Motivational speakers

Why organisations work with Greg Rutherford He is one of only five athletes in history to hold Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles in the same event at once, which gives a keynote or event a level of sporting authority most bureaus cannot supply He hosts and moderates at broadcast standard, with live experience covering Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 for Eurosport and co-hosting World Athletics’ daily podcast, which makes him a credible choice for award nights, conference plenaries and panel chairs His career arc covers a documented public injury history, a planned exit from elite sport, and a deliberate reinvention into broadcasting and entertainment, which gives substance to a talk on managing setback and second careers rather than generic adversity copy He carries mainstream cultural reach from Celebrity MasterChef, Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing on Ice, which lifts attendance and social engagement for client and consumer-facing events Biography highlights Olympic long jump gold medallist, London 2012, with a winning jump of 8.31m, the first British long jump Olympic title since 1964 World Athletics Champion 2015, Commonwealth Champion 2014, European Champion 2014 and 2016, Olympic bronze 2016 British outdoor long jump record holder at 8.51m MBE for services to athletics (2013); European Athletics Lifetime Achievement Award (2018) Eurosport and Discovery+ athletics analyst, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympic coverage; co-host of “The Breakdown” with Orla Chennaoui Celebrity MasterChef winner 2019; Dancing on Ice 2024 finalist; competed on the British Bobsleigh World Cup circuit in 2023 Biography Long jump is a sport with a thin margin. A foul board, a tailwind, a hamstring, and a championship is gone. In 2012 Rutherford produced 8.31m in front of 80,000 people in the Olympic Stadium and ended a 48 year wait for British long jump gold. Three years later he completed a set only four other athletes in history have managed, holding Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles in the same event, with the Diamond League crown added on top. What sits behind those results is a long career of injuries, near misses and rebuilds. Rutherford’s public record is unusually honest about the cost of staying at the top of an event for a decade, which is why his material on pressure, recovery and reinvention reads as lived rather than performed. Since retiring he has built a working second career in broadcast. He covered Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 for Eurosport and Discovery+, co-hosts World Athletics’ official podcast with Orla Chennaoui, won Celebrity MasterChef in 2019, reached the Dancing on Ice final in 2024, and competed for British Bobsleigh on the World Cup circuit. The through line is a working knowledge of what it takes to perform on a deadline in front of an audience, which is the basis of his value to corporate clients as a keynote, host or moderator. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Resilience and recovery from setback Reinvention and second careers Goal setting and sustained focus High-performance mindset Olympic and elite sport storytelling Ideal for Annual conferences and kick-offs needing a high-credibility motivational keynote Awards nights, gala dinners and brand events needing a broadcast-quality host or MC Sales and commercial teams under stretch targets Wellbeing, leadership and learning events for senior managers and high-potential talent Audience outcomes A felt sense of how elite performers prepare for moments where there is no second chance Practical language for managing setback, injury or career disruption without losing competitive edge A clearer view of how sustained top-end performance is built across years, not single seasons A memorable event anchor, with stories and footage from Olympic competition that audiences talk about afterwards

Why organisations work with Guillaume Nery He has held four constant weight freediving world records and won the AIDA individual world title in 2011, so the performance authority is earned in a discipline where a lapse in attention has physical consequences. His material on breath work is specific and practical, not metaphorical: audiences leave with techniques he uses himself before a dive to -125 metres. He speaks from the full arc of elite performance, including a career-ending accident in 2015 that forced a public reinvention as a filmmaker and storyteller. His underwater films with Julie Gautier, including Free Fall and One Breath Around the World, have reached tens of millions of viewers and give his talks a visual language most sport speakers do not have. He is a TED main-stage speaker, which most corporate audiences recognise as a filter for delivery quality before the first slide. Biography highlights Four-time AIDA constant weight world record holder, with a personal best of -126m set in Cyprus in 2015. AIDA Individual World Champion, Kalamata, 2011, with a -117m dive. AIDA Team World Champion with the French national freediving team. TED main-stage speaker, “The exhilarating peace of freediving”, 2015. Co-director, with Julie Gautier, of Free Fall, Narcose and One Breath Around the World. Profiled by National Geographic, CNN and South China Morning Post Style. Biography A freediver on a single breath has no second chance to reset. The dive is planned on the surface, executed in silence, and any break in focus on the way down or up carries a real physical cost. Guillaume Nery spent more than a decade operating in that environment at world-championship level. He set his first constant weight world record at 19 and went on to break it three more times, reaching a personal best of -126m in Cyprus. In 2011, in Kalamata, he won the AIDA individual world title on a -117m dive. With the French national team, he added a team world championship. The ending was not clean. At the 2015 world championships in Cyprus the dive line was mis-set, sending him to -139m instead of the planned -129m. He blacked out near the surface, suffered a lung barotrauma and retired from competition. That break point is now part of the talk, not a footnote to it. Since retiring he has worked as a filmmaker with Julie Gautier, producing Free Fall at Dean’s Blue Hole, Narcose and One Breath Around the World. His TED talk on freediving has reached a wide corporate audience. The material he brings to a keynote is grounded in what he actually does before a deep dive: breath work, attention control, and the discipline of staying calm when the margin for error is small. Key speaking topics Breath work and physiological self-regulation Performance under extreme pressure Attention and composure in high-stakes moments Recovery and reinvention after a career-defining setback Elite sport psychology applied to business Visual storytelling and ocean exploration Ideal for Leadership offsites focused on composure and decision quality under pressure Wellbeing, resilience and peak-performance programmes for senior teams Sales, trading and operations groups whose work involves sustained concentration in high-stakes windows Conference main-stage slots that need a visually strong, narrative keynote Audience outcomes A working understanding of how breath directly changes physiological and cognitive state. Specific techniques the speaker uses himself to prepare for extreme performance, translated to a meeting-room context. A reframed view of setbacks, drawn from a public career-ending accident and the reinvention that followed. A visual reference point, from the underwater films, that audiences remember and repeat.

Why organisations work with Hamda Al Qubaisi She is a working case study, not a retired one. She is still competing at the front of an international single-seater field, which gives her perspective on inclusion the credibility of present tense rather than retrospect. The credential is specific and verifiable: first woman to podium in Italian F4, third in the inaugural F1 Academy championship with MP Motorsport, Red Bull Academy programme driver. Audiences can place her without an introduction. She speaks from inside the Gulf, not about it. For organisations operating in the Middle East, or building gender strategies that have to work in the region, that vantage point is unusual on the international circuit. Her message is operational, not motivational. She addresses what funding, family backing, and team-level decisions actually made the difference, which is closer to what HR and DEI leads need than a generic empowerment talk. Biography highlights Member of the Red Bull Academy Programme, representing Red Bull Racing in the 2024 F1 Academy season. Drove for MP Motorsport in the inaugural 2023 F1 Academy season, finishing third in the championship with four wins and seven podiums. First woman to score a podium in Italian F4, at Misano in 2021. First Emirati driver invited to the FIA CIK-FIA Karting Academy Trophy, in 2016. Featured by Nasdaq, Formula 1, Arab News, Goodwood, and Entrepreneur Middle East on women in motorsport and STEM. Ambassador for Abu Dhabi-based Yas Heat Racing; signed with AKCEL GP x PHM Racing for the 2025 F4 Middle East Championship. Biography Single-seater motorsport is one of the most consistently male environments in elite sport. The path through karting, regional Formula 4, and feeder series rewards drivers who have been visible to teams from childhood, which historically has not included girls from the Gulf. The arrival of a competitive Emirati woman in that pipeline is not a soft story about representation. It is a structural anomaly worth understanding. Hamda Al Qubaisi entered Italian F4 in 2019 and in 2021 became the first woman to podium in the championship’s history, at Misano. She won three races on home soil in the F4 UAE series and built the record that earned her a seat with MP Motorsport for the inaugural F1 Academy season in 2023, where she finished third overall with four race wins and seven podiums. The Red Bull Academy Programme signed her for 2024, putting her on the Red Bull Racing development pathway and giving her a commercial platform that few drivers, male or female, reach in their early twenties. She closed her two-year F1 Academy stint with two podiums in the final three races at Yas Marina, in front of a home crowd. What makes her useful in a corporate setting is the specificity of her account. She has spoken publicly, including at Nasdaq MarketSite, about how partnerships, family backing, and access to machinery decide who actually makes it through, rather than the abstract language of empowerment. For audiences in the Gulf, or for organisations whose inclusion work has to function in that region, she offers a first-person view from inside the pipeline that is still being built. Key speaking topics Women in male-coded high-performance environments Diversity and inclusion in motorsport and STEM Emirati and Gulf perspectives on women in sport Resilience and pressure management in elite competition Sponsorship, partnerships, and access in early careers Sustainable technology and the future of motorsport Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads designing inclusion programmes for technical, engineering, or operational workforces Organisations with a Gulf footprint building gender strategies that have to function regionally Corporate sponsorship, partnership, and brand teams in motorsport, automotive, and STEM Women’s leadership networks and graduate audiences in engineering and high-performance disciplines Audience outcomes A first-person view of what it takes for a woman to enter and hold a place in a male-coded technical field A clearer read on the Gulf context for women in sport, STEM, and competitive performance Specific examples of how sponsorship, family backing, and team decisions shape who progresses A working case for inclusion grounded in present-tense competition, not retrospective career story Honest framing of the pressure, scrutiny, and trade-offs that come with being the first or only in a room

Why organisations work with Harvey Goldsmith He has produced two of the largest broadcast events in history, Live Aid in 1985 and Live 8 in 2005, and can speak first-hand to how they were assembled, funded and delivered. He built the UK’s leading concert promotion business from a student club in Brighton to a company working with most of the major global artists of the past five decades. He continues to start and chair new ventures, including the British Music Experience museum, the OnBlackheath Festival and Hans Zimmer’s first live concert tour, so the material is current rather than retrospective. His CBE, Music Industry Trust Award and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres are recognition from named bodies that he treats live performance as a serious commercial and cultural discipline. Biography highlights CBE for services to the entertainment industry, 1996 Queen’s Birthday Honours List. Co-organiser of Live Aid (1985) with Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, raising approximately £140 million. Worldwide producer of Live 8 (2005), with 225 artists across multiple international locations. Producer of the Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2 Arena (2007) in tribute to Ahmet Ertegun. Chairman of the British Music Experience, the UK’s museum of popular music. Music Industry Trust Award (2006); Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2006); Freedom of the City of London (2011). Biography Live Aid was assembled in roughly ten weeks. Two stadiums, a global satellite broadcast and an artist roster that had never been gathered before, with no precedent for the funding model, the rights model or the production model. The producer who solved those problems alongside Bob Geldof was Harvey Goldsmith. That work is the most visible expression of a longer story. Goldsmith began promoting concerts as a pharmacy student in Brighton in the 1960s, founded Artiste Management Productions in 1973 and Harvey Goldsmith Entertainments in 1976, and built the leading UK concert promotion business of the era. Across that period he worked with the artists who defined modern live music, including Bruce Springsteen, Queen, The Who, Paul McCartney and Luciano Pavarotti. The pattern of the work is entrepreneurial rather than custodial. Live 8 in 2005 used the Live Aid model and rebuilt it for a different media environment. The Led Zeppelin reunion at the O2 in 2007 was a single-night production at the scale of a tour. He produced Hans Zimmer’s first live concerts in 2014 and turned them into a European touring property, and he founded the OnBlackheath Festival the same year. He continues to chair the British Music Experience and to invest in and advise newer ventures across experiential marketing and immersive entertainment. The CBE, the Music Industry Trust Award and the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres are the formal markers. The substantive credential is a sixty-year track record of starting things, financing them, and getting them on stage on the date promised. Key speaking topics Live event production at global scale Entrepreneurship across long careers Building creative businesses The economics of live music and broadcast Leadership under hard deadlines Charitable and philanthropic event delivery Ideal for CEOs and founders responsible for ventures with fixed launch dates Marketing and brand leaders building experiential platforms Boards and investors evaluating creative and entertainment businesses Audiences in the events, media, music and live entertainment industries Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how Live Aid and Live 8 were actually built, financed and delivered. A working view of how an entrepreneur sustains a creative business across five decades and multiple media cycles. Specific lessons in negotiating with talent, broadcasters and sponsors when the date will not move. A grounded perspective on what philanthropy looks like when it has to clear its costs and reach an audience.

Why organisations work with Heather J. Crider Pairs neuroscience-based performance content with live percussion through her Everyday Rockstar collaboration with drummer Mark Schulman, a format conference programmers book specifically to reset audience energy in long event agendas. Uses the Impact Index, a proprietary assessment she co-created with Schulman, to give teams a measurable read on how they show up for colleagues and clients, so the keynote leaves a tool behind rather than only a feeling. Translates research on stress, attention, and recovery into short-form micro-practices that fit inside an executive day, designed for audiences who have already been through the standard wellness curriculum. Brings 15 years of conference keynoting and a working podcast platform, Go Reflect Yourself, to her sessions, so delivery quality is a known quantity for nervous programme leads. Wrote the 2024 book Believe In Yourself More Than Your Grandma, which gives audiences a take-home extension of the keynote material and a credible authorial anchor. Biography highlights Author, Believe In Yourself More Than Your Grandma: Unleash Your Superpower Through Simple Neuroscience, 2024. Co-founder of Everyday Rockstar with Mark Schulman, drummer for P!nk and Billy Idol. Co-creator of the Impact Index, a validated assessment of how individuals show up for others. Host of the Go Reflect Yourself Podcast. Headline keynote at Anthology Together 2024 and the 2025 CPI Certified Instructors’ Conference. Featured in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Brainz Magazine, and Thrive Global. Biography The standard playbook for workforce wellbeing has run its course. Steps challenges, mindfulness apps, and resilience workshops have not stopped the climb in burnout and disengagement. Heather J. Crider’s work begins from that observation. She designs brain-based protocols for leaders and teams who already know they are tired and want a method, not another inspirational reset. The signature format pairs her neuroperformance keynote with Mark Schulman, the drummer behind P!nk and Billy Idol. Together they co-founded Everyday Rockstar and co-created the Impact Index, an assessment that gives audiences a measurable read on how they affect the people around them. The combination, live percussion and applied neuroscience, is the reason conference programmers book the duo to reset energy across full agendas. Crider’s individual practice sits inside this broader system. She published Believe In Yourself More Than Your Grandma: Unleash Your Superpower Through Simple Neuroscience in 2024, hosts the Go Reflect Yourself Podcast, and works through coaching programmes informed by neuroscience research. She has been featured in Forbes, Yahoo Finance, Brainz Magazine, and Thrive Global, and headlined Anthology Together 2024 alongside Schulman to address EdTech leadership audiences on bold action under pressure. The argument she makes to senior buyers is straightforward. If workforces are tired, the intervention has to change the underlying inputs to attention, recovery, and emotional regulation, not the surface activity. Her keynotes give executive audiences a small set of brain-aware practices, paired with an assessment that lets a team see, in numbers, whether anything has shifted afterwards. Key speaking topics Neuroperformance and burnout prevention Resilience and stress management for senior teams Emotional intelligence and self-regulation under pressure Confidence and team engagement Music and neuroscience as a performance pairing Peak performance habits Ideal for CHROs and heads of learning addressing burnout and engagement in fatigued teams Conference programmers seeking a high-energy keynote that delivers an applied tool, not only a mood lift Executive leadership offsites focused on resilience, focus, and recovery Sales and customer-facing teams under sustained performance pressure Audience outcomes Specific brain-based micro-practices audiences can apply the next working day A measurable read on personal and team impact through the Impact Index Language for talking about burnout and recovery with credibility inside their organisation Renewed energy in the room, anchored in a method rather than novelty

Why organisations work with Heather Moyse She has competed at Olympic level in three sports she did not start as a child, including learning bobsleigh from scratch and winning gold in her first Games. That gives her a credible voice on rapid capability acquisition under high stakes. Her occupational therapy training (Master’s, University of Toronto) gives her a clinical frame for human performance rather than the standard motivational-athlete narrative. She talks about the mechanics of resilience, not the feeling of it. She is the first Canadian woman inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame and one of only two Canadians inducted. The credential is rare enough to anchor a senior audience that has heard many Olympic stories. She has worked with senior corporate audiences including CIBC, BMW, Sun Life Financial, Fidelity Investments, the Royal Canadian Mint, and the Canadian Armed Forces, so the translation from sport to commercial leadership is already calibrated. Biography highlights Two-time Olympic gold medallist in women’s bobsleigh (Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014, pilot Kaillie Humphries). Four-time Olympian. World Rugby Hall of Fame, inducted 2016. First Canadian woman, second Canadian overall. Master’s in Occupational Therapy, University of Toronto. BSc (Honours Kinesiology), University of Waterloo. Author, Redefining ‘Realistic’ (2017), with foreword by John C. Maxwell. Order of Prince Edward Island (2014); inaugural Randy Starkman Olympian Humanitarian Award (2014). Biography Bobsleigh is not a sport you take up casually. Heather Moyse was recruited into the Canadian programme as an adult, learned the discipline from a standing start, and won Olympic gold in Vancouver in 2010 with pilot Kaillie Humphries. Four years later, in Sochi, the same pair defended the title. She is also a World Rugby Hall of Famer, one of two Canadians ever inducted, and competed internationally in track cycling after taking up the sport during a rugby injury recovery. Three sports, all picked up later than the orthodox path allows, all carried to international level. The story is not about innate talent. It is about how a person decides what is realistic. That decision sits at the centre of her work with organisations. Her keynote and coaching content draws on a Master’s in Occupational Therapy from the University of Toronto, which gives her a clinical vocabulary for performance most athletes do not have. She talks about how leaders narrow their own range of options under pressure, how recovery is engineered rather than waited for, and how the gap between current capability and the next required capability is closed in practice. Her book Redefining ‘Realistic’ sets out the argument in long form, with a foreword by John C. Maxwell. The corporate work, with audiences at CIBC, BMW, Sun Life Financial, Fidelity Investments, the Royal Canadian Mint, the Canadian Armed Forces and others, applies it to leaders who are being asked to recalibrate their assumptions about what their teams can do, and how quickly. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under pressure High-performance mindset and recovery Resilience as an operational discipline Goal-setting and capability acquisition Leading through uncertainty and setback Personal accountability and authentic leadership Ideal for Executive leadership teams facing prolonged change or post-restructure recovery Sales and commercial leadership audiences where sustained performance under pressure is the central question Senior women’s leadership programmes and high-potential development cohorts Conferences where the closing keynote needs an authority voice on composure and reinvention Audience outcomes A direct account of how elite performers manage themselves before, during, and after high-stakes moments A working definition of what counts as “realistic” and how that judgment limits or extends what teams attempt Specific tools for breaking large objectives into the next executable step under time pressure A clearer view of how recovery and preparation interact, drawn from Olympic-level practice rather than metaphor

Why organisations work with Heinz-Harald Frentzen Ten seasons in Formula One across Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows give him a first-hand account of how winning operations differ from losing ones at the same level of talent and budget. He finished second in the 1997 Drivers’ Championship and third in 1999 with Jordan, in both cases against better-resourced rivals. The lesson he carries into a room is about execution, not hierarchy. His HHF hybrid racing project, which completed the first fully electric lap of the Nordschleife at the 2008 Nurburgring 24 Hours, gives him a credible voice on sustainable engineering as a performance problem, not a compliance one. He is comfortable in both motivational and technical registers, which is unusual for an ex-driver. Engineering and R&D audiences get substance; commercial audiences get the human story behind it. Biography highlights Formula One driver from 1994 to 2003 for Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows. Runner-up in the 1997 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship with Williams. Three Grand Prix wins: San Marino 1997, French 1999 and Italian 1999. Finished third in the 1999 Drivers’ Championship with Jordan on 54 points, with two wins and six podiums. Conceived and built the HHF hybrid race car, which recorded the first electric lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife during the 2008 24 Hours race. Winner of the ROC Legends Cup at the 2011 Race of Champions; raced in DTM from 2004 to 2006 and competed at the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans with Aston Martin Racing. Biography The 1997 San Marino Grand Prix was Frentzen’s first Formula One victory. It came in his debut season at Williams, against a teammate, Jacques Villeneuve, who would take the title that year. He finished the season second in the championship. It is the decision-making that sits underneath a result like that, not the result itself, that organisations bring him in to talk about. Across a decade in Formula One with Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows, Frentzen operated inside five different team cultures. Some produced wins with fewer resources. Some did not. His vantage point is not the champion’s, which is often misread as pure individual brilliance. It is the vantage point of a driver who watched up close what separates a team that executes from one that does not. His most distinctive post-racing work is the HHF hybrid project. Using a Gumpert Apollo chassis and a battery system he developed himself, he completed the first fully electric lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife at the 2008 24 Hours, co-driving with Dirk Muller. Gearbox failures kept the car out of the classification, but the hybrid powertrain finished the race. It is one of the earlier serious attempts to treat electrification as a performance engineering problem in endurance racing. That combination of cockpit experience and hands-on technical development is what he draws on now. Audiences get a specific account of how sharp teams make sharp decisions under time pressure, and what it takes to keep a programme moving when the technology, the strategy and the people all have to improve at once. Key speaking topics Decision-making under time pressure High-performance team dynamics Leadership lessons from Formula One Sustainable engineering and hybrid technology Resilience and focus in elite performance Risk, trust and communication in high-stakes environments Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and board awaydays focused on performance culture Engineering, R&D and innovation functions in automotive, mobility and advanced manufacturing Sales kick-offs and annual conferences wanting a credible motorsport voice alongside business content After-dinner and gala audiences where racing pedigree adds weight to the evening Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how elite motorsport teams align driver, engineer and strategist in real time A sharper view of what separates teams that execute under pressure from teams that do not Useable lessons on focus, preparation and trust, grounded in named races and named teams A credible perspective on hybrid and electrified engineering as a performance discipline, not a compliance exercise

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 Holly Tucker She built a marketplace that gave more than 5,000 independent businesses a commercial route they could not otherwise access, and can speak directly to what scaled that community and what broke it. Her second act, Holly and Co, is a certified B Corp built around purpose-led small business advice, giving her a live view of what founders are wrestling with now, not a decade ago. As host of Conversations of Inspiration, she has interviewed several hundred founders in long form, which makes her one of the few speakers in the UK with a continuously refreshed sense of what early-stage builders are learning. Her MBE and appointment as a UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador give her credibility on the policy side of small business, not only the operator side. She translates founder thinking into language corporate audiences can use: retail teams, marketing teams and transformation teams leave with a sharper sense of what independent brands do that scale players do not. Biography highlights Co-founder of notonthehighstreet.com (2006), the UK marketplace for independent makers. Founder of Holly and Co (2017), a certified B Corporation supporting small businesses. MBE, 2013, for services to small businesses. UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador for creative small businesses, 2015. Author of Do What You Love, Love What You Do (Virgin Books, 2021), a Sunday Times bestseller; earlier titles with Simon and Schuster. Presenter of ITV’s Be Your Own Boss and host of the Conversations of Inspiration podcast. Biography Notonthehighstreet.com began as a frustration with nowhere to sell handmade Christmas wreaths. Holly Tucker and Sophie Cornish turned that frustration into the UK’s defining marketplace for independent brands, and over thirteen years it gave more than five thousand small businesses a route to customers they would not otherwise have reached. That is the operator credential Tucker brings into a room. Holly and Co, founded in 2017 and a certified B Corporation since 2022, is where the second chapter sits. It is a platform, a shop and an advice engine for independent founders, and it is the evidence base for most of what Tucker says publicly about small business. The weekly Conversations of Inspiration podcast now runs into the hundreds of episodes, which gives her a continuously updated read on what founders are actually doing, not what commentators think they are doing. Her public role has extended beyond business. An MBE in 2013 for services to small businesses, and appointment as a UK Prime Minister’s Business Ambassador in 2015, placed her inside the conversation about how policy shapes independent enterprise. Three books, including Sunday Times bestseller Do What You Love, Love What You Do, turned that experience into written form for founders at earlier stages. Where Tucker is most useful to a corporate audience is on the question larger companies rarely answer well: what exactly do independent brands do that scale players find hard to replicate, and how should a big business think about that when it partners with them, buys from them, or tries to build its own version. She speaks to that from both sides of the relationship. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and the founder mindset Building and scaling marketplaces Independent retail and the creative economy Purpose-led business and B Corp practice Small business advocacy and policy Female founders and enterprise Brand, storytelling and community for consumer businesses Ideal for Retail, consumer and marketplace leadership teams thinking about independent brand partnerships. Marketing and brand leaders who want a grounded view of what small and founder-led brands do that larger ones cannot. Conferences and internal events focused on entrepreneurship, purpose-led growth or the creative economy. Female founder communities and enterprise networks within larger organisations. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what independent founders actually do differently, drawn from a marketplace of more than five thousand small businesses. A practical read on what purpose-led and B Corp businesses look like in operation, not in theory. Fresh founder stories from a podcast library that now spans several hundred interviews. Language for corporate teams to use when they talk about supporting, partnering with or learning from small businesses. A sharper sense of how policy, platform and community interact in the creative economy.

Why organisations work with Ingrid Betancourt Lived authority on operating under conditions no executive training can simulate: six and a half years in captivity, then a return to public life, politics, and scholarship. A first-hand account of how identity, values, and decision-making hold up when external structure is stripped away, told without sentimentality. Credibility across two worlds senior audiences rarely hear combined: frontline political leadership in a fragile democracy and sustained reflection on human dignity from inside a research fellowship at Oxford. The Prince of Asturias Award for Concord and the French Legion of Honour signal an argument about freedom and human rights that serious international audiences already recognise. A voice on resilience that does not traffic in motivational language: the material is concrete, specific, and consequential. Biography highlights Former Colombian senator (1998-2002) and two-time presidential candidate, first in 2002 and again in 2022. Held hostage by FARC for more than six years after her abduction on 23 February 2002; released on 2 July 2008 in Operation Jaque. Laureate of the 2008 Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, awarded by the Princess of Asturias Foundation. Appointed to the French Legion of Honour following her release. Author of Even Silence Has an End (2010), a New York Times bestselling memoir, and The Blue Line (Penguin Press, 2016), a novel set during Argentina’s Dirty War. Research Fellow in Theology at Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford; DPhil in Theology awarded by the University of Oxford in 2023. Biography On 23 February 2002, a presidential candidate walked into FARC-controlled territory in southern Colombia and did not come out for six and a half years. That candidate was Ingrid Betancourt, then a sitting Colombian senator who had built her political career on a direct challenge to institutional corruption. Her release in July 2008, through the Colombian military intelligence operation known as Operation Jaque, returned her to a public life she had to rebuild in full view of an international audience. The 2008 Prince of Asturias Award for Concord and her appointment to the French Legion of Honour recognised not the ordeal, but the argument she had begun to make about democracy, dignity, and the conditions under which human freedom survives. What she has produced since is a body of work that takes that argument seriously. Her memoir Even Silence Has an End became a New York Times bestseller. Her novel The Blue Line, published by Penguin Press, examined political violence in Argentina. In 2023 the University of Oxford awarded her a DPhil in Theology for a thesis on the concept of the non-person in the writings of the liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez, and she now holds a research fellowship at Harris Manchester College. For senior audiences, the relevance is practical. Leadership in normal conditions rewards competence and pattern recognition. Leadership when the structure breaks, when the information is hostile, when the horizon is no longer yours to set, rewards something else: a clear sense of what will not be traded, and the discipline to hold it. That is the ground Betancourt speaks from, and very few working speakers can speak from it with her authority. Key speaking topics Resilience and decision-making under extreme pressure Leadership when institutions and information fail Human dignity and democratic values Ethical conduct in high-stakes environments Freedom, captivity, and the inner life of leaders Political courage and anti-corruption Reconciliation after violent conflict Ideal for Board, CEO, and executive committee offsites focused on resilience and crisis leadership Leadership development programmes addressing judgement under sustained pressure International affairs, human rights, and public policy forums Values-led leadership summits at universities and foundations Audience outcomes A sharper sense of which commitments a leader needs to name before a crisis, not during one A concrete account of what resilience looks like when it is not a slogan A more honest reading of how authority, dignity, and ethical conduct interact when external structure disappears A frame for thinking about freedom and human rights that senior audiences can take into policy and strategy conversations Material for their own reflection on leadership character that does not rely on motivational abstraction

Why organisations work with Irita Marriott A working case study of starting from outside every advantage that business literature assumes, foreign-born, self-funded, self-taught, and still arriving at ownership of a regulated specialist business. Live commercial credibility: she runs an auction house in Melbourne, Derbyshire that trades weekly, not a personal brand built on past achievement. A direct view of how a specialist trade actually works, valuations, vendor relationships, buyer psychology, that translates well into wider commercial conversations about expertise and trust. One of a small number of women who own and run an auction house in the UK, which gives her observations on under-represented leadership a concrete operational base, not a panel-circuit one. An unusual combination for an after-dinner or inspirational slot: a recognisable BBC television face who is also the principal of an active SME. Biography highlights Expert on BBC One’s Antiques Road Trip, Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and Bargain Hunt. Expert on Channel 4’s The Greatest Auction. Presenter of The Derbyshire Auction House on Really TV. Founder and principal of Irita Marriott Auctioneers and Valuers Ltd, Melbourne, Derbyshire (opened 2023). Seven years as salesroom assistant, cataloguer and valuer at a Derbyshire auction house before launching her own business. Self-taught in the antiques trade after arriving in the UK aged 20 from Latvia, via the United States. Biography Most successful entrepreneurs in British specialist trades inherit a network, a name, or both. Irita Marriott inherited neither. She arrived in the UK at twenty, having grown up on a self-sufficient farm in Latvia and worked as an au pair in the United States, and started in a Derbyshire garden centre as temporary Christmas staff. The route from there to ownership of a regulated auction house in the same county did not follow any of the standard patterns. The substantive credential is the seven years she spent inside a Derbyshire auction house as a salesroom assistant, then cataloguer, then valuer, while dealing antiques independently at fairs and car boot sales on her own time. That is the period in which the trade was actually learned. The television work began in 2021, when she sent a direct approach to the producers of Antiques Road Trip rather than waiting to be discovered, and she has since become a regular expert on Bargain Hunt, Celebrity Antiques Road Trip and Channel 4’s The Greatest Auction, alongside presenting her own Really TV series, The Derbyshire Auction House. In June 2023 she opened Irita Marriott Auctioneers and Valuers Ltd in Melbourne, Derbyshire, making her one of a small handful of women in the UK to own and run an auction house. The business runs regular sales, free public valuations and a working catalogue, which is a meaningful operational footprint rather than a personal brand exercise. For organisations, the value of her perspective is the texture of how a specialist business is actually built and run by someone who started without the conventional advantages. She is most useful to audiences who want to hear how confidence, credibility and clientele are constructed in practice, in a trade where reputation is the asset, by a principal who is still doing the work. Key speaking topics Building a specialist business from outside the industry Female ownership in male-dominated trades Reinvention across countries and careers Self-taught expertise and credibility The antiques and auction trade Combining a working business with a media profile Ideal for Founders, owner-managers and SME leadership audiences Women’s leadership networks and ERGs in commercial organisations Conferences on entrepreneurship, reinvention and career change After-dinner and awards audiences who want a substantive business story rather than a celebrity name Audience outcomes A grounded sense of what it actually takes to build a specialist business when starting without contacts, capital or industry training. A practical view of how reputation is constructed in a trust-driven trade. A direct example of how a public profile and an operating business can reinforce each other rather than compete. A perspective on under-represented leadership rooted in ownership rather than commentary.

Why organisations work with Isaac Kenyon He carries three credentials in one room: working energy-transition geoscientist, trustee of Mind, and record-setting endurance athlete. That triangulation lets him speak to wellbeing, sustainability and performance without losing the audience on any of them. His lived mental health story is paired with a formal governance role at a national mental health charity, which raises the credibility floor for sessions on burnout and men’s mental health well above the standard adventurer-speaker offer. The Climate Explorers CIC platform gives him a real operating context for sustainability content. He is talking about ESG and nature-based solutions as a founder running campaigns, not as a commentator. Kenyon’s expedition material (Atlantic row, waterbike crossing, weighted Ironman) is used as evidence for specific arguments about teaming, recovery and decision-making, rather than as standalone motivation. Biography highlights Co-founder of Climate Explorers CIC, a community interest company campaigning on nature-based climate solutions. Trustee of Mind in Mid Herts, the regional arm of national mental health charity Mind. BSc (Hons) Geology and MSc Geoscience, Royal Holloway, University of London; works as an energy transition geoscientist. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Geological Society of London, and member of the Scientific Exploration Society. Completed the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge in 40 days, finishing sixth in 2019. World-record London Marathon run in a brain costume, raising funds and awareness for men’s mental health. Biography Most workforces are not short of wellbeing content. They are short of credible voices who can connect resilience, purpose and sustainability without sliding into slogans. That is the gap Isaac Kenyon fills, with a portfolio that holds together because every claim is backed by a role he actually performs. He is a working energy-transition geoscientist trained at Royal Holloway, University of London, with a BSc in Geology and an MSc in Geoscience. He co-founded Climate Explorers CIC, a community interest company that builds campaigns around nature-based climate solutions and eco-adventure. The sustainability content in his keynotes is grounded in that operating reality, not in commentary. The wellbeing line is anchored just as concretely. Kenyon is a trustee of Mind in Mid Herts, the regional arm of the national mental health charity, and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Geological Society of London and Scientific Exploration Society. His own experience of burnout sits alongside a governance role at a mental health charity, which is what raises the credibility floor on his men’s mental health and resilience material. The expeditions are where the arguments land. A 40-day row across the Atlantic, finishing sixth in the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge. A London Marathon was completed in a brain costume to set a record for men’s mental health. A waterbike crossing of the UK from Orkney to the Isles of Scilly. Kenyon uses each one to make a specific point about decision-making under fatigue, team behaviour at the limit, and what sustainable performance actually costs. Key speaking topics Resilience and burnout recovery Sustainable high performance Mental health and men’s wellbeing Climate action and nature-based sustainability Purpose-driven culture Team performance under pressure Energy transition and ESG storytelling Ideal for CHROs, heads of people and wellbeing leads dealing with workforce burnout and engagement. ESG, sustainability and corporate responsibility teams are looking for a credible voice that links climate to culture. Leadership offsites and conferences where resilience and purpose need to land in the same session. Organisations running men’s mental health, Mental Health Awareness Week or sustainability campaigns that need a named, accredited voice. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how burnout shows up in teams and what leaders can actually do about it. A working language for talking about sustainability and wellbeing as a single agenda, not two parallel ones. Specific decision-making lessons drawn from extreme endurance contexts and applied to workplace pressure. Practical entry points for men’s mental health conversations that often stall in corporate settings. A reframing of purpose that connects individual resilience with organisational and environmental responsibility.