Motivation and Inspiration

Why organisations work with Dame Kelly Holmes A first-hand account of competing, and winning, at the highest level while concealing identity for fear of personal and professional consequence, a story directly relevant to inclusion, wellbeing, and retention agendas. Operational credibility on mental health: trained Mental Health First Aider and Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, not a generic wellness presence. A track record of building a durable institution beyond sport. The Dame Kelly Holmes Trust has paired retired elite athletes with disadvantaged young people since 2008, giving her practical, not theoretical, content on mentoring and transition. Cross-format flexibility for major corporate moments: keynote, after-dinner, awards host, panel chair, in-conversation interviewee, television-grade on stage. Biography highlights Won 800m and 1500m gold at Athens 2004; first British woman to win two golds at the same Olympic Games. Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005; MBE in 1998 for service in the British Army. Served almost a decade in the British Army, including as an HGV driver and Physical Training Instructor, before turning fully professional in athletics. Founded the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust in 2008, mentoring disadvantaged young people through retired elite athletes. Author of “Unique: A Memoir” (2023), shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2024. Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (2024) and a trained Mental Health First Aider. Biography Winning two Olympic gold medals in the same week, at 34, is rare. Doing it while hiding a private fear that began in the British Army, where being gay was illegal until 2000, is the part of the story that matters most to organisations now. That is the spine of Holmes’s public work today. Her sporting record is well documented. Athens 2004, 800m then 1500m, made her the first British woman to win two golds at a single Games and the oldest woman to win either distance at the Olympics. The MBE in 1998 recognised her army service. The Damehood followed in 2005. The substance of her speaking comes from what happened next. In 2008, she founded the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, an institution that pairs retired elite athletes with disadvantaged young people, now nearly two decades old. She trained as a Mental Health First Aider and was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2024, anchoring her wellbeing work in something more rigorous than personal testimony. In June 2022, she came out publicly through an ITV documentary, “Kelly Holmes: Being Me”, and a year later published “Unique: A Memoir”, shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2024. The book traces 34 years of concealment, including standing on the Athens podium in fear of being outed. For a corporate audience it is unusually specific evidence of what hidden identity costs a high performer, and how that cost compounds under pressure. Key speaking topics Mental health and wellbeing in high-performance environments Resilience and performance under pressure Identity, belonging, and the cost of concealment at work Mentoring and the transition out of elite careers Inclusion and LGBTQ+ visibility in regulated and uniformed settings Goal-setting and sustained motivation across long careers Ideal for HR, CPO, and CHRO audiences responsible for wellbeing, mental health, and inclusion programming Leadership conferences where peak performance and personal resilience are central themes DEI and ERG events, particularly around LGBTQ+ inclusion in regulated, military, or traditional sectors Awards dinners, anniversary moments, and major town halls requiring a recognisable keynote presence with substantive content Audience outcomes A direct, named example of what concealing identity costs senior performers over a career Practical language for talking about mental health at work without slipping into wellness cliche A clear account of how mentoring, structured rather than informal, changes outcomes for young people and post-career athletes An honest read on how high performers actually manage pressure, injury, and self-doubt over time

Why organisations work with Katie Derham Fifteen years anchoring national news at the BBC and ITV News, where she covered general elections, royal weddings and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That live-broadcast discipline is what shows up on stage when a panel goes off script. A working economics background. She read Economics at Cambridge and started at BBC Radio 4’s Money Box, which is why finance and business clients book her over generalist presenters. A serious arts and culture credential. Face of the BBC Proms on television since 2010 and presenter of Radio 3’s In Tune, with the cultural literacy that comes with both. Author of The Classical Music Book for DK’s Big Ideas Simply Explained series, and a 2017 judge on the Women’s Prize for Fiction. The reading and editorial work behind those credits informs the way she prepares and questions. A name that travels. Strictly Come Dancing finalist, Classical Brit Awards host, household-recognisable, which matters when the brief is a high-profile awards ceremony or televised gala. Biography highlights Presenter, BBC Proms television coverage on BBC One and BBC Two since 2010. Presenter, In Tune on BBC Radio 3. Former Media and Arts Editor and lead newscaster, ITV News (1998 onwards), the youngest ITN newsreader since the broadcaster’s launch in 1955. Host of the Classical Brit Awards at the Royal Albert Hall. Author, The Classical Music Book, DK Big Ideas Simply Explained series (2018). 2017 judge, Women’s Prize for Fiction. Strictly Come Dancing 2015 finalist (fourth place, partnered with Anton Du Beke). Patron of Eastside Educational Trust and ambassador of the Ashdown Forest Foundation. Biography The hardest part of any conference is not the keynote. It is the connective tissue: the on-stage interview that has to draw something new out of a CEO, the panel that has to land in 40 minutes, the awards ceremony that has to keep a room of 800 people on side from cocktails to the final trophy. That work belongs to the host. Katie Derham came to that work through 15 years of national news. She joined ITN in 1998 as Media and Arts Editor for ITV News and, at 27, became the youngest national newscaster the broadcaster had appointed since its founding in 1955. The roster from those years includes general elections, royal weddings, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is the schooling that produces a host who can hold a stage when the autocue fails. Her second act has been arts broadcasting at scale. She has presented BBC Proms television coverage from the Royal Albert Hall every season since 2010, fronts In Tune on BBC Radio 3, and authored The Classical Music Book in DK’s Big Ideas Simply Explained series. She has hosted the Classical Brit Awards and judged the 2017 Women’s Prize for Fiction. The economics is what differentiates her commercially. She read Economics at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and started her career as a BBC Radio 4 Money Box researcher, which is why finance, business and brand clients book her over presenters who have only ever covered culture. That dual fluency, business credibility and arts authority, is the reason serious organisations put her in front of their leadership team. Key speaking topics Conference and event hosting On-stage CEO and leadership interviews Awards ceremony presenting Panel moderation Classical music and the arts Broadcast journalism and live media Women in broadcasting and media careers Ideal for CEOs and chairs who want their on-stage interviewer to do the briefing properly and ask the next question. Comms and brand teams running flagship customer events, awards ceremonies, or televised galas. Investor days, AGMs and finance sector conferences that need an economically literate host, not a generalist presenter. Cultural institutions, philanthropic galas and arts boards programming high-profile public events. Audience outcomes A room that stays with the agenda from the opening session through the closing remarks. Sharper, more candid contributions from senior interviewees, because the questions land. Smooth transitions across a complex run-of-show, with live recovery when timings slip. A stage presence the audience remembers and associates with the brand hosting the event.

Why organisations work with Karren Brady She has actually done the job leaders are usually only asked to talk about: turning round a loss-making business, taking it public, and selling it for a reported 82 million pounds. Few speakers can talk credibly about boardroom decision-making, parliamentary scrutiny and front-page media pressure in the same session. She has lived all three at West Ham, in the House of Lords, and through a televised public role. She brings hard-edged commercial honesty to topics that often get softened, including women in leadership, where her position is built on a CBE for services to entrepreneurship and women in business, not slogan. Her profile, sustained through 16 years on The Apprentice and weekly columns in The Sun and Women & Home, makes her one of the few UK business voices a non-business audience already trusts. Biography highlights Appointed Managing Director of Birmingham City Football Club at 23; oversaw the 1997 London Stock Exchange flotation, the youngest MD of a UK plc at the time. Vice-Chair of West Ham United from 2010 to 2026; led the negotiation behind the move to the London Stadium. Conservative life peer; took her seat in the House of Lords as Baroness Brady in November 2014. CBE in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to entrepreneurship and women in business. Lord Sugar’s aide on BBC’s The Apprentice since 2009. Author of Strong Woman: The Truth About Getting to the Top and Playing to Win: 10 Steps to Achieving Your Goals; columnist for The Sun and Women & Home. Biography Birmingham City Football Club was loss-making and barely solvent when Karren Brady was made Managing Director in 1993. She was 23. Four years later, the club was listed on the London Stock Exchange, and she had become the youngest managing director of a UK plc. It was sold in 2009 for a reported 82 million pounds. That trajectory is the foundation of how she talks about leadership. The commercial discipline came first; the public profile came second. By the time she joined West Ham United as Vice-Chair in 2010, she was operating in one of the most politically exposed boardrooms in British sport. She negotiated and defended the club’s move from the Boleyn Ground to the London Stadium, a decision that drew sustained criticism from supporters, parliamentarians and the press, and held the role for 16 years. In 2014 she was made a CBE for services to entrepreneurship and women in business and took her seat in the House of Lords as a Conservative life peer. She had already served as the UK government’s Small Business Ambassador, sat as a non-executive director on the board of Channel 4, and would later chair Taveta Investments, the parent company of the Arcadia Group, before resigning in 2019 over governance concerns. Few UK business voices have operated across that range of corporate, political and public pressure. Her broadcast and editorial presence sharpens the commercial offer rather than dilutes it. She has been Lord Sugar’s aide on The Apprentice since 2009 and writes weekly for The Sun and Women & Home, with two business books behind her, Strong Woman and Playing to Win. Senior teams book her because she has run real organisations through real scrutiny, and she will say what she actually thinks in front of a room. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under public scrutiny Boardroom governance and accountability Women in business and routes to senior leadership Building and selling a business Commercial strategy in highly visible sectors Resilience and reputation in regulated industries Ideal for Boards and executive committees navigating high-visibility decisions or external scrutiny. CEO and senior leadership offsites where the agenda is commercial discipline rather than inspirational content. Conferences on women in leadership, entrepreneurship and governance that want a speaker with named operating credentials. After-dinner, awards and panel formats where a recognised business name with broadcast presence is the brief. Audience outcomes A clearer view of what board-level decision-making actually looks like when stakeholders, media and politics are all in the room. A practical sense of how senior leaders defend commercial decisions publicly without backing away from them. A grounded read on women in senior leadership from someone who has been the only woman on the board, not the panel discussion about it. A sharper instinct for separating reputation management from substance when an organisation is under pressure.

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 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 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 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 Farah Nanji A working framework for high-pressure performance built from a decade inside Formula 1 culture and a decade as the touring artist NINJA, two domains where small lapses are publicly visible. A founder’s view of building a private leadership community, Regents Racing, that uses motorsport psychology as a development tool for executives and members. A rare first-person account of rewiring cognitive function around dyspraxia, delivered as a TEDx keynote at the Luxembourg Philharmonie and translated into practical lessons on neurodivergence at work. A reference network drawn from Mission Makers, the podcast she founded at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which has hosted leaders across music, motorsport and business. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Regents Racing, a private leadership community using motorsport psychology, with roots at Regent’s University London. CEO of The Formula Mind, Regents Racing’s executive-facing subsidiary exploring Formula 1 as a lens for leadership and peak performance. TEDx speaker at TEDxLuxembourgCity, 2019, delivered at the Luxembourg Philharmonie. Producer and host of Mission Makers, a podcast launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Lecturer at Regent’s University London and Point Blank Music School. Performing artist as NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, Goodwood Festival of Speed, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Biography Formula 1 teams treat composure as an engineered system. Sleep, nutrition, debrief routines and pre-race protocols are sequenced so that the driver can make sound decisions when the cost of a wrong one is highest. Regents Racing was built to translate that discipline into a leadership setting, taking senior executives and members through experiences that pressure-test how they prepare, recover and decide. The organisation began in 2011 at Regent’s University London as a community of competitive drivers and has grown into a private network with programming around Formula 1 weekends in Monaco, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the Goodwood Festival of Speed and factory tours. Its executive-facing subsidiary, The Formula Mind, sits closer to senior leadership development. A second strand of the work comes from a personal record. Diagnosed with dyspraxia at 15, Nanji built a parallel career as the touring artist NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Her TEDx talk at the Luxembourg Philharmonie in 2019 set out how she rewired cognitive function around the condition, and that account is now a core part of her keynote work on neurodivergence and resilience. The third strand is Mission Makers, the podcast she launched during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020. The show has interviewed leaders across music, motorsport and business, and it doubles as her research engine: the conversations feed the frameworks she brings into the room when she speaks. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under pressure Formula 1 psychology and peak performance Resilience and self-leadership Neurodivergence and dyspraxia at work High-performance teams Entrepreneurship and founding a community-based business Music, creativity and performance discipline Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes focused on composure and decision-making under pressure Boards and ExCo audiences exploring high-performance culture DEI, talent and HR audiences working on neurodivergence and inclusive performance Conferences seeking a hybrid keynote and live performance from a single artist Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what high-performance preparation, recovery and debrief actually look like in Formula 1, and where the parallels to executive work hold A first-person account of building cognitive routines around dyspraxia, with direct application for neurodivergent talent in the workforce A clearer sense of how leaders sustain composure when the margin for error is thin A founder’s perspective on building a private community business that crosses motorsport, music and leadership

Why organisations work with Dame Evelyn Glennie A first-hand demonstration of how attention works when sound is felt rather than heard, drawn from a 40-year career as the first full-time solo percussionist in musical history. A leadership argument grounded in lived practice: composure, recovery and attention as trainable behaviours, not personality traits. Author of “Listen World!” and Founder of The Evelyn Glennie Foundation, whose mission is to teach the world to listen across business, education, healthcare and the arts. Three GRAMMY recognitions, the Polar Music Prize (2015), the Leonie Sonning Music Prize (2023), Companion of Honour (2017) and DBE; credentials that earn the room before she opens it. Workshop and keynote formats road-tested with corporate teams on internal communication, customer responsiveness and team cohesion. Biography highlights First person in history to build and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. Three-time GRAMMY recipient, including the 1989 award with Sir Georg Solti and Murray Perahia and a 2002 win with Bela Fleck. Companion of Honour (2017), DBE (2007), OBE (1993). First percussionist to receive a DBE. Polar Music Prize laureate, 2015. First percussionist to receive the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, 2023. Chancellor of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen; President of Help Musicians. TED speaker (“How to truly listen”), author of “Listen World!”, and Founder of The Evelyn Glennie Foundation. Biography Most leaders treat listening as a courtesy. For Glennie it is a working method, developed across four decades of performing music she could not hear in the conventional sense. Profoundly deaf from childhood, she trained herself to read vibration through her hands, feet and body, and built a career as the first full-time solo percussionist in musical history. That practice is what corporate audiences engage with. The Royal Academy of Music graduate has performed in more than 60 countries, commissioned over 200 new works, and led 1,000 drummers in the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony directed by Danny Boyle. The technical achievement is unusual. The transferable insight is the discipline behind it: attention as a whole-body act, repeatable under pressure. Her authority on the subject is institutionally backed. Three GRAMMY recognitions, the Polar Music Prize, the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, a Damehood and the Companion of Honour sit alongside the Chancellorship of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and the Presidency of Help Musicians. The book “Listen World!” and The Evelyn Glennie Foundation, established in 2023, take the same argument into schools, hospitals, sport and business. In a leadership keynote she translates this directly. How a team senses what is happening before it can be measured. How a leader steadies a room. How sustained attention, not louder communication, is what shifts behaviour at scale. Key speaking topics Listening as a leadership discipline Attention and presence under pressure Resilience and reinvention after personal shock Communication and team cohesion Inclusive leadership and difference as capability Creativity, craft and sustained excellence Ideal for Boards and executive committees defining their own communication standards CHROs and culture leaders rebuilding internal listening practices Senior leadership offsites focused on composure, attention and decision-making Customer experience and frontline leadership audiences working on responsiveness Audience outcomes A working definition of listening as an active leadership behaviour, not a soft skill A more honest read of how attention is spent in their own meetings and decisions Specific cues from a non-verbal craft they can apply to communication with teams and customers A reframing of personal adversity and reinvention as repeatable practice A clearer view of how presence and composure shape what a team will follow

Why organisations work with Emma Willis Two decades of live presenting across every major UK broadcaster, plus Netflix, develops a capacity to read a room under pressure and adapt in real time that most available hosts simply do not have. That composure is the product. Her six-series run on Big Brother (2013-2018) required managing emotionally unpredictable situations live, on camera, with no preparation time. Her skill set (firm pacing, genuine empathy, zero visible panic) is directly transferable to panel discussions, live Q&As, or award presentations that do not go to plan. The W Channel’s “Delivering Babies,” for which she trained and qualified as a Maternity Care Assistant, won the Broadcast Digital Award for Best Popular Factual for three consecutive years. It is evidence that when she commits to a subject, the result is award-winning rather than merely competent. Her appointment to BBC Radio 2’s Saturday lunchtime slot from January 2026, taking over from Zoe Ball, reflects the institutional trust that comes with consistently delivering at the highest level of British broadcasting, a validation that is straightforward for senior buyers to cite. As a Prince’s Trust ambassador, she brings an existing, public relationship with purpose-driven work to occasions where charitable giving or social commitments are part of the event’s agenda. Biography highlights Broadcast presenter since 2002; major credits across the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Netflix Main host of Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 5 (2013-2018) Presenter of The Voice UK (2014-present), initially BBC One then ITV; also hosted The Voice Kids UK Co-host of Love Is Blind: UK alongside Matt Willis, Netflix (2024) BBC Radio 2 Saturday lunchtime presenter from January 2026 Broadcast Digital Award for Best Popular Factual, three consecutive years (Delivering Babies, W Channel) Prince’s Trust ambassador Former fashion model; campaigns for Gap, Chanel, and Samsung; editorial work for Marie Claire, Elle, and Vogue Biography Live occasions are unforgiving. A host who is technically capable but emotionally disconnected leaves the room cold; one who is warm but underprepared leaves it chaotic. Emma Willis has spent more than two decades navigating both risks: across reality television, talent competitions, factual documentary, entertainment, and radio, formats as different from each other as any two occasions a programme director might need to anchor. Her television career began at MTV in 2002 and expanded through Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother (Channel 5, 2013-2018), The Voice UK (BBC One then ITV, 2014-present), The Circle (Channel 4), and Love Is Blind: UK (Netflix, 2024, with her husband Matt Willis). Each format demanded a different register: firm management of contestants under pressure, warmth with young singers, curiosity about social dynamics, empathy in emotionally complex moments. The consistency across all of them is not a personality trait, it is a professional discipline. In 2019, Willis trained and qualified as a Maternity Care Assistant for the W Channel’s “Delivering Babies” series, working real shifts in a real maternity ward, not observing as a celebrity. The series won the Broadcast Digital Award for Best Popular Factual for three consecutive years. The project illustrated something her broadcast career had long implied: a genuine capacity to be present on the subject’s terms, not her own. From January 2026, she presents BBC Radio 2’s Saturday lunchtime slot, one of the most scrutinised appointments in British broadcasting. She is a Prince’s Trust ambassador. Her early career as a fashion model, with campaigns for Gap, Chanel, and Samsung and editorial work for Marie Claire, Elle, and Vogue gives her a credible platform to speak on fashion, personal style, and media at occasions where those subjects are part of the agenda. Key speaking topics Live broadcast presenting and audience connection Fashion, personal style, and public image Resilience and personal reinvention Authenticity in public and professional life Charitable work and purpose-driven engagement Career development and life transitions Ideal for Awards ceremonies, gala dinners, and internal celebration events Brand launches and consumer-facing occasions Charity fundraisers and purpose-led events Fashion, lifestyle, and consumer industry conferences Audience outcomes An occasion that is paced, emotionally responsive, and memorable rather than merely completed A sense that the room was hosted for the people in it, not managed at them Consistent energy and composure across a full live programme, including unscripted moments Confidence in the platform from the moment the event begins Where relevant, personal insight on resilience, authenticity, and life in the public eye that participants can apply beyond the occasion itself

Why organisations work with Ellie Simmonds She speaks to inclusion from inside the experience, not from a research deck. Teams hear what belonging actually requires, from someone whose career was built in environments that were not designed for her. Her documentary work, including the BAFTA-winning “Finding My Secret Family”, gives her a vocabulary for difficult conversations about disability, identity and adoption that most speakers do not have. She brings elite high-performance credibility alongside the inclusion content. Audiences get eight Paralympic medals and the discipline behind them, without the detachment of a pure sports keynote. She is a working BBC Sport broadcaster, so she handles panels, Q and A and hosting at a professional standard, not as a one-off favour. Biography highlights Five Paralympic gold medals across Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016; eight Paralympic medals in total across four Games Appointed MBE in 2009 aged 14, the youngest recipient of the honour at the time; promoted to OBE in 2013 for services to Paralympic sport BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year, 2008 Subject and presenter of “Ellie Simmonds: Finding My Secret Family” (ITV, 2023), winner of the BAFTA for Single Documentary, 2024 First contestant with dwarfism on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, series 20, 2022 Broadcaster for BBC Sport, including Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and Paris 2024 Paralympics Biography At thirteen, Simmonds was the youngest British athlete at the Beijing 2008 Paralympics and left with two gold medals. The story could have ended as a prodigy footnote. Instead it became the first chapter of a fifteen-year career across four Paralympic Games, eight medals, and a public role that has stretched well beyond the pool. What made her visible beyond sport was the clarity with which she has always spoken about living with achondroplasia. The discipline that produced the medals is the same discipline she brings to conversations about difference, adoption and what inclusion actually asks of institutions. Her 2023 ITV documentary “Finding My Secret Family” followed her search for her birth mother and surfaced the historical attitudes to disability that shaped that adoption. It won the BAFTA for Single Documentary in 2024. She retired from competition after Tokyo 2020 and has built a second career as a broadcaster with BBC Sport, including coverage of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the Paris 2024 Paralympics. She was the first contestant with dwarfism on Strictly Come Dancing in 2022, a piece of visibility she treated with the same seriousness as her racing. For corporate audiences, the value is specific. She offers a first-person account of what inclusion feels like when it works and when it does not, backed by the credibility of an elite career and the communication range of a working broadcaster. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and belonging in the workplace High-performance mindset and sustained excellence Resilience under public scrutiny Adoption, identity and family Representation in sport and media Managing transition out of an elite career Ideal for Chief People Officers and DEI leads building inclusion programmes that need more than policy language Employee resource groups focused on disability, neurodiversity or family and adoption Leadership development audiences looking at performance over a long career Organisations marking International Day of Persons with Disabilities, International Women’s Day or similar moments with substance Audience outcomes A first-person account of what daily inclusion requires, from someone who has navigated it in elite and public settings A clearer sense of how high performance is sustained across a decade and a half, and what falls away when it ends A vocabulary for talking about disability and difference at work without defaulting to either discomfort or platitude Language for leaders on representation that goes beyond visibility metrics