Mental Health in the Workplace

Why organisations work with Kate Richardson-Walsh She captained an international team for 13 years through a deliberate, multi-cycle rebuild that moved from missing the podium to Olympic gold. That arc is what most senior leaders are actually trying to manage. She co-authored Winning Together with Helen Richardson-Walsh, a published account of the specific behavioural and cultural decisions that produced the Rio 2016 result. Buyers get a methodology, not a highlight reel. She brings a working coach’s perspective from elite environments at HC Bloemendaal, Hampstead and Westminster, and Field Hockey Canada, so the material lands as practice rather than retrospect. Her work on inclusive leadership is grounded in lived experience as one half of the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic gold, and is delivered without ideology. Biography highlights Captain of England and Great Britain women’s hockey for 13 years, with 375 international caps and 49 international goals. Olympic gold medallist at Rio 2016, leading an undefeated Team GB to victory over the Netherlands in the final, and Olympic bronze medallist at London 2012. Co-author of Winning Together: An Olympic-Winning Approach to Building Better Teams, published by Hachette. Awarded MBE in 2015 and promoted to OBE in 2017 New Year Honours for services to hockey. Hockey analyst and commentator for BBC Sport, BBC Radio 5 Live, and BT Sport, including the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the 2018 World Cup, and the Paris 2024 Olympics. Coaching career spanning HC Bloemendaal in the Netherlands, Head Coach at Hampstead and Westminster, Assistant Coach with Field Hockey Canada, and currently Specialist Coach with the China women’s national hockey team. Biography The 2016 Rio gold was the visible moment, but the work that produced it ran for more than a decade. Great Britain’s women’s hockey team had finished outside the medals for years before Kate Richardson-Walsh and a group of coaches and players committed to a different kind of operating model. That work, not the final, is what senior leaders actually find useful. Richardson-Walsh captained England and Great Britain for 13 years and finished her career as the most-capped female player in either programme, with 375 international appearances. Across that span she played four Olympic Games, took bronze at London 2012 (most of it with a broken jaw) and gold at Rio 2016, when Team GB went undefeated and beat the Netherlands in the final. Winning Together, written with her wife and Olympic teammate Helen Richardson-Walsh and published by Hachette, sets out the specific cultural decisions behind that result: how the team handled honest feedback, how it absorbed selection pain, how it stayed coherent through long stretches of pressure. It is a working manual, which is why corporate audiences engage with it. Since retiring she has coached at HC Bloemendaal in the Netherlands, led Hampstead and Westminster women’s first XI, and joined Field Hockey Canada as Assistant Coach in 2023. She is currently a specialist coach with the China women’s national hockey team. She is also a regular hockey analyst for BBC Sport, BBC Radio 5 Live, and BT Sport, and was part of the BBC commentary team at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Key speaking topics Team culture and accountability Trust and psychological safety in teams Leadership under sustained pressure Performance through uncertainty High-performance environments Inclusive leadership, belonging, and LGBT+ inclusion Resilience and mental wellbeing Sustaining excellence across long cycles Ideal for CEOs, executive teams, and board offsites focused on culture change and long-cycle performance CHROs and people leaders building inclusive leadership practice with evidence rather than slogans Transformation and integration leads working through multi-year programmes where early results are absent Senior leadership teams in regulated, high-pressure environments where standards must hold under scrutiny Audience outcomes A clear picture of how an underperforming team rebuilt itself into an Olympic-winning culture, with the specific decisions named. Practical reference points for handling honest feedback, selection conversations, and accountability without breaking trust. A more concrete vocabulary for what inclusive leadership looks like in a high-performance setting. Renewed confidence that long programmes without visible results can still be on the right track if the cultural work is real.

Why organisations work with Kate Garraway She brings the rare combination of a national household name and a serious, specific subject: the lived reality of being a working carer, drawn from her own years caring for her late husband Derek Draper. Her interviewing craft is honed on live national television. She handles unscripted rooms, sensitive subject matter and senior executives on stage with the same control she shows on Good Morning Britain. Three consecutive National Television Awards for her authored documentaries give her authority on duty-of-care and social-care themes that few corporate speakers can match. She moves credibly between hosting an awards night, anchoring a conference, conducting an on-stage CEO interview and delivering a personal keynote on resilience, without changing register awkwardly between formats. Her MBE for broadcasting, journalism and charity makes her a natural fit for client events that need a name guests recognise from their breakfast television. Biography highlights Main presenter on ITV’s Good Morning Britain since launch in 2014. Host of the weekday mid-morning show on Smooth Radio since 2014. Host of ITV’s Life Stories, succeeding Piers Morgan, from 2021. MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to broadcasting, journalism and charity. Author of two Sunday Times bestsellers, The Power of Hope (2021) and The Strength of Love (2023). Winner of three National Television Awards for her ITV documentaries Finding Derek, Caring for Derek and Derek’s Story, plus a TRIC Special Award for her broadcasting career. Biography The hardest conversations in modern workplaces are not about strategy. They are about the colleague managing a parent’s dementia, the senior leader whose partner has a long-term illness, the high performer whose home life has quietly become a second full-time role. Kate Garraway has spent the last five years living and reporting that reality in public. Most viewers know her from ITV’s Good Morning Britain, where she has been a main presenter since the programme launched in 2014, and from her weekday show on Smooth Radio. The wider broadcasting CV runs through GMTV, Daybreak and ITV’s Life Stories, the long-running interview series she took over from Piers Morgan in 2021. The TRIC Special Award and her 2022 MBE for services to broadcasting, journalism and charity sit alongside that work. The body of work that gives her something distinctive to say to corporate audiences is more recent. After her husband Derek Draper became one of the UK’s most seriously affected long Covid patients, she made three authored documentaries for ITV, Finding Derek, Caring for Derek and Kate Garraway: Derek’s Story, each of which won the National Television Award for Best Authored Documentary. Her two memoirs, The Power of Hope and The Strength of Love, were Sunday Times bestsellers and turned her into one of the country’s most quoted voices on caring, resilience and the social-care system. What she offers in a corporate room is a presenter who can hold a live audience for a full event and, when the brief calls for it, speak with first-hand authority on what it actually costs employees to look after someone they love while staying in their job. Key speaking topics Working carers and the hidden workforce Resilience and personal leadership through crisis Long-term illness and return-to-work Mental health and wellbeing at work Live event hosting and on-stage interviewing Awards hosting and conference moderation Broadcast journalism and media interviewing Ideal for Conferences and awards evenings looking for a household-name host with strong interview craft. HR, reward and benefits leaders building credible support for working carers and employees with long-term illness. Wellbeing, DEI and ERG events that need a public figure who can speak from experience rather than theory. Boards and leadership offsites running an on-stage CEO or guest interview where a trained journalist adds value. Audience outcomes A clearer view of what caring responsibilities look like inside their own workforce, and how often they go unspoken. Practical language for managers having difficult conversations with employees facing serious illness at home. A grounded perspective on resilience that does not flatten into motivational cliche. For hosted formats, a tightly run event with senior guests interviewed at the level they expect from national television.

Why organisations work with Janey Lee Grace She brings a national-broadcast voice to a workplace wellbeing topic most internal teams avoid raising: how alcohol shows up in meetings, client entertainment, conferences and team rituals. Her coaching method is built around grey area drinkers, the majority of working adults who are not clinically dependent but whose drinking quietly affects sleep, mood, decision-making and presenteeism. The Sober Club gives her a live evidence base of what actually shifts behaviour at scale, drawn from a community of members and an accredited coach training programme, not theory alone. She is credible to a senior audience: 25+ years on BBC Radio 2’s Steve Wright in the Afternoon, a TEDx talk on sobriety, and the Amazon No. 1 bestseller Imperfectly Natural Woman. She speaks about alcohol culture without moralising, which is the practical reason internal sponsors trust her in front of mixed audiences. Biography highlights Co-presenter for more than two decades on BBC Radio 2’s Steve Wright in the Afternoon Founder of The Sober Club, an online community and coaching business focused on alcohol-free living Host of the Alcohol Free Life podcast, 450+ episodes, ranked by the publisher in the top 5% globally TEDx speaker, Sobriety Rocks: Who Knew!, TEDxNorwichED, 2019 Author of Happy Healthy Sober, the Amazon No. 1 bestseller Imperfectly Natural Woman, and the memoir From Wham to Woo Founder of the Janey Loves Platinum Awards, an annual awards programme for the natural and wellbeing sector, in its tenth year Biography Most workplaces are quietly built around alcohol. It anchors networking events, end-of-quarter celebrations, client dinners and the social glue between teams. Wellbeing programmes rarely touch it, because the topic feels personal and the social cost of raising it feels too high. That gap is the territory Janey Lee Grace works in. Her route into the subject is unusually credible. She spent more than two decades as a co-presenter on BBC Radio 2’s Steve Wright in the Afternoon, one of the most listened-to shows in the UK, and built a parallel career as an author of bestselling books on natural health, including the Amazon No. 1 Imperfectly Natural Woman. In January 2018 she stopped drinking. The Sober Club, the coaching practice, the Alcohol Free Life podcast and the TEDx talk Sobriety Rocks: Who Knew! followed. What she offers organisations is not a personal story dressed up as a talk. It is a practical argument grounded in the concept of grey area drinking, the working population who are not dependent but whose drinking shapes how they sleep, recover, present and decide. She is a qualified Grey Area Drinking Coach, an NLP Practitioner and an EFT practitioner, and she trains other coaches through an accredited programme. The Sober Club gives her a continuous read on what shifts behaviour for working adults outside a clinical setting. The point for a senior audience is not abstinence. It is to make alcohol a legible part of a wellbeing strategy: visible in policy, visible in event design, visible in how leaders model the social contract of work. That is a conversation most organisations have not had, and she is one of the few public figures equipped to start it without the room going defensive. Key speaking topics Workplace alcohol culture and wellbeing strategy Grey area drinking and performance at work Sobriety, sober-curious living and behaviour change Mental health and the social contract of work Natural health and holistic wellbeing Personal reinvention and second-act careers Ideal for HR, wellbeing and culture leads designing post-pandemic wellbeing programmes DEI and employee resource group sponsors looking at inclusion of non-drinkers and recovering drinkers Internal communications and events teams rethinking the role of alcohol at company events Professional services and finance leaders where client entertainment culture is a live issue Audience outcomes A language for discussing alcohol at work that does not moralise or alienate drinkers The grey area drinking framework as a way to think about wellbeing risk in the working population Specific prompts for redesigning company events, client entertainment and team rituals A clearer view of how alcohol intersects with sleep, mood, presenteeism and decision quality Permission, for leaders who want it, to model a different default

Why organisations work with Helen Skelton A working BBC presenter on Countryfile, Morning Live and Radio 5 Live who hosts, moderates and interviews at broadcast standard, not as a side line. Two Guinness World Records set for Sport Relief, including the longest solo kayak journey down the Amazon, give her a specific credibility on endurance, preparation and fear that rehearsed speakers cannot match. Her 2023 memoir In My Stride, published by Headline, gives audiences a coherent account of resilience drawn from lived experience rather than a framework borrowed from academia. Known across a broad UK audience from Blue Peter, Countryfile and a Strictly Come Dancing final, which makes her a reliable draw for internal conferences, awards nights and customer events. Biography highlights Presenter on BBC One’s Countryfile since 2014 and regular host of BBC Morning Live. Blue Peter presenter from 2008 to 2013, the 33rd in the programme’s history. Two Guinness World Records from the 2,010-mile solo kayak down the Amazon for Sport Relief in 2010. Guinness World Record for the fastest 100 km by kite ski, set on the 2012 South Pole expedition. Runner-up on Strictly Come Dancing series 20 in 2022 with Gorka Marquez. Author of In My Stride: Lessons Learned Through Life and Adventure, Headline, 2023. Biography The Amazon is not a training ground. Helen Skelton kayaked 2,010 miles of it, alone, in 2010 for Sport Relief, taking two Guinness World Records in the process. Two years later she reached the South Pole by a mix of bicycle, skis and kite ski, setting a further record along the way. These are the facts that tend to open any introduction of her, and they are the right place to start, because the speaking work sits on them. The broadcast career gives the speaking a second foundation. She joined Blue Peter in 2008, became the programme’s 33rd presenter, and stayed until 2013. Since 2014 she has presented Countryfile on BBC One, with regular slots on BBC Morning Live and a Sunday show on BBC Radio 5 Live. The polish audiences see on those programmes is what clients hire when she hosts conferences, moderates panels or presents awards. The speaking content draws on all of it. Her 2023 memoir In My Stride, published by Headline, sets out what endurance, preparation and public scrutiny have taught her about resilience, confidence, and the value of time spent outside. She speaks to audiences about the mental work behind physical challenges, the realities of being a working mother in broadcasting, and the mental health benefits of the natural world, a subject she supports through her work with Mind. She reached a Strictly Come Dancing final in 2022 with Gorka Marquez, which brought her to a wider corporate audience and confirmed the profile clients buy when they book her for a room of several hundred people. Key speaking topics Resilience and mental strength Performance under pressure Working motherhood and life-balance Nature, wellbeing and mental health Broadcasting and media craft Adventure and endurance Awards hosting and conference moderation Ideal for Internal conferences, leadership offsites and awards evenings seeking a credible host plus a keynote in one booking. HR, wellbeing and employee engagement programmes focused on resilience, mental health and working parents. Customer and partner events looking for a recognisable broadcaster with a story that travels beyond a single industry. Audience outcomes A direct account of what preparation, fear and repeated setbacks look like at the edges of physical endurance. Practical reflections on resilience and recovery that avoid platitudes, drawn from first-hand experience. A clearer sense of how time outdoors and small daily habits support mental health, grounded in her work with Mind. Confident chairing or hosting that keeps a programme moving and lifts audience energy across a long day.

Why organisations work with Francesca Martinez She fronted the WOW petition that crossed 100,000 signatures and forced a main-chamber debate in the House of Commons in 2014, which is a concrete democratic outcome rather than an inclusion talking point. Her debut play All Of Us opened at the National Theatre’s Dorfman in 2022 under Ian Rickson, putting disability and welfare politics in front of a mainstream theatre audience, with Francesca shortlisted for the George Devine Award. What the **** Is Normal?! (Virgin Books, Penguin Random House) gives the room a single shared reference point on identity and difference that holds up outside the corporate inclusion vocabulary. She speaks from inside the experience, not about it, which removes the discomfort senior audiences often feel when an external consultant lectures them on disability. She works the room as a stand-up first, which means the message lands in audiences that are sceptical of conventional DEI keynotes. Biography highlights First and only female winner of the Open Mic Award at the Edinburgh Festival (2000), and winner of the Edinburgh Fringe Media Network Award (2011). Author of What the **** Is Normal?! (Virgin Books, Penguin Random House, 2014); Bread and Roses Award runner-up and Chortle Best Comedy Book nominee. Wrote and starred in All of Us, National Theatre (Dorfman), 2022, directed by Ian Rickson; shortlisted for the George Devine Award. Her June 2019 Question Time appearance was called the show’s “best ever moment”, reaching 11 million views in its first week. The first disabled woman to perform on BBC Two’s Live at the Apollo, opening Series 11 in 2015; later featured in the BBC’s Access All Areas special. Fronted the WOW petition and secured a House of Commons main-chamber debate, February 2014. TEDxHousesOfParliament speaker (“Being Happy is a Political Act”) and performer at the World Economic Forum in Davos alongside Emma Thompson. Named to the BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour Power List (2014) and awarded two honorary doctorates for work on equality and inclusion. Biography Most inclusion programmes are written in a language that the people they are meant to help do not use. Francesca Martinez calls herself “wobbly”, refuses the medical vocabulary around cerebral palsy, and has spent twenty years showing what happens when someone with a disability narrates their own experience rather than being narrated about. The reframing sounds small. The downstream effect on a room of senior leaders is not. The credentials sit in unusual places for a speaker on this topic. She was the first and only woman to win the Open Mic Award at the Edinburgh Festival, in 2000, and went on to write What the **** Is Normal?!, published by Virgin Books, which was a runner-up for the Bread and Roses Award and a Chortle Best Comedy Book nominee. Her debut play All Of Us, directed by Ian Rickson, opened in the Dorfman at the National Theatre in 2022, and Francesca was shortlisted for the George Devine Award for it. The activism is the part most relevant to senior buyers thinking about substance over messaging. As the public face of the WOW (War on Welfare) campaign, she drove a petition past 100,000 signatures and forced a debate in the main chamber of the House of Commons in 2014, the first time disabled people had secured a main-chamber debate on an agenda of their own choosing. That is a measurable political result, not an inclusion narrative. For an organisation, the value of booking her is specific. Senior audiences hear a writer and performer with mainstream theatrical and broadcast credentials make an argument about identity and belonging that has already been tested in Parliament and at the National Theatre. The conversation that follows tends to be about whether the company’s own inclusion work would survive that kind of scrutiny. Key speaking topics Disability and inclusion at work Identity, difference and self-acceptance Resilience and lived experience Advocacy and the politics of welfare Storytelling as a tool for cultural change Mental health and wellbeing Ideal for CHROs, heads of DEI and ERG sponsors building inclusion programmes that engage sceptical audiences. Leadership offsites and culture events where the goal is to move beyond inclusion language into behaviour change. International Day of Persons with Disabilities, Mental Health Awareness Week and similar moments where credibility of the speaker matters more than topic coverage. Audience outcomes A sharper sense of how disabled and neurodivergent colleagues actually experience the workplace, narrated from the inside. A reference point (the book, the play, the WOW campaign) the audience can carry back into their own inclusion conversations. Permission to question the corporate vocabulary of inclusion without abandoning the work. A break from the standard motivational register; the room laughs first and then commits.

Why organisations work with Anastasia Graham-Yooll She has reported conflict from the inside, as part of the CNN team that won the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage of the war in Ukraine, and more recently on the Iran war. Few moderators on a geopolitics panel have stood that close to the story. She has produced for outlets at opposite ends of the political spectrum, from CNN and Al Jazeera English to Fox News and News Nation. For a board-level panel on a divisive issue, that means a chair who can hold a partisan room without being read as taking a side. Two decades of editorial work across CNN International, Bloomberg TV, and Al Jazeera English means she can shape a programme arc, brief speakers in advance, and keep a session on the record without drift. As a Ukrainian journalist based in London, she brings primary-source authority on the fracturing rules-based order that few UK-based moderators can match. She brings a working position on press freedom, journalist mental health, and neurodiversity in newsrooms to media, culture, and people-focused programmes. Biography highlights Co-recipient of the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage of the war in Ukraine, as part of the CNN team. Over two decades of broadcast and production experience across CNN International, CNN en Español, Bloomberg TV, and Al Jazeera English. Recent reporting spans the political spectrum, including production work on the Iran war for the US networks Fox News and News Nation. Founder and Executive Director of HGY Media Ltd, a London-based documentary production and media consultancy firm. Former media consultant to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, advising on communications for its agribusiness and food-security strategy. Public advocate for press freedom, ethical storytelling, journalist mental health, and neurodiversity in newsrooms. Biography A geopolitics panel is only as good as the person in the chair. Put partisan voices in the same room and most moderators either pick a side or let the session drift into headlines. The discipline of holding that room, pressing each speaker on substance while staying neutral, is what Graham-Yooll has built over two decades of broadcast journalism. She was part of the CNN team that won the 2022 Emmy for Outstanding Breaking News Coverage of the war in Ukraine, reporting in the earliest days of the Russian invasion. Her career runs across CNN International, CNN en Español, Bloomberg TV, and Al Jazeera English. More recently she has produced coverage of the Iran war for the US networks Fox News and News Nation, and royal coverage with the Associated Press’s AP 360. Reporting for outlets at opposite ends of the political spectrum is itself the credential. It is why she can chair a divided room without being read as partisan. Away from live coverage, she founded HGY Media Ltd, a London production and consultancy firm working on documentary projects and purpose-driven campaigns on human rights, conflict communication, and freedom of expression. Her earlier advisory work for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, on communications around agribusiness and food security, gives her technical footing on the sustainability and supply-chain questions that increasingly sit inside the geopolitical brief. She also speaks on the working conditions inside modern newsrooms, from the mental health toll of conflict coverage to the case for neurodiversity in editorial teams. For media, culture, and people programmes that want substance over presenter polish, that track is the draw. Key speaking topics Geopolitics and conflict reporting Editorial impartiality across the political spectrum Press freedom and ethical storytelling Editorial leadership and narrative strategy Neurodiversity in the newsroom Mental health in journalism The geopolitics of food security Ideal for Conference organisers seeking a panel chair for geopolitics, defence policy, or Ukraine and Middle East programmes Boards and policy forums that need a neutral chair for politically divided or high-stakes sessions Corporate communications and policy forums on press freedom, disinformation, and crisis communications Media, HR, and culture programmes on newsroom mental health and neurodiversity Audience outcomes A panel that stays editorially controlled, on record, and on time, with each speaker challenged on substance Geopolitical context on Ukraine, the Middle East, and the wider European security picture from a journalist with frontline reporting credit A read on how the same story is framed differently across the political spectrum, from US partisan media to international broadcasters A direct view of what ethical storytelling and press freedom mean for organisations operating in politically volatile markets The practical case for neurodiversity and mental health support in high-pressure editorial and communications teams

Why organisations work with Tal Ben-Shahar The Harvard credential is unusually specific. His Positive Psychology course became the most-taken class in the university’s history, which means his material has been pressure-tested in a room he did not own rather than rehearsed for conferences. His SPIRE framework, the basis of the Happiness Studies Academy curriculum, gives organisations a shared language for wellbeing that is specific enough to act on and simple enough to deploy at scale. Potentialife, co-founded with a former McKinsey senior partner, has translated positive psychology into a leadership development platform rather than a keynote; he speaks from inside that operating experience. Eight books, Happier a New York Times bestseller, translated into 25 languages, makes him one of the most cited authorities on happiness science that a buyer can put in front of a large internal audience. His work connects wellbeing to performance in a way most wellness speakers cannot, which is what senior leadership teams need when they are being asked to justify the investment. Biography highlights PhD in Organizational Behavior and BA in Philosophy and Psychology, Harvard University Former teacher of Positive Psychology 1504 at Harvard, the most-taken course in the university’s history Co-founder of the Happiness Studies Academy and creator of the SPIRE wellbeing framework Co-founder of Potentialife, a positive-psychology-based leadership development platform Author of eight books including the New York Times bestseller Happier, translated into 25 languages Helped establish the Maytiv Center for positive psychology at IDC Herzliya (now Reichman University) Biography A generation of Harvard students sat in Positive Psychology 1504 because it was the most-enrolled course in the university’s history. The argument that drew them is the argument Tal Ben-Shahar has since built into an international body of work: that happiness is not a soft subject, it is a measurable driver of performance, judgment and resilience, and the organisations that understand it will outperform the ones that treat it as HR decoration. His academic grounding is Harvard across the board, with a BA in Philosophy and Psychology and a PhD in Organizational Behavior. The teaching track ran alongside a popular-writing career that now spans eight books, including the New York Times bestseller Happier, translated into 25 languages. These are not motivational titles, they are the popular expression of an empirical research tradition he has been teaching since the early 2000s. The organisational application comes through two vehicles. The Happiness Studies Academy, which he co-founded, is the home of the SPIRE framework, which codifies wellbeing as the integration of spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational and emotional health. Potentialife, co-founded with former McKinsey senior partner Angus Ridgway, delivers a positive-psychology-based leadership programme at corporate scale, with a platform that tracks behaviour in and out of work. For senior leadership teams, the combination is what matters. Ben-Shahar can translate a research finding into a board-level case for investment, and translate that case into a programme employees will actually use. In a period when wellbeing spend is under scrutiny and the cost of burnout is appearing on the P&L, that is a short list of people who can hold both ends of the conversation. Key speaking topics Positive psychology and the science of wellbeing The SPIRE framework for wholeperson wellbeing Positive leadership and performance Resilience and happiness in uncertain times Burnout, meaning and motivation at work Organisational applications of happiness research Ideal for CHROs, chief wellbeing officers and people-and-culture leaders designing enterprise-wide wellbeing strategy CEOs and executive teams looking to connect wellbeing investment to performance outcomes Leadership development and learning functions building positive leadership capability at scale All-hands, leadership offsites and customer or partner conferences where a credible, research-anchored wellbeing voice is required Audience outcomes A research-grounded vocabulary for talking about wellbeing with the same rigour the organisation applies to strategy or finance A working grasp of the SPIRE framework and how its five dimensions map to concrete workplace practices Specific habits and behavioural shifts drawn from positive psychology that leaders can apply to themselves and their teams A clearer view of the link between individual flourishing, leadership effectiveness and organisational performance Reference points from Harvard teaching and from Potentialife’s corporate deployments rather than generic wellness advice

Why organisations work with Stuart Sandeman He turns a research-grounded physiological practice into something a CFO will actually use on a Tuesday morning, not a wellness add-on that lives outside the working day. His book “Breathe In, Breathe Out” reached the Sunday Times bestseller list and gives buyers a defensible reference point for the substance behind the session. He has run programmes inside Google, Nike, Spotify, Adidas, PwC and Warner Music, with the same framework adapted for Olympic athletes, UFC fighters and the England football squad at Euro 2024. The format pairs structured breathing protocols with curated music, drawing on his prior career as a DJ and producer. The room experience is part of the product, not a backdrop. BBC Radio 1’s “Decompression Session”, now in its sixth series, gives him a public platform that very few corporate wellbeing speakers can match. Biography highlights Founder of Breathpod, a breathwork and corporate wellbeing business with clients including Google, Nike, Spotify, Adidas, PwC, Warner Music, MediaCom and Merkle. Sunday Times bestselling author of “Breathe In, Breathe Out”, published by HarperCollins. Host of BBC Radio 1’s “Decompression Session”, a guided breathwork and electronic music programme now in its sixth series. Performance work with Olympic athletes, UFC fighters, the US rugby sevens team and the England team at the 2024 Euros. Former financial markets professional in the UK and Asia, music producer and DJ, and a Scottish national-level judo black belt. Featured in The Times, The Guardian and The Evening Standard. Biography Most corporate wellbeing programmes fail the same test. They are voluntary, optional and asynchronous, and the people who most need them never turn up. The result is a category of spend that boards struggle to defend when the next round of cost cuts arrives. Stuart Sandeman built Breathpod to sit inside the working day rather than outside it. Sessions are short, structured and physiological, designed for boardrooms, sales floors and athletic preparation rooms. The clients on the list, Google, Nike, Spotify, Adidas, PwC and Warner Music, repeat-book because the practice produces a measurable shift in state inside the meeting it is delivered in. His credibility as a practitioner is reinforced by two adjacent platforms. “Breathe In, Breathe Out” reached the Sunday Times bestseller list and gave the field a serious mainstream reference book. BBC Radio 1’s “Decompression Session”, now in its sixth series, pairs guided breathing with curated electronic music for a national audience. The hybrid, scientific instruction inside a broadcast-quality sound experience is the same form he brings to corporate rooms. The route in is unusual. A career in financial markets in the UK and Asia, a parallel life as a DJ and producer, a Scottish judo black belt, then a turn to breathwork after losing his partner to cancer in 2016. Performance clients have followed: Olympic athletes, UFC fighters, the US rugby sevens team, and the England squad at Euro 2024. Key speaking topics Breathwork for stress and recovery Focus and performance under pressure Sleep and energy management Wellbeing inside high-performance cultures Emotional regulation and resilience Mental health in the workplace Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and wellbeing leads designing interventions that need to land with senior populations, not just with HR. Executive teams and leadership offsites where stress, sleep and focus are direct constraints on output. High-performance environments in sport, broadcast and creative industries where physiological state is part of the job. Sales, trading and consulting teams operating in sustained high-pressure cycles. Audience outcomes A small set of breathing protocols that audiences can use the same day, in meetings, before pitches and during recovery. A clearer mental model for how breath, nervous system and performance interact, drawn from research rather than wellness language. A shared room experience, structured breathing inside a curated soundscape, that resets state and shifts the energy of the day. Practical tools for sleep, focus and emotional regulation that do not depend on apps, kits, or further enrolment.

Why organisations work with Steve Peters A clinical psychiatrist’s model of how the mind actually behaves under stress, not a coaching framework borrowed from adjacent fields. The Chimp Model has been pressure-tested with British Cycling, Sky ProCycling, Liverpool FC and more than twenty Olympic and national sports programmes, where the cost of a wrong decision is immediate and public. Author of The Chimp Paradox, with over 1.4 million copies sold, plus three further books extending the model into resilience, child development and daily practice. Equips leaders with a shared vocabulary for emotional regulation that travels into the executive team and downward through the organisation, not a one-off motivational hit. Senior academic standing at Sheffield Medical School and Expert Advisor status with the World Anti-Doping Agency anchor the work in formal medicine and ethics, not pop psychology. Biography highlights Consultant psychiatrist and CEO of Chimp Management Ltd. Undergraduate Dean and Senior Clinical Lecturer, Sheffield University Medical School, since 1994. Former Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Rampton High Security Hospital. Author of The Chimp Paradox (Vermilion, 2012), My Hidden Chimp, The Silent Guides and A Path Through the Jungle. Consultant to British Cycling, Sky ProCycling, Liverpool FC, GB Taekwondo, England Rugby, England Football, British Swimming and UK Track and Field. Expert Advisor to the World Anti-Doping Agency; long-serving examination panellist for the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Biography The most expensive moments in a leader’s career are the ones where the emotional brain takes over and the rational mind catches up too late. The reaction in the meeting, the email sent at midnight, the call made under fatigue. These are not character flaws. They are predictable outputs of how the human mind is structured. Steve Peters spent more than two decades as a consultant psychiatrist before that observation became a model. His Chimp Model, set out in The Chimp Paradox, separates the emotional system of the brain from the rational one and gives people a working vocabulary for managing the gap between them. The book has sold more than 1.4 million copies and remains a fixture on UK self-development lists more than a decade after publication. The model earned its reputation in elite sport. Peters worked with British Cycling through its dominant Olympic period, with Sky ProCycling at the top of professional road racing, and with Liverpool FC, GB Taekwondo, England Rugby and England Football. Athletes including Sir Chris Hoy, Victoria Pendleton, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Adam Peaty have credited him by name. The point is not the celebrity roster. It is that the model has been used in environments where a single emotional misfire is captured on camera and replayed millions of times. His standing in the formal medical world gives the work a different weight from most performance content. Peters is Undergraduate Dean and Senior Clinical Lecturer at Sheffield University Medical School, was Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist at Rampton High Security Hospital, and serves as an Expert Advisor to the World Anti-Doping Agency. Leaders come away with something rare in this category: a clinically anchored model of their own mind that they can still use the morning after the keynote. Key speaking topics Mind management and the Chimp Model Emotional regulation under pressure Resilience and psychological robustness High performance under scrutiny Self-leadership for senior executives Mental health in the workplace Team dynamics and interpersonal conflict Ideal for CEOs, executive committees and boards facing high-stakes decision-making cycles CHROs and Heads of Talent commissioning substantive wellbeing and resilience programmes Leadership development directors building executive presence in newly senior leaders Sales, trading and operating teams whose performance is shaped by composure under pressure Audience outcomes A working model of how the emotional mind behaves under pressure, in a vocabulary that survives Monday morning A method for separating impulsive reactions from considered decisions in the moment Specific tools for managing fear, conflict, fatigue and post-event recovery A shared organisational language that makes mental performance discussable rather than private Confidence that the content is grounded in clinical psychiatry, not motivational reframing

Why organisations work with Simon Jack His position as sitting BBC Business Editor gives direct, current insight into how major financial and corporate stories are selected, framed and brought to national audiences – not historical analysis, but active editorial intelligence A decade in investment banking across London, New York and Bermuda means he interrogates market events and corporate decisions from inside knowledge, not observation; financial audiences notice the difference Uniquely placed to explain the mechanics of media-corporate accountability, how organisations end up on the wrong side of a headline, and what that process actually looks like from within a national broadcaster The Good Bad Billionaire podcast (Best Business Podcast, British Podcast Awards 2024) demonstrates an ability to make wealth, power and business ethics accessible and genuinely engaging for broad audiences – a value signal for any organisation wanting sharp facilitation, not just informed commentary His BBC Panorama film on male suicide brings personal authority to mental health discussions in business contexts that few speakers in this space can match Biography highlights BBC Business Editor since 2016, holding the role previously occupied by Robert Peston, Jeff Randall and Kamal Ahmed Decade in corporate and investment banking across London, New York and Bermuda before joining the BBC PPE, St John’s College, Oxford Lead BBC correspondent for the 2008 financial crisis: Lehman Brothers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG bailout, Lloyds TSB/HBOS Co-presenter of Good Bad Billionaire (BBC World Service) – Best Business Podcast, British Podcast Awards 2024 Presented BBC Panorama «A Suicide in the Family» (2015), a personal investigation into male suicide and the death of his father Biography When a major financial institution collapses, a rate decision lands, or a FTSE company comes under scrutiny, the story that reaches boardrooms and living rooms alike passes through a small number of editorial gatekeepers. Understanding how that process works – what gets reported, what gets simplified, what gets missed – is increasingly relevant to any senior leader operating in a complex economic environment. Simon Jack has spent two decades sitting at that interface. Appointed BBC Business Editor in 2016, he leads the corporation’s coverage of business, markets and economic policy across television, radio and digital platforms (a role previously held by Robert Peston). Before entering journalism, he spent a decade in corporate and investment banking in London, New York and Bermuda, building a working understanding of how financial institutions operate, how risk is managed, and how decisions are made under pressure that journalists who came up through newsrooms simply do not have. The dual experience of practitioner then investigator, gives Jack a particular kind of credibility. He has reported from inside major market events, including the 2008 financial crisis across Lehman Brothers, the AIG bailout and the HBOS collapse. He co-presents Good Bad Billionaire for BBC World Service, which won Best Business Podcast at the 2024 British Podcast Awards, demonstrating an ability to make the economics and ethics of extreme wealth engaging for audiences well beyond the specialist. He also presented the BBC Panorama film «A Suicide in the Family» – a personal and investigative piece on male suicide – which established him as a credible voice on mental health in a way that is unusual for a business journalist of his seniority. His value to organisations is not analysis from a distance. It is the perspective of someone who has been inside the financial system, run editorial coverage of it, and understands how the story between those two worlds gets told. Key speaking topics Global financial markets and economic developments Banking, investment banking and institutional risk Media accountability and corporate reputation Business journalism and editorial decision-making Wealth, power and business ethics Male mental health in professional contexts Ideal for Financial services, banking and insurance sector conferences seeking credible external perspective on market dynamics and media coverage Senior leadership and board-level events where understanding the media-corporate interface is strategically relevant Corporate communications, investor relations and policy teams navigating how economic narratives are formed Organisations seeking a facilitator or moderator with genuine financial literacy and broadcast authority Audience outcomes A clearer understanding of how major financial and economic events are selected, shaped and communicated by national media, and what that means for organisational decision-making Insight into the practical gap between financial reality and public narrative, drawn from experience on both sides Greater literacy in reading market events and economic signals, without requiring specialist background A more grounded perspective on how corporate institutions appear under editorial scrutiny, and what factors shape that For events that include the mental health strand: a serious, personally grounded framing of male wellbeing in high-pressure professional environments

Why organisations work with Ronan Harrington He has built and tested the Resilient Performance Method directly with Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG, so the model arrives in the room already pressure-tested by the firms that advise on the same problems. His foresight background at the UK Foreign Office gives leaders a credible reading of why the operating environment has changed, before he gets to what to do about it personally and as a team. He is a guest teacher on the KPMG C-Suite Leadership Programme, which makes him a familiar choice for executive development teams looking for a speaker who works alongside their existing leadership curriculum. His chronic illness and political burnout story is verifiable and used as evidence, not as theatre, which lets the resilience argument land with senior audiences who are usually allergic to motivational content. Buyers report a practical takeaway: leaders leave with a small set of decisions about how they spend energy, attention and team time, rather than a generic call to look after themselves. Biography highlights Former Futurist to the UK Foreign Office, authoring a long-range outlook on the world of 2030 and advising senior officials on geopolitical risk. Creator of the Resilient Performance Method, developed with Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG. Guest teacher on the KPMG C-Suite Leadership Programme and at Oxford University. Founder of Alter Ego, a global network of progressive leaders. Former strategic lead at RethinkX, leading narrative work on the “Rethinking Humanity” report. LinkedIn Top Voice on Public Speaking and Top 5 Best Storyteller at the 2023 Speaker Awards. Biography Most resilience content sounds the same once a senior audience has heard it twice. Harrington is interesting because his track record is in foresight, not in sport psychology, and the model he teaches was built with the firms that advise the same boards he now speaks to. He worked as a Futurist at the UK Foreign Office, advising on geopolitical risk and authoring a long-range outlook on the world of 2030. The brief gave him a structural view of why the operating environment has shifted from cyclical pressure to permanent volatility, which is the frame he now brings to executive audiences. The Resilient Performance Method was developed with Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG, and Harrington is a guest teacher on the KPMG C-Suite Leadership Programme. The method covers how senior leaders allocate energy, attention and team capacity through restructure, AI rollouts and prolonged uncertainty. It is taught as practice, not as inspiration. The personal story is load-bearing rather than decorative. After a period operating at national political level he was diagnosed with a lifetime chronic pain condition, and seven years of managing that condition is what gives his content on energy, recovery and pace its specificity. Clients including L’Oreal, Siemens Energy, Sky, Aviva, IHG, TUI, Sage, Kimberly-Clark, A&O Shearman, DLA Piper, the UK Treasury and Oxford University use him as the speaker who makes the resilience conversation operational at executive level. Key speaking topics Resilient high performance under sustained pressure Leadership through restructuring and prolonged uncertainty Burnout prevention in senior teams Human-first leadership in the AI transition Psychological safety and candour at executive level Energy and attention management for leaders Mental health and recovery for senior professionals Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership offsites where the agenda is performance, not wellbeing as a side topic. Partner and director audiences in professional services facing prolonged client and restructuring pressure. Heads of executive development and leadership programmes building resilience modules into senior curricula. Transformation and change leads running multi-year AI or restructuring programmes that are fatiguing leadership populations. Audience outcomes A working definition of resilient performance that goes beyond personal wellbeing into team-level decisions. A specific read on which signals of burnout to act on early in a senior population. Practical decisions about how leaders allocate energy, attention and team time during sustained pressure. A reframe of human capability under AI-driven change, focused on judgement, candour and recovery rather than tooling. A vocabulary leadership teams can carry into their own meetings about pace, candour and what they will stop doing.

Why organisations work with Robert Holden His Be Happy programme is one of the few wellbeing interventions to have been independently tested by academic scientists on national television, giving HR and culture leaders a credible, evidence-grounded answer to the “is any of this real” question from finance and the board. Twenty years of corporate work with Dove on the Real Beauty Campaign and Unilever on brand purpose across 400 brands means he speaks to wellbeing and purpose as commercial, not pastoral, conversations. Success Intelligence reframes high performance for senior teams who have hit their targets and are quietly running on empty, an audience that generic resilience speakers do not credibly reach. A back catalogue of 14 books with Hay House and Penguin Random House, two BBC documentaries, two TEDx talks and a long Oprah association gives him cultural recognition that lifts an internal event out of a routine wellness slot. Biography highlights Ph.D. in psychology and spirituality; founder of The Happiness Project (1994), originally NHS-sponsored. Subject of two BBC documentaries, The Happiness Formula and How to Be Happy, shown in 20 countries to more than 30 million viewers. Be Happy programme was independently tested by Professor Michael Argyle (Oxford) and Professor Richard Davidson (University of Wisconsin-Madison) for the BBC QED science strand. Appointed team coach to the leaders of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign in 2005; later led brand-purpose work with Unilever across its 400 brands. New York Times bestselling author of 14 books, including Happiness NOW!, Authentic Success, Loveability, Life Loves You (with Louise Hay) and Higher Purpose. Two TEDx talks (Destination Addiction, The Tea Meditation); featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Good Morning America, and PBS. Biography The Happiness Project began in 1994 as an NHS-sponsored clinic in west London, treating happiness as a clinical question rather than a self-help category. Two years later, the BBC built a QED science documentary around its eight-week programme, with Oxford’s Michael Argyle and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Richard Davidson measuring outcomes. The documentary reached more than 30 million viewers in 20 countries and gave Robert Holden a platform other wellbeing voices have struggled to match. From that base, Holden built Success Intelligence, a consulting practice working with senior teams on the version of high performance that does not quietly burn people out. In 2005 he was appointed team coach to the leaders of the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, and the brand-purpose work that followed extended into Unilever’s broader portfolio. His books, fourteen of them across Hay House and Penguin Random House, sit on the same line of inquiry: Happiness NOW!, Authentic Success, Loveability, Life Loves You with Louise Hay, and Higher Purpose. Two TEDx talks and a long association with Oprah have kept the audience wide. What organisations get from Holden is a serious, non-corporate voice on questions HR and senior teams now have to answer in commercial language: why people commit, what purpose actually means inside a P&L, and why happiness, properly defined, is closer to a leadership variable than a benefit. Key speaking topics Happiness and wellbeing at work Success Intelligence and authentic success Purpose-led leadership and brand purpose Resilience and burnout in senior teams Creative thinking through change Coaching and personal development Mental health and positive psychology Ideal for CHROs and heads of culture rebuilding wellbeing strategies that have to land with finance and the board. Senior leadership offsites where high-performing teams are quietly fatigued and need a different framing of success. Brand and marketing leadership working through purpose, authenticity and customer trust. Conferences on the future of work, employee engagement, and mental health in the workplace. Audience outcomes A clearer, evidence-backed view of what happiness at work actually is, and what it is not. Language to talk about wellbeing and purpose with commercial credibility, not pastoral softness. Practical inquiries from Success Intelligence that senior leaders can apply to their own working patterns. A sharper account of why purpose work succeeds inside some organisations and fails inside others. Permission, particularly for senior audiences, to take the question of meaning at work seriously.