen and women, which extended his platform from personal testimony into commissioned social history. Corporate audiences at Chelsea FC, Lloyds Bank, JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Vodafone, and Citigroup have booked him for the same reason. A policy document can tell a workforce that difference is welcome. A room full of people who have just listened to McBean walks out knowing what that looks like when it is tested. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion in the workplace Mental health and recovery from trauma Resilience after catastrophic setback Diversity, equity and inclusion Veterans’ experience and reintegration Race and representation in institutional settings Ideal for DEI leads, CHROs, and employee resource group sponsors designing inclusion programming with real behavioural reach. Wellbeing and mental health leads running Mental Health Awareness Week, wellbeing conferences, or post-crisis staff events. Learning and development teams building resilience content for managers and frontline staff. Armed Forces charities, veterans’ networks, and public sector employers convening on race, service, and belonging. Audience outcomes A sharper read on how disability and difference are actually experienced inside a team, not how policy says they should be. Permission to talk about mental health and recovery in direct language, without workplace euphemism. A human reference point audiences return to when their own setback, illness, or loss arrives. Renewed conviction that inclusion is a behaviour practised in meetings, not a statement published on an intranet.

Why organisations work with Ben Campagna His training combines psychology and sports sciences, both at the University of Lausanne, with applied nutrition, neurolinguistic programming and neurobiology of addiction; that mix lets him address mental and physical performance as a single system rather than two separate briefs. A decade of practitioner experience, including seven years of corporate coaching and consulting, means his material has been calibrated in one-to-one work with senior leaders before it reaches the conference stage. His background in K1 and Thai boxing at competitive level gives him first-hand authority on stress physiology and recovery that translates well to audiences used to thinking in performance terms. Keynotes are delivered in both English and French, which is useful for pan-European and Swiss-based audiences running leadership programmes in more than one language. Named corporate engagements with organisations including Philip Morris International make him a credible voice in front of large internal audiences and not only wellness-specialist rooms. Biography highlights Swiss international speaker and executive performance coach, based in Switzerland Degree in Psychology and Sports Sciences from the University of Lausanne; additional study in nutrition and sports performance at the same institution NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner (Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Los Angeles); certified Life and Motivational Coach (INEMLA, Los Angeles) More than a decade as a practitioner; seven-plus years of corporate coaching and consulting Former K1 and Thai boxing competitor; black belt in Ninjutsu Delivers sessions in English and French Biography The performance conversation most organisations need is not about motivation. It is about how to carry chronic stress for long periods without losing judgment, health or people. Ben Campagna’s work is built around that question. He is a Swiss executive performance coach and speaker who has spent more than a decade working with leaders and teams on sustainable performance under real pressure, first as a practitioner and then in front of corporate audiences. His academic base is at the University of Lausanne, with degrees in psychology and sports sciences and additional training in nutrition and sports performance. On top of that sit certifications in NLP at practitioner and master level from the Society of Neuro-Linguistic Programming in Los Angeles, life and motivational coaching from INEMLA, and coursework on the neurobiology of addiction with the American Society of Addiction Medicine. The range is unusual in a wellbeing speaker and is what allows him to link psychological patterns to physical outcomes in a way clients can act on. The early career was lived in combat sports. He competed in K1 boxing and Thai boxing and holds a black belt in Ninjutsu, which gave him direct exposure to the stress, recovery and physical-preparation regimes his corporate work now draws on. His first keynote was at age 20, his first international corporate event at 24, and he has been working with senior leaders for more than seven years. Campagna’s sessions are not wellness theatre. They use specific frameworks on chronic stress, regeneration, nutrition physiology, movement and the psychology of change, and are delivered in English and French. For leadership teams, HR functions and wellbeing sponsors looking for a speaker who takes physiology as seriously as mindset, he sits in a narrow category of practitioners who can hold both ends of the conversation in one session. Key speaking topics Chronic stress, recovery and sustainable high performance Burnout prevention in corporate leadership Resilience, self-mastery and emotional regulation Nutrition, movement and their effect on cognitive performance Psychology of behaviour change in high-pressure environments Mental health and wellbeing at work Ideal for Leadership off-sites and executive programmes focused on sustainable performance rather than generic motivation HR, chief wellbeing officer and people functions building structured burnout-prevention strategy High-pressure sectors (financial services, tech, healthcare, sport) where senior teams are running hot Pan-European and bilingual audiences requiring French and English delivery Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how chronic stress operates physiologically and psychologically, and why standard wellness interventions often miss it Specific techniques for recovery, sleep, nutrition and movement that senior leaders can adopt without overhauling their schedule A working vocabulary for discussing mental health and burnout risk inside their own teams Practical steps for embedding stress-aware habits into leadership routines rather than relying on one-off programmes

Why organisations work with Sylvia Marusyk A practising occupational therapist, not a wellness coach, which gives wellbeing content credibility with EHS, operations and unionised audiences who routinely dismiss soft programming. Thirty years of clinical work translated into language that holds a room of utility engineers, nurses, municipal workers and aerospace technicians, not only an HR audience. A repeatable session catalogue covering stress, engagement, respectful conduct and self-health, with named talks that buyers can match to a specific workforce problem. Author of Testing Positive: 365 Days of Calm Through Chaos, written through her own cancer diagnosis, which gives the wellbeing material lived authority rather than borrowed theory. Track record across Manitoba Hydro, Great-West Life, City of Winnipeg, Transport Canada, Health Canada, StandardAero and the Manitoba Nurses Union, so buyers can see the work has held up across regulated, industrial and public sector environments. Biography highlights Founder and owner of MindBody Works Inc., a Canadian workplace health and wellness consultancy. Registered occupational therapist with more than 30 years of practice in health, safety and workplace wellbeing. Author of Testing Positive: 365 Days of Calm Through Chaos, a daily guide written after her cancer diagnosis during the pandemic. Host of the Trigger with Sylvia Marusyk podcast and former host of the Happy Hour with Sylvia radio programme. Speaking and training clients include Manitoba Hydro, Great-West Life, Transport Canada, Health Canada, City of Winnipeg, StandardAero, Manitoba Nurses Union and CAPPA. Signature programmes include Surviving to Thriving, Stressed to Kill, Happy Hour Begins at 9am, Respectfully, Up Yours! and Rules of Engagement. Biography Wellbeing budgets have grown for a decade, yet absence, burnout and turnover keep rising. The problem is not awareness. It is that most workplace health content sits a long way from the physical and cognitive reality of the people actually doing the work, which is precisely the gap Sylvia Marusyk has spent her career closing. She trained as an occupational therapist and has practised in the field for more than thirty years. That clinical grounding shapes everything she does on stage: the body and the brain treated as a single working system, stress described in biochemical and behavioural terms, prevention framed as an operational discipline rather than a lifestyle choice. As founder of MindBody Works Inc., she has built a Canadian workplace health consultancy around that approach. Her session catalogue is unusually concrete for the wellbeing category. Stressed to Kill unpacks the physical, cognitive, emotional and environmental components of stress. Surviving to Thriving offers self-health tools that hold up under pressure. Respectfully, Up Yours! turns psychological safety into a behavioural conversation, and Rules of Engagement tackles retention and engagement. The book Testing Positive: 365 Days of Calm Through Chaos, written through her own cancer diagnosis, supplies the personal spine to the clinical content. The credibility shows up in who books her. Manitoba Hydro, Great-West Life, Transport Canada, Health Canada, the City of Winnipeg, StandardAero and the Manitoba Nurses Union have all put her in front of audiences that are unforgiving of generic wellness talk: engineers, nurses, municipal staff, aerospace technicians. That is the market she has built her work for. Key speaking topics Workplace stress and burnout prevention Employee wellbeing and mental health at work Occupational health and injury prevention Respectful workplace culture and psychological safety Employee engagement and retention Resilience and self-health practices Workplace happiness and work-life conflict Ideal for CHROs, heads of wellbeing and EHS leaders rebuilding stress, absence and injury programmes Operations and safety leaders in utilities, healthcare, aerospace, manufacturing and municipal services Union and member organisations commissioning content for frontline and clinical workforces HR and culture leads addressing respectful conduct, engagement and retention in fatigued teams Audience outcomes A clinical understanding of how stress affects the body, brain and behaviour at work Specific self-health practices audiences can apply during and after the working day Language for naming and addressing disrespectful conduct without escalating it A sharper sense of where wellbeing programmes are working and where they are theatre Renewed energy and humour in rooms that often arrive defensive about wellbeing content

Why organisations work with Dan Edwards He has actually led a large public-sector workforce through a sustained cultural rebuild, including pandemic-era disruption, rather than describing the work from a consultancy seat. His talks come with named, road-tested models, the 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts among them, that translate cleanly out of education into any large operational workforce. He is one of the few credible male voices speaking publicly about psychological safety and male mental health in front-line teams, through his MENtal Health talk. The delivery is performer-grade. He has a stand-up and stage background that keeps a senior audience with him through difficult material on wellbeing and morale. His creative business, the Fibre studio space, is built around working creative communities, which gives him direct operating experience of inclusion and creativity as workforce outcomes rather than values statements. Biography highlights Founder of Fibre, a warehouse studio in Leicester for film, photography, live events, and creative production. Former Principal of a large inner-city primary school in Leicester; prior Executive school leadership roles. Drama teacher background in inner-city secondary schools; entered teaching as a mature trainee via night school after leaving school with two GCSEs. Speaker at the SSAT Primary Conference 2021 on leading a school community through the coronavirus pandemic; international training work includes The Sultan’s School in Oman. Writes ‘Brief Reflections On…’, a newsletter of essays on leadership, culture, and community. Stage performer and writer; “The Sound of Muzak” was nominated for the Audience Choice Award at the 2024 Leicester Comedy Festival. Biography Large workforces have absorbed five years of change, and the cultural cost is now visible in engagement scores, sickness data, and middle-management churn. Edwards spent the worst of that period running a large inner-city primary school in Leicester, holding a staff body and parent community together when the national playbook for leadership had stopped working. That job, and the executive school leadership work that followed, is the substance behind his keynote material. The 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts are not theoretical frameworks; they are the models he built to keep a school improving while wellbeing was collapsing. The translation into corporate settings is direct, because the underlying tension, leading people through sustained pressure without burning them out, is the same. Edwards now runs Fibre, a warehouse studio in Leicester for film, photography, and live events, built around a working creative community. The work has also travelled, including school culture and leadership training at The Sultan’s School in Oman. Running a live creative space gives him a current operating vantage point on culture and creative discipline, which keeps the talks from drifting into nostalgia for the education world. The delivery is the differentiator at the senior end. A stand-up and theatre background, including a 2024 Leicester Comedy Festival nomination for “The Sound of Muzak”, means his keynotes on staff mental health and male psychological safety land in front of audiences that have heard the standard wellbeing pitch too many times. Key speaking topics Organisational culture and staff wellbeing Authentic and humane leadership Male mental health and psychological safety at work Creativity beyond the creative industries People development and change leadership Inclusion and belonging at work Belonging and engagement in large workforces Ideal for HR and people directors in large, change-fatigued workforces CEOs and executive leadership teams rebuilding culture after restructure or sustained disruption Leadership development programmes and middle-management conferences Public sector, education and healthcare leadership audiences Audience outcomes A working language for the difference between performative wellbeing and substantive cultural change. Two named models, the 5Cs of Improvement and Repositioning Doughnuts, applied to their own organisational context. A more honest internal conversation about male mental health and psychological safety on the front line. Specific reference points for leading a workforce through prolonged pressure without losing it.

Why organisations work with Perri Shakes-Drayton She offers a first-person account of returning to elite performance four years after a career-altering injury, useful to leaders managing teams through prolonged recovery rather than single-event setbacks. Her story is grounded in a verifiable competitive record at the highest level: 4x400m relay silver at the 2017 World Championships in London, on the same track where the 2013 injury happened. She speaks credibly about the difference between motivation and discipline, drawing on a coaching relationship and a return-to-sport pathway, not generic mindset language. The narrative arc is unusually clean for buyers programming a values or culture moment: ranked second in the world, injury, surgery, four-year absence, return at the top level. Specific, dated, evidenced. Biography highlights 2013 European Indoor Champion in the 400m, and gold medallist in the 4x400m relay at the same championships in Gothenburg. 2012 World Indoor 4x400m relay gold medallist; 2017 World Championships 4x400m relay silver medallist in London. Personal best of 53.67 seconds in the 400m hurdles, the second-fastest by a British woman, behind only Sally Gunnell. Four-time British Athletics Champion in the 400m hurdles (2008, 2011, 2012, 2013). BSc Sports Science, Brunel University. Nike-sponsored athlete since 2005. Member of Victoria Park Harriers and Tower Hamlets Athletics Club. Founder of Train with PSD, a London-based fitness initiative running outdoor sessions at venues including The Shard and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Biography The 2013 World Championship 400m hurdles final in Moscow ended at the first hurdle. Perri Shakes-Drayton, ranked second in the world that season with a personal best of 53.67 seconds, landed awkwardly and ruptured the ligaments and cartilage in her left knee. She finished seventh. The surgeon’s instruction afterwards was direct: no more hurdles. What followed was not a comeback story in the conventional sense. It was four years of surgery, rehabilitation, relearning movement, and rebuilding a competitive base in a different event. She returned to the 400m flat, made the Great Britain relay squad for the 2017 World Championships in London, and ran on the team that took silver in front of a home crowd on the track where her injury had happened. The athletic record is verifiable and serious. European Indoor Champion in the 400m in 2013. Gold in the 4x400m relay at the same championships and at the 2012 World Indoors. Four-time British Athletics Champion over 400m hurdles. Second-fastest British woman in history over the distance behind Sally Gunnell, the Olympic and world champion. A Nike-sponsored athlete since 2005, trained out of Victoria Park Harriers in east London, BSc in Sports Science from Brunel. For senior audiences, the value of her account lies in the part most resilience speakers skip: the middle. The years between the injury and the return, where progress is invisible and the question of whether to continue gets asked repeatedly. That is the conversation she is credible on, and the one most leadership programmes are not equipped to host. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after career-altering setback Self-leadership and discipline under sustained pressure Goal-setting and the practical content of long-term focus Mental health and athlete wellbeing Team dynamics in high-performance environments Diversity and representation in elite sport Ideal for Senior leadership teams and offsites focused on resilience, recovery and decision-making after a setback HR, talent and wellbeing leads programming culture and mental health moments Employee networks, ERGs and diversity events seeking a credible elite-sport voice Conference openers and after-dinner audiences where the brief is story-led rather than thesis-led Audience outcomes A first-hand reference point for what sustained recovery looks like over years, not weeks A working distinction between motivation and discipline that audiences can use the next day A concrete example of returning to a top level after a four-year absence, useful as a benchmark for teams under pressure A reset on what is realistic to ask of people coming back from professional or personal disruption

Why organisations work with Toby Makoyawo A current elite athlete competing at the front edge of NCAA Division I sprinting, not a retired professional reflecting on a finished career. The pressure he describes is the pressure he is still operating inside. A European U20 100m title and a Boston University school record at 10.12 seconds give him a specific credibility on the question of preparation, execution, and recovery in events decided by hundredths of a second. Combines elite competition with a full undergraduate degree at Boston University, which lets him speak credibly to early-career and graduate audiences about workload, discipline, and time as a finite resource. A diaspora background, born in Florida to Nigerian parents and raised in West London, that lets him speak naturally on inclusion and identity without the topic feeling bolted on. Biography highlights European U20 Champion, 100m, 2021, in a personal-best 10.25 seconds Boston University 100m and 60m school record holder, fastest sprinter in BU programme history NCAA Division I Second Team All-American British Olympic Trials 200m finalist at age 19 UK National Champion, U20 age category, 2021 Reading for an undergraduate degree at Boston University while competing at NCAA Division I level Biography Most sprint finals are decided in the first thirty metres and a leader’s first thirty seconds of a hard meeting are not that different. The capacity to be composed under public scrutiny is a trained capacity, and Toby Makoyawo trains it for a living. He is the fastest sprinter in Boston University’s history and a European U20 100m champion who is still in the middle of the work, not at the end of it. The substance of his story is preparation rather than highlights. A 10.25 second European junior title in 2021, a 10.12 second school record at the Texas Relays in 2022, and an All-American placing in NCAA Division I sit on top of a daily routine that includes coursework, training cycles, and the management of expectation that any 23-year-old at the front of a sport has to learn quickly. The route through is also distinctive. Born in Florida to Nigerian parents, raised in West London, and recruited into the American collegiate athletics system, he has had to learn how to perform inside three different cultural contexts. The relevance to a corporate audience is direct: graduate intake, early-career talent, and inclusion programmes all benefit from a speaker who can describe identity and high performance as the same conversation, not two separate ones. What he offers a room is not a finished career narrative. It is a current account of how an elite competitor manages the gap between training intent and competition reality, week after week, in a discipline where the margin of error is measured in hundredths of a second. Key speaking topics Performance under public pressure Goal-setting and long-horizon planning Identity, inclusion, and elite performance Discipline and time management Mental health in competitive environments Resilience after setback Ideal for Graduate intake and early-career talent programmes Diversity, inclusion, and belonging audiences inside large employers Sales and high-performance teams operating to public targets Sports, education, and youth-facing organisations Audience outcomes A working sense of how elite athletes prepare for moments measured in hundredths of a second Practical language for goal-setting, time discipline, and recovery from setback A first-person account of identity and high performance as a single conversation, not a parallel one Renewed engagement from younger and early-career audiences who recognise the speaker’s age, register, and trajectory

Why organisations work with Kadeena Cox A first-hand account of rebuilding performance from zero after a stroke and an MS diagnosis at 23, then competing at world-record level across two different Paralympic sports. Substantive content on inclusion in elite environments, drawn from founding and running the KC Academy in partnership with the Rapha Foundation and SportsAid. A track record that is publicly verifiable at the highest level of British sport: golds at Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, and Paris 2024, plus OBE in 2022. Direct experience of the daily decision-making required when a body and a schedule cannot be relied on, which translates cleanly into leadership audiences operating under sustained uncertainty. Biography highlights Five-time Paralympic gold medallist (Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024) in athletics and cycling First British Paralympian since 1984 to win golds in two different sports at the same Games OBE for services to athletics and cycling (2022); MBE (2017) Founder of the KC Academy, in partnership with the Rapha Foundation and SportsAid Winner, BBC Celebrity MasterChef Series 16 (2021) World record holder, C4 500m time trial Biography The Rio 2016 Paralympics produced an outcome no British athlete had achieved in 32 years. Kadeena Cox won gold in two different sports at the same Games, in T38 400m athletics and C4-5 500m cycling, two years after a stroke and a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis at the age of 23. The cycling time was faster than any able-bodied Team GB rider had produced at an Olympic or Paralympic Games. Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 added further golds, including a world record in the C4 500m time trial and a team sprint title alongside Jaco van Gass and Jody Cundy. The arc matters less for the medal count than for what it required operationally: training programmes built around a condition that does not behave predictably, and a competitive schedule that had to absorb that reality without losing edge. In 2021 Cox founded the KC Academy, which works with SportsAid and is supported by the Rapha Foundation to identify and fund cyclists from ethnically diverse backgrounds entering the British high-performance pathway. She is the only Black British cyclist to have won Olympic or Paralympic gold, and the Academy is her response to the structural reasons that statistic exists. Her speaking work draws on both strands: the discipline of competing when the body is unreliable, and the institutional work of changing who gets to be in the room at elite level. She was appointed OBE in 2022 for services to athletics and cycling, having received the MBE in 2017. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after diagnosis Composure and decision-making under physical and competitive pressure Inclusion as a high-performance capability Building structures for underrepresented talent Mental health and sustained performance Adapting goals when conditions change Ideal for Leadership offsites and conferences focused on resilience, change, or sustained performance under pressure DEI, talent and culture leads working on inclusion in high-performance settings Employee resource groups, particularly disability, race, and wellbeing networks Internal events marking transitions, restructures, or recovery moments Audience outcomes A concrete sense of what resilience looks like as a daily operational practice, not a value statement A reframed view of inclusion as a performance lever, grounded in the KC Academy’s specific work Honest language for talking about mental health and physical limits inside high-pressure teams Renewed confidence in setting ambitious goals when the operating environment is unstable

Why organisations work with Jodie Burrage She speaks from inside the experience of considering whether to walk away, then choosing not to. That is a different conversation from generic motivational content, and audiences feel the difference. Her examples are dated, specific and verifiable: a top-five win over Paula Badosa, a Wimbledon main-draw debut victory, an all-British WTA final, and a near full ankle ligament rupture in training that cost her a Grand Slam season. She covers mental health from the position of someone who broke down in a training session in 2024 and went back the next day. The credibility on pressure and stress comes from the record, not from a wellness framework. She is a current player, not a retired figurehead. The recovery story is live, which makes the material useful to teams facing their own in-flight setbacks rather than retrospective. Biography highlights Career-high WTA singles ranking of world No. 85, reached in September 2023 Reached the 2023 Nottingham Open final, the first all-British WTA final since 1977 WTA Tour doubles champion at the 2023 Transylvania Open with Jil Teichmann First Grand Slam main-draw singles win at Wimbledon 2023 against Caty McNally Top-five career win over Paula Badosa at the 2022 Eastbourne International Represented Great Britain in the Billie Jean King Cup including the 2026 qualifier against Australia in Melbourne Biography Three ankle surgeries before the age of twenty would have ended most playing careers. Burrage came back from them, broke into the world top 100 in 2023, and reached an all-British WTA final at Nottingham against Katie Boulter, the first of its kind since 1977. The same year she recorded her first Grand Slam main-draw singles win at Wimbledon against Caty McNally and lifted a WTA Tour doubles title in Cluj-Napoca with Jil Teichmann. The 2024 season is the part of the story audiences tend to remember. Wrist surgery in February was followed, just as she was returning, by a near full rupture of her ATFL ankle ligament in a training session with Boulter. She missed the French Open, the grass-court season and Wimbledon. She has since said publicly that she considered retirement during that recovery and broke down mid-session asking how much fight she had left. The material she brings to corporate audiences is built on that ground. The career-high ranking of No. 85, the top-five win over Paula Badosa at Eastbourne in 2022, and her Billie Jean King Cup appearances for Great Britain through to the 2026 qualifier against Australia all sit inside a record of repeated injury and return. She talks about pressure, public accountability and the daily decision to keep going as someone still actively making that decision on the WTA Tour. For leaders who have to ask teams to perform through restructure, setback or sustained uncertainty, the value is the realism. Burrage does not present resilience as a state. She describes it as a series of small choices made on bad days, with the scoreboard public the following week. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under pressure Resilience and recovery from setback Mental health in high-performance environments Goal setting and personal accountability Performing in the public eye Team environments and individual responsibility Ideal for Sales, trading and other performance-measured teams operating under public or visible scorecards HR, talent and L&D leaders building wellbeing and mental health content with credibility beyond the wellness sector Leaders running organisations through restructure, layoffs or sustained operational pressure Early-career and high-potential audiences facing first encounters with public failure Audience outcomes A concrete account of how a current professional athlete makes the decision to continue after setback, rather than an abstract framework Language for talking about mental health in performance settings without softening it into wellness A working definition of accountability when results are visible and the next attempt is days away A reference point for resilience grounded in dated, verifiable career events rather than metaphor