Mental Health in the Workplace

Why organisations work with Michael Maisey Lived experience that lands in rooms where wellbeing decks usually do not, drawn from five years in Feltham Young Offenders Institute and a documented twenty-year rebuild. Operates an active service organisation. The CIP Project runs residential workshops from a 25-acre Devon retreat centre, giving him a working view of what actually helps people recover, not a theoretical one. Two published works that hold up to corporate scrutiny: Young Offender (Pan Macmillan, 2019) and Change is Possible: The Seven Stages to Healing Trauma (2025). The second gives him a named framework, not just a story. Civic recognition by the London Borough of Hounslow and the Metropolitan Police in 2014, a useful third-party validation when buyers vet speakers with criminal-record backgrounds. Talks designed to give managers practical language for the empathy-and-communication conversation, rather than a motivational arc that leaves the audience moved but unequipped. Biography highlights Founder of The CIP Project, a UK non-profit operating from a 25-acre retreat centre in Devon. Author of Young Offender: My Life from Armed Robber to Local Hero, published by Pan Macmillan in 2019. Author of Change is Possible: The Seven Stages to Healing Trauma, published in 2025. TEDx speaker. Talk title: “The Healing Power of Connection”. Honoured by the London Borough of Hounslow and the Metropolitan Police in 2014 for services to the community. Over 17 years sober. Public advocacy work across UK prisons, including author visits to HMYOI Aylesbury. Biography Most corporate wellbeing programmes do not fail on intent. They fail on permission. Employees are offered resources, apps and policies, but rarely the model of what an honest conversation about mental health, addiction or trauma actually sounds like in a working environment. Michael Maisey’s contribution is to provide that model in a room of senior managers, with credibility earned outside the wellness industry. His route into the work is unusually direct. At sixteen he was sentenced for armed robbery and spent much of his teenage years in Feltham Young Offenders Institute. The rebuild that followed produced two things organisations care about: a published autobiography with Pan Macmillan, Young Offender, in 2019; and a working non-profit, The CIP Project, founded in 2018 on a 25-acre site in Devon, supporting people with addiction, mental health, PTSD and childhood trauma. A second book, Change is Possible: The Seven Stages to Healing Trauma, followed in 2025 and gives him a structured framework rather than a single biographical story. His TEDx talk, “The Healing Power of Connection”, is the most-quoted piece of his keynote content in workplace settings. In 2014, the London Borough of Hounslow and the Metropolitan Police recognised him formally for services to the community. For a head of people or culture, the practical value is twofold. Maisey can hold a room on the subjects that most speakers either soften or skirt: suicidal ideation, addiction, the texture of trauma. And he can hand managers a vocabulary for the empathy-and-communication conversation that has otherwise sat in the wellbeing policy and never made it onto the floor. Key speaking topics Workplace mental health Empathy and compassion at work Trauma recovery Addiction and the workplace Personal transformation and lived experience Communication around wellbeing Ideal for CHROs, heads of people, heads of culture and wellbeing leads commissioning workplace mental health content Internal manager populations responsible for direct conversations about wellbeing Employee resource groups and DEI forums focused on mental health and recovery Conference programmes seeking a lived-experience anchor on wellbeing alongside clinical or academic speakers Audience outcomes Sharper language for raising mental health, addiction or trauma in a workplace conversation without making it clinical A more concrete view of what recovery actually requires, drawn from operating a residential support model Permission, observed in the room, for senior people to speak honestly about their own experience A framework, drawn from the seven stages in Change is Possible, for thinking about trauma in stages rather than as a single event

Why organisations work with James Davies He brings elite sport recovery practice directly into the office: the same posture, mobility and recovery principles used with Team GB track and field athletes at Rio 2016, translated for people sitting at desks. He treats physical wellbeing as measurable behaviour change, not inspiration. Audiences leave with specific stretches, ergonomic fixes and microbreak routines they can run the next morning. His client work with Hugo Lloris, Marcus Smith and performers in music and television gives him a credible way to talk about performance under pressure without drifting into motivational abstraction. As author of the Sunday Times bestseller “Body” (HarperCollins), he has already distilled his method for a general reader, which makes the keynote version land quickly with mixed corporate audiences. His patronage of STAMMA and his own experience of stammering give the session a personal register when the brief calls for resilience or human story, without the profile depending on it. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Rising Health, a London-based osteopathy and performance practice established in 2009. Team therapist for Team GB track and field athletes at the Rio 2016 Olympics. Sunday Times bestselling author of “Body: Simple Techniques and Strategies to Heal, Reset and Restore” (HarperCollins, 2022). Trained as an osteopath at the British School of Osteopathy; earlier study in massage and sports injuries at the London School of Massage. Patron of STAMMA, the British Stammering Association. Clinical base at the South Kensington Club, London; client work spans Premiership football, international rugby, Olympic athletics, music and television. Biography Most corporate wellbeing talks leave people nodding and then returning to the same chair, the same screen, the same tight shoulders by Thursday. Davies works the other way round. His starting point is the body in front of him, and a short list of things that actually change how it feels. That practical bias comes from two decades of hands-on clinical work. He trained as an osteopath at the British School of Osteopathy, founded Rising Health in 2009, and built a client list that runs from Premiership footballers and Olympic track and field athletes to performers who cannot afford to be injured before a tour. In 2016 he was selected as a team therapist for Team GB at the Rio Olympics. The same method is now available to general readers. His book “Body: Simple Techniques and Strategies to Heal, Reset and Restore” was published by HarperCollins in 2022 and reached the Sunday Times bestseller list. It is a recovery manual written for people who do not have a physio on call, which is exactly the audience most organisations are trying to reach when they commission a wellbeing keynote. He is also Patron of STAMMA, the British Stammering Association, and speaks openly about his own stammer when a brief calls for a resilience thread. The clinical substance stays the primary reason buyers bring him in: a clinician who can stand in front of five hundred employees, give them three things to do on Monday, and have them feel the difference by the end of the week. Key speaking topics Workplace physical wellbeing and pain prevention Posture, ergonomics and desk-based health Recovery habits from elite sport Sustainable performance under pressure Sleep, stress and physical resilience Movement and mobility for sedentary workforces Ideal for HR, People and Wellbeing leaders commissioning a credible physical health keynote for a wider wellbeing programme Internal communications and employee experience teams running conferences, offsites or return-to-office events Leadership and high-performance teams in sales, trading, consulting or law where sustained intensity is the job Event organisers looking for a practical clinical voice alongside mental health and nutrition speakers Audience outcomes Specific daily habits for posture, mobility and microbreaks that work in an office or at home A clearer sense of how elite athletes structure recovery, and which parts of it translate to desk work Confidence to spot early warning signs of back, neck and shoulder strain before they become absence A short, memorable set of techniques for sleep, breathing and stress discharge A personal story about stammering that gives resilience content a human anchor when the brief calls for it

Why organisations work with Makala Green She holds the Chartered Financial Planner credential, the senior qualification of the UK financial advice industry, which gives employee audiences a regulated voice they can actually trust on money decisions. She is the first black woman in the UK to achieve that chartered status, which makes her a credible speaker on inclusion in financial services and on the confidence gap that disproportionately affects women and minority employees. Her book The Money Edit (Yellow Kite, Hachette UK) sets out a deliberately jargon-free framework, which lets her translate pensions, investing and budgeting into language a mixed-seniority audience can act on the same week. She has worked with Waitrose, John Lewis and Metro Bank on financial wellbeing programmes, so the content has been tested inside large UK employers rather than only on a public stage. Her ITV This Morning, BBC Radio and Financial Times appearances mean she can hold a room of non-finance professionals without losing the technical accuracy a regulated topic demands. Biography highlights UK’s first black female Chartered Financial Planner, the senior credential of the Chartered Insurance Institute’s financial advice qualification track. Founder of Green Wealth Planning and the consumer platform The Wealth Check. Author of The Money Edit: Your No Shame, No Blame Guide to Taking Control of Your Money, published by Yellow Kite (Hachette UK), 2022. Named Financial Adviser of the Year, South East England, Professional Adviser, 2021. Resident financial expert on ITV’s This Morning, with further appearances on BBC Radio and contributions to the Financial Times, Spear’s, FinTech Magazine, Glamour, Stylist and Women’s Health. Corporate financial wellbeing work with Waitrose, John Lewis and Metro Bank. Host of the Your Financial Journey podcast. Biography Financial anxiety inside a workforce rarely shows up as a line item, but it shows up in absence, in retention, and in the quality of decisions people make under pressure. Most employers respond with a benefits brochure and an EAP phone number. Few have a voice that employees actually trust on money. Makala Green is that voice. She is a Chartered Financial Planner, the senior qualification of the UK financial advice industry, and the first black woman in the country to hold that status. She built Green Wealth Planning as a regulated advisory practice, then founded The Wealth Check as the consumer-facing platform that translates the same discipline into language employees and entrepreneurs can act on. Her book The Money Edit, published by Yellow Kite at Hachette UK, sets out the framework she uses on stage and inside corporate programmes. Waitrose, John Lewis and Metro Bank have run her into their workforces. ITV’s This Morning, BBC Radio, the Financial Times and Spear’s have used her as a financial expert on air and in print. Professional Adviser named her Financial Adviser of the Year for the South East of England in 2021. What she gives a corporate audience is the rare combination of regulatory standing and plain English. She can talk about pensions, investing and household resilience without either patronising the room or hiding behind jargon, and she can do it from a position that audiences hearing from a woman of colour in senior financial expertise still find unusual. That is the substance behind the inclusion claim, and it is also why her financial wellbeing work travels into mixed-seniority rooms that more conventional adviser-speakers struggle to hold. Key speaking topics Employee financial wellbeing Financial confidence and the gender and ethnicity wealth gap Cost-of-living resilience for workforces Inclusion in financial services Investing, pensions and long-term wealth planning Entrepreneurship and personal finance for founders Money mindset and behavioural finance Ideal for HR, reward and benefits leaders designing financial wellbeing programmes DEI leads and employee resource groups focused on women, Black and minority employees Retail, consumer and financial services employers with large mixed-seniority workforces Founder and scale-up communities where personal finance and business finance overlap Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how financial anxiety is currently affecting their workforce and where regulated input would change behaviour. A jargon-free vocabulary for talking about pensions, investing and debt that employees of any seniority can use. Specific moves employees can make in the weeks after the session on savings, pensions and household budgeting. A more honest conversation about the gender and ethnicity dimensions of financial confidence inside the organisation.

Why organisations work with Anna Mathur Clinical credibility most workplace wellbeing speakers cannot match. BACP accreditation, a Master’s from Regent’s University and NHS and private practice experience sit behind every session. A body of work that has reached a mainstream audience on its own merits, including four Sunday Times bestsellers under Penguin Life and a podcast past three million downloads, so she arrives with recognition employees already have. Practical tools rather than awareness raising. Sessions land on techniques people can use the same week for anxiety, people pleasing, guilt and worth at work. A register that works for stigma-sensitive topics. She has presented to teams at Google, Spotify, Bain & Company, Soho House and UCL on subjects most speakers reduce to platitudes. Biography highlights BACP-accredited psychotherapist; MA Psychotherapy and Counselling, Regent’s University London; BSc Social Psychology, Loughborough University. Author of four Sunday Times bestsellers published by Penguin Life: Mind Over Mother, Know Your Worth, The Little Book of New Mum Feelings and The Uncomfortable Truth (March 2025). Host of The Therapy Edit podcast, more than 3 million downloads, charting on Apple and Spotify. Corporate keynote and seminar work for Google, Spotify, Bain & Company, Soho House and UCL. Broadcast contributor on Sky News, Good Morning Britain, BBC Three and Steph’s Packed Lunch; columns and features in Grazia, Stylist, Red, Marie Claire, Psychologies, The Telegraph and Daily Mail. Instagram community of around 225,000 followers built on practical psychotherapeutic content rather than influencer wellness. Biography Most workplace mental health content stops at awareness. Employees know the language of burnout, anxiety and boundaries; what they do not have is a clinician’s read on what to actually do with those feelings on a Tuesday morning. Anna Mathur’s work sits in that gap. She is a BACP-accredited psychotherapist trained at Regent’s University London, with NHS and private practice experience behind a body of writing and broadcasting that has reached an audience well beyond the consulting room. Penguin Life has published four of her books to Sunday Times bestseller status, most recently The Uncomfortable Truth in March 2025, which addresses ten of the fears that drive overwhelm, perfectionism and people pleasing. The Therapy Edit, her podcast of ten-minute episodes, has passed three million downloads and is a regular Apple and Spotify chart fixture. These are not sidelines to a therapy practice. They are the practice operating at scale. For corporate audiences, the practical content stays close to the clinical work. Anxiety, stress, guilt around work and parenting, self-worth and the people-pleasing patterns that show up in managerial behaviour are the recurring subjects. Sessions for Google, Spotify, Bain & Company, Soho House and UCL have run from intimate sofa-style workshops with leadership teams to webinars for retail managers in the hundreds. What organisations are paying for is the combination of clinical seriousness and accessible delivery. The accreditation is genuine, the book record is verifiable, and the techniques people leave with are the same ones she uses with private clients. That is what makes the content land in workplaces where wellbeing fatigue is already setting in. Key speaking topics Anxiety and overwhelm at work Workplace mental health and wellbeing People pleasing and burnout Self-worth and imposter feelings Stress and resilience The working parent: guilt, worry and capacity Boundaries and emotional regulation Ideal for People, culture, DEI and wellbeing leads commissioning credible mental health content Senior leadership offsites where the brief is composure, sustainability and self-leadership Employee resource groups, particularly working parents and women’s networks Professional services and tech firms with high-performance cultures and rising anxiety reporting Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for anxiety, overwhelm and self-worth that employees can use without clinical training. Specific techniques for managing intrusive worry, perfectionist patterns and the people-pleasing reflex at work. Permission, from a clinician, to interrupt the productivity-at-all-costs logic that is driving burnout. A reset on what self-care actually means in a working week, distinct from the wellness industry version. Confidence among managers to hold mental health conversations with team members without overstepping.

Why organisations work with TJ Power He gives wellbeing programmes a scientific spine. The DOSE framework names the specific neurochemistry behind motivation, connection, mood, and recovery, so HR and L&D leaders can move beyond generic mindfulness content. He addresses the dopamine and screen problem head-on, which is the single biggest unmanaged variable in workplace attention right now and the area most wellbeing speakers skirt. His material has been pressure-tested at scale: 650-plus live sessions across organisations including Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Coca-Cola, TikTok, the NHS, and academic institutions including Oxford, Harrow, and Le Rosey. The credibility is real and verifiable: Sunday Times bestseller, Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month, peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Cognition, lecturing record at the University of Exeter. Sessions are designed as gamified, interactive formats rather than lectures, so the habits stick beyond the room. Biography highlights Founder of the DOSE Lab and co-founder of Neurify, a neuroscience education organisation launched in 2022. Author of The DOSE Effect, Sunday Times bestseller and Waterstones Best Non-Fiction Book of the Month. Former lecturer at the University of Exeter, where he developed a third-year module on the neuroscience of mindfulness. Published research in the Journal of Cognition. Delivered 650-plus live neuroscience sessions to clients including Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Coca-Cola, TikTok, the NHS, Oxford University, Harrow School, and Le Rosey. Featured on ITV’s This Morning discussing digital habits and dopamine overload. Biography Modern work is colliding with a brain that was not built for it. Constant notifications, infinite scroll, and the dopamine economics of phones are eroding attention, recovery, and mood faster than most wellbeing programmes can respond. Power’s work starts here, with the neurochemistry that explains why so many people feel wired, distracted, and flat at the same time. His DOSE framework is built around four chemicals that govern how people feel and perform: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Each maps to a specific organisational outcome. Dopamine sits behind motivation and focus; oxytocin behind trust and team connection; serotonin behind mood and confidence; endorphins behind resilience under load. Power names the daily behaviours that raise or drain each one, which gives leaders something concrete to act on. The credentials are substantive. He completed his degrees in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Exeter, lectured there on the neuroscience of mindfulness, and published in the Journal of Cognition. He went on to found the DOSE Lab and co-found Neurify, and his book The DOSE Effect became a Sunday Times bestseller and Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month. The applied work is broad: 650-plus sessions delivered into Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Coca-Cola, TikTok, the NHS, Oxford, Harrow, and Le Rosey. What makes him useful in a corporate room is the translation layer. The science is real, but the takeaway is a short list of behaviours a finance team or a sales floor can actually run on Monday morning. Key speaking topics Neuroscience of attention and focus Dopamine overload and screen behaviour The DOSE framework for performance and wellbeing Mental health in the digital age Habit change and behavioural neuroscience Burnout, recovery, and resilience Workplace wellbeing strategy Ideal for CHROs, heads of L&D, and wellbeing leads designing the next phase of mental health programmes Leadership and high-performance teams looking for a scientifically grounded answer to attention loss and digital fatigue Sales, technology, and customer organisations where focus, motivation, and team connection are direct commercial inputs Education and healthcare organisations briefing staff on screen behaviour and youth mental health Audience outcomes A working mental model of the four brain chemicals that drive motivation, connection, mood, and resilience at work Specific daily habits, mapped to each chemical, that people can apply immediately A clear understanding of how phones, notifications, and digital habits are degrading attention and what to change Language and evidence that lets HR and leadership talk about wellbeing without resorting to soft framing A more honest read on the mental health pressures inside the organisation and the levers that actually move them

Why organisations work with Frederika Roberts An applied positive psychology MSc and doctoral research base, rather than the wellness-industry credentialling that dominates this space. Author or co-author of five published works on character education and whole-school wellbeing, including titles with Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Sage. European Representative for IPPAed, giving access to current global research on positive education before it filters into mainstream practice. Working content for both education sectors and workplaces, covering character strengths, psychological safety, and Appreciative Inquiry as a change method. Operates in English, Italian, French, and German, which matters for European multi-site organisations and international school groups. Biography highlights MSc in Applied Positive Psychology; doctoral researcher in Education focused on whole-school wellbeing. European Representative for IPPAed, the International Positive Psychology Association’s Positive Education division. Founder of Educate to Flourish CIC, a social enterprise embedding wellbeing into school communities. Co-author, “Character Toolkit for Teachers” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018) and “Character Toolkit Strength Cards” (2020). Co-editor, “The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing” (2021); author, “For Flourishing’s Sake” (2020) and “Recipe for Happiness” (2013). Member of the Professional Speaking Association and the Global Speakers Federation; iPPL Expert Member. Biography Wellbeing has become one of the most over-claimed and under-delivered categories in organisational life. Initiatives proliferate; engagement and mental health indicators rarely move with them. The gap is methodological. Most wellbeing work is built on motivational content rather than on the published research that the field of positive psychology has produced over the last two decades. Roberts works inside that research base. She holds an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and is completing doctoral research on whole-school wellbeing using Appreciative Inquiry, a change methodology that focuses organisational attention on what is already working and how to build from it. As European Representative for IPPAed, the International Positive Psychology Association’s Positive Education division, she connects practitioners with current academic findings before they reach the trade press. Her published output gives organisations a clear sense of how she translates evidence into practice. “Character Toolkit for Teachers” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018) and the “Character Toolkit Strength Cards” (2020) provide working tools rather than abstract frameworks. “The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing” (2021), which she co-edited, sits across the major contributors in the field. “For Flourishing’s Sake” sets out how policy and practice can be redesigned to put flourishing at the centre. She founded Educate to Flourish CIC to take this work into schools as a social enterprise, and extends the same practice into workplaces, drawing on character strengths, psychological safety, and strengths-based approaches. The work is unusual in the wellbeing market for being explicitly research-grounded and equally credible in front of educators, HR leaders, and policy audiences. Key speaking topics Positive psychology in organisational and educational settings Whole-school and whole-organisation wellbeing Character education and character strengths Appreciative Inquiry as a change method Psychological safety and strengths-based culture Mental health and flourishing at work Ideal for HR and people leaders responsible for wellbeing strategy beyond surface-level programmes School leaders, MAT executives, and university leadership teams Conference audiences in education, public sector, and not-for-profit Boards or executives in family-owned and values-led organisations rethinking culture Audience outcomes A working understanding of what positive psychology research has actually shown about wellbeing and performance. Specific tools from character strengths, Appreciative Inquiry, and strengths-based practice that can be applied immediately. A sharper distinction between wellbeing programmes that produce change and those that do not. Language and a model for connecting individual flourishing to organisational outcomes.

Why organisations work with Gemma Oaten A credible front-of-house voice on eating disorders specifically, an area most wellbeing programmes underserve because it is hard to discuss without either trivialising or distressing audiences. Operational charity leadership at SEED, which means her content reflects what families, sufferers, and clinicians actually report, not generic resilience messaging. Broadcast craft from BBC Radio and BBC Morning Live work, useful when a wellbeing event also needs an experienced host or interviewer in the room. A TEDx talk and named corporate clients including Samsung, Towergate Insurance, and Health Assured, which gives HR and wellbeing leads a defensible reference list. Biography highlights CEO of SEED Eating Disorder Support Services. Played Rachel Breckle in Emmerdale, 2011 to 2015. TEDx speaker on eating disorders and recovery. Hosted the British Safety Council International Safety Awards Gala Dinner, 2024. BBC Radio presenter across Humberside, Lincolnshire, York, and Leeds; BBC Morning Live contributor. Drama Studio London graduate. Biography Eating disorders are the mental illness most likely to kill the person who has one, and they remain one of the hardest topics for an HR team to handle in front of staff. Gemma Oaten developed anorexia at ten and lived with it, and with bulimia, for thirteen years. SEED, the charity her parents founded to support other families through it, is now the organisation she runs. That dual position, lived experience and charity leadership, is what makes her useful to corporate audiences. She is not describing recovery as a metaphor for resilience. She is describing what eating disorders look like in a workforce, what triggers them, what helps, and what managers tend to get wrong when an employee is visibly struggling. Her broadcast work runs alongside the charity. She has presented across BBC Radio Humberside, Lincolnshire, York, and Leeds, contributed to BBC Morning Live, and hosted the British Safety Council International Safety Awards Gala Dinner in 2024. Her acting credits include four years as Rachel Breckle in Emmerdale, with Best Newcomer nominations at the British Soap Awards and TV Quick Awards. For wellbeing leads commissioning a keynote that staff will actually remember, the value is the specificity. She speaks from inside a charity that takes the calls, and from inside a recovery she nearly did not survive. That is a different proposition from a clinician explaining the science or a coach selling a framework. Key speaking topics Eating disorders awareness and recovery Mental health in the workplace Employee wellbeing Resilience after long-term illness Bullying, body image, and self-worth Lived experience of anorexia and bulimia Hosting and moderation for wellbeing events Ideal for CHROs, wellbeing leads, and HR directors building substantive mental health programmes Health, safety, and wellbeing conferences, particularly in regulated sectors Schools, universities, and NHS audiences working on body image and eating disorders Internal events that need a credible host as well as a keynote voice Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what eating disorders look like in a working population, beyond the stereotypes Practical language managers can use when an employee shows signs of being unwell A frank account of long-term recovery from someone who runs the support charity Renewed permission inside the room to talk about mental health without flinching

Why organisations work with Steven Laureys He brings the working brain into board-level conversations on performance and wellbeing, grounded in clinical neurology rather than wellness orthodoxy. He runs one of the few research groups in the world studying consciousness across coma, anaesthesia, sleep, hypnosis, and meditation, which gives audiences a single coherent framework for thinking about attention and recovery. His Francqui Prize and Canada Excellence Research Chair give a buyer hard evidence of scientific standing in a field crowded with popularisers. He has translated his research into a bestselling popular book on meditation, so audiences get a scientist who can talk to non-scientists without losing accuracy. He works in English, French, and Dutch, which makes him directly usable across European leadership audiences without an interpreter. Biography highlights Founder and head of the Coma Science Group, GIGA Consciousness, University of Liège. Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neuroplasticity, Laval University and CERVO Brain Research Centre. Research Director at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS). Winner of the Francqui Prize 2017 and the Generet Prize 2019. Author of The No-Nonsense Meditation Book, an international bestseller published by Bloomsbury and translated into multiple languages. TEDx speaker at TEDxBrussels and TEDxLiège, with research featured across major international media. Biography Most of what is sold to organisations as “wellbeing” is built on intuition. The brain that is meant to be helping is the most expensive and least understood asset on the payroll. Steven Laureys studies the brain for a living, and his work has spent two decades pushing the boundary of what can be measured in coma, sleep, anaesthesia, hypnosis, and meditation. He founded the Coma Science Group within GIGA Consciousness at the University of Liège in 2014, and now also holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neuroplasticity at Laval University, based at the CERVO Brain Research Centre. He is a Research Director at Belgium’s FNRS and a clinical professor of neurology, board-certified in neurology and in palliative medicine. The Francqui Prize, Belgium’s highest scientific honour, was awarded to him in 2017 for his work on disorders of consciousness. His public reach is unusual for a clinician of this seniority. The No-Nonsense Meditation Book, published by Bloomsbury, became an international bestseller and made the case for meditation in the language of neuroimaging rather than spirituality. He has spoken at TEDxBrussels and TEDxLiège, and his research has been picked up across mainstream international media. For corporate audiences, he turns the same instruments he uses on coma patients and Buddhist monks toward the working brain: attention, stress, sleep, cognitive recovery, and the conditions under which people make good decisions. The argument he brings is simple. The science is now specific enough to act on, and most organisations are not yet using it. Key speaking topics Neuroscience of attention and focus Stress and cognitive recovery Sleep and performance Meditation and the brain Mental wellbeing in the workplace Human intelligence and artificial intelligence Consciousness, anaesthesia, and altered states Neuroplasticity and lifestyle interventions Ideal for CHROs and chief wellbeing officers are building credible mental health and performance programmes. Executive teams and boards are considering attention, sleep, and stress as performance variables. Leadership development audiences in healthcare, professional services, and high-stakes operating environments. Innovation and R&D leaders interested in the brain science behind creativity and cognitive load. Audience outcomes A clinician’s view of what neuroscience can and cannot yet say about attention, stress, sleep, and meditation. Specific, evidence-based practices that senior people can use on themselves and inside their teams. A clearer line between credible neuroscience and the wellness industry’s claims. Confidence to challenge wellbeing programmes that rest on intuition rather than evidence. A working mental model of the brain under load that maps onto real organisational decisions.

Why organisations work with Adele Bates Her classroom experience covers every major UK school setting: mainstream primary and secondary, pupil referral units, alternative provision, and special schools. School leaders can bring her to a mixed-audience CPD day knowing the examples hold up across every context in the room. Her approach is informed by funded comparative international research. In 2019, she received a full grant to research Finland’s inclusive education system. Research in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica followed. What she recommends draws on documented practice from functioning systems across three countries. Her book, published by Corwin/SAGE, has been used by headteachers to rewrite whole-school behaviour policies from scratch. It provides a structured, chapter-by-chapter framework that school leaders can put to immediate institutional use. She writes for TES, SecEd, and Headteacher Update, reaching school leaders at scale. Audiences in her sessions often arrive knowing her work, which changes the quality of the conversation. Her TEDx 2020 talk and BBC Radio 4 appearances as the network’s expert on teenagers and behaviour give her name recognition well beyond the education conference circuit. Biography highlights Author, “Miss, I Don’t Give A Sh*t”: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools (Corwin/SAGE) TEDx 2020 speaker BBC Radio 4 expert on teenagers and behaviour Trainer for the National Education Union and Amnesty International Education WeAreTheCity Rising Star Award, Education category Funded international researcher in behaviour and inclusion: Finland (2019), Dominican Republic, and Costa Rica Biography Behaviour policies give teachers a sequence of steps. They rarely explain what to do when those steps stop working. For more than 20 years, Adele Bates taught in the settings where that gap matters most: mainstream primary and secondary schools, pupil referral units, alternative provision, and special schools. Her book, “Miss, I Don’t Give A Sh*t”: Engaging with Challenging Behaviour in Schools, is published by Corwin/SAGE. It gives school leaders a structured framework for rebuilding behaviour culture from the ground up. Headteachers have used it to rewrite their school’s behaviour policy from scratch. In 2019, she received a full grant to research Finland’s inclusive education system, observing classes and interviewing teachers across several schools. She has since carried out school-based research in the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica. Those visits inform how she frames what is achievable, with reference to systems that have solved problems UK schools are still working through. She is BBC Radio 4’s expert on teenagers and behaviour and gave a TEDx talk in 2020. She writes regularly for TES, SecEd, and Headteacher Update. She trains for the National Education Union and Amnesty International Education. School leaders who book her often know her work before she arrives. Key speaking topics Inclusive behaviour in schools Social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) in education Trauma-informed practice Whole-school behaviour culture and consistency Pupil engagement and relationship-led teaching Equality, bias, and inclusion in education Staff confidence and wellbeing in schools Ideal for Headteachers and senior leadership teams in mainstream and specialist schools Classroom teachers and subject leaders seeking practical behaviour frameworks Multi-academy trust (MAT) CPD and professional development leads National education organisations and education conference organisers Audience outcomes A clearer account of why SEMH-driven behaviour does not respond to sanctions, and what the evidence suggests actually works Practical strategies for rebuilding positive relationships with disengaged pupils, applicable from the next lesson A framework for evaluating whether a school’s behaviour policy is built to support or to separate A sharper understanding of how equality, bias, and inclusion connect to behaviour patterns across a whole school Tools for strengthening staff confidence and consistency in challenging classroom situations

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

Why organisations work with Azeem Rafiq Primary-source authority on how a major British institution mishandled a discrimination complaint, with the parliamentary record, Cricket Discipline Commission outcomes, and governance changes to evidence it. A working answer to the question every CHRO privately asks: what happens to the person who reports, after they report? Rafiq describes the years that followed his disclosure, not only the moment of speaking out. Lived credibility on the gap between policy and practice. The policies at Yorkshire existed. They were not implemented. The reform conversation he triggered is now standard reading for sport, regulators, and corporate ER teams. A name that lands with sceptical audiences. Boards and senior teams who have seen too many polished DEI keynotes engage differently with a speaker whose testimony is a matter of parliamentary record. Biography highlights Former professional cricketer for Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire CCC; captained England under-15 and under-19 sides. Appointed Yorkshire CCC’s youngest captain and first of Asian heritage in 2012. Gave evidence to the DCMS Select Committee in November 2021; witness statement published by the committee. Triggered a Cricket Discipline Commission process that upheld charges and led to the resignation of Yorkshire’s chair and a board reset under Lord Kamlesh Patel. Author of It’s Not Banter, It’s Racism (Hachette, 2024), longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2024. Submitted further written evidence to Parliament’s Sport Governance inquiry in 2022. Biography Yorkshire County Cricket Club had policies for racism, bullying and player welfare. They were not enforced. When a complaint was raised internally in 2018, the institutional response was to manage the complainant rather than the complaint. That is the gap most organisations underestimate, and it is the gap Azeem Rafiq has spent the past five years describing in evidence. His professional record is on the public file: junior international captain for England, professional contracts at Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire, and the youngest captain in Yorkshire’s history. The reason senior audiences listen now is not the career. It is the witness statement, published by the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, and the Cricket Discipline Commission findings that followed. The reform consequences are documented. Yorkshire’s chair resigned. Lord Kamlesh Patel was installed to rebuild the board. The England and Wales Cricket Board was forced to confront governance failures it had previously minimised. Rafiq’s 2024 book with Hachette, It’s Not Banter, It’s Racism, was longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year and remains one of the more honest published accounts of what happens after a whistleblower stops being useful to the institutions briefly aligned with them. What he offers senior audiences now is closer to a case study than a story. He talks about the specific points at which a complaint becomes politically inconvenient, about the role of HR, legal and PR functions in absorbing or deflecting it, and about the human cost on the person at the centre. It is the content most diversity programmes do not have access to. Key speaking topics Institutional racism and culture reform Whistleblowing and speak-up systems in practice Inclusion when policy and practice diverge Governance and accountability in sport Mental health and family impact of public disclosure The aftermath of speaking out Ideal for CHROs, employee relations leads and DEI heads in organisations re-examining their speak-up architecture. Boards and audit committees with whistleblowing oversight responsibilities. Sports governing bodies, regulators and member organisations confronting culture inquiries. Senior leadership offsites where the inclusion conversation has gone stale. Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how a major institution failed to act on its own policies, and the operational reasons why. A more accurate read on what protection a whistleblower actually receives once a complaint enters the system. Specific questions to test inside their own organisation, drawn from cricket’s governance failures. Renewed seriousness about the personal cost of disclosure, useful for anyone designing or sponsoring a speak-up channel.

Why organisations work with Andrew Bryant He authored the McGraw-Hill book that defined self-leadership for a generation of corporate practitioners, and his research has been cited in more than 150 academic papers and dissertations. His 2026 Wiley book Potential-ize introduces the IGNITE Framework, a six-element model for leaders who need to combine human judgement with AI capability rather than be displaced by it. He has coached senior leaders inside Singapore Airlines, Microsoft, SAP, Deutsche Bank, and Nokia, so the work is tested against real operating pressure, not a coaching practice that lives only in workshops. He carries the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the Professional Speakers Association of Australia and has chaired the speaker associations of both Singapore and Spain, which means executional reliability on stage is a known quantity. The President of Singapore has formally recognised his work twice, in 2018 and 2020, for self-leadership programmes that produced measurable outcomes with disadvantaged teenagers and women leaders. Biography highlights Founder of Self Leadership International, established 1999, with clients in over 40 countries. Co-author of Self-Leadership (McGraw-Hill, 2012) with Dr. Ana Lucia Kazan, a defining text in the field. Author of The New Leadership Playbook (2022) and Potential-ize: How Leaders Unlock Human Potential in the Age of AI (Wiley, 2026). Certified Speaking Professional, Professional Speakers Association of Australia, 2009. Past President of Asia Professional Speakers Singapore (2015 to 2016) and Professional Speakers Association Spain (2021 to 2023). Acknowledged twice by the President of Singapore, in 2018 and 2020, for community leadership programmes. Biography Self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing your own thinking, feeling and actions toward a defined objective. That definition, written by Andrew Bryant and Dr. Ana Lucia Kazan in their 2012 McGraw-Hill book, is now cited in more than 150 academic papers. It is also the operating idea behind a coaching and keynote practice that has run for more than twenty-five years. The argument is simple. Leaders who cannot regulate their own attention, energy and reactions cannot reliably lead anyone else through change. Bryant founded Self Leadership International in 1999 and built the methodology out of work with named global organisations, including Singapore Airlines, Microsoft, SAP, Deutsche Bank and Nokia. The 2022 follow-up book, The New Leadership Playbook, translated the underlying research into twelve concrete leadership conversations that teams actually need to have. His 2026 Wiley book, Potential-ize: How Leaders Unlock Human Potential in the Age of AI, extends the work into the live boardroom question. The IGNITE Framework, six elements covering Inspire, Guide, Nurture, Integrate, Transform and Evaluate, is built for leaders who need to combine human judgement with AI capability without losing either. It is the same intellectual line, applied to the workforce conversation that buyers are having now. Bryant carries the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the Professional Speakers Association of Australia and has chaired the speaker associations of both Singapore and Spain. The President of Singapore acknowledged his community work formally in 2018 and again in 2020. The credentials are useful as proof of seriousness, but the more practical point for a buyer is that he is one of the very few speakers who can credibly claim to have shaped the leadership category he speaks on. Key speaking topics Self-leadership Leadership in the age of AI Executive presence and personal effectiveness Workplace mental health and resilience Psychological safety and high-performing teams Leading change and restructure Human potential and talent development Ideal for CEO, COO and senior leadership teams under pressure to deliver during restructure or AI adoption. CHROs and Heads of Leadership Development building self-leadership capability across mid and senior cohorts. Boards and executive committees commissioning offsites on resilience, composure and decision quality. Audience outcomes A working definition of self-leadership that leaders can apply to their own behaviour the next day, not just discuss in the abstract. The IGNITE Framework as a structured way to think about unlocking team potential alongside AI capability rather than against it. A direct view of how composure under pressure compounds into team performance and retention. Specific leadership conversations, drawn from the twelve plays in The New Leadership Playbook, that managers can run with their own teams. Named tools from Bryant’s Self-Leadership Resilience Stack, including the Evening Review and the View from Above, for regulating pressure before it compounds into burnout.