Motivational speakers

Why organisations work with Oli France He brings continuously updated, documented evidence rather than a single career anecdote. The Ultimate Seven Project, currently mid-sequence, gives every keynote a fresh expedition reference point that has happened in the last twelve months. His material is built around named, verifiable terrain, including Iraq’s highest peak, militia-controlled forest in DR Congo, the Aleppo region of Syria, and the 405-mile solo crossing of frozen Lake Baikal hauling a 60kg sledge. The Death Valley to Denali expedition, a 3,588-mile, 64-day journey covered by BBC, The Times and National Geographic, gives the keynote a credible decision-making case study with real, named risk variables. He is the founder of Wild Edge and host of The Wild Edge Podcast, which means his speaking content is built on conversations with operators in extreme environments, not borrowed leadership theory. He works fluently across formats: small executive groups, conference audiences of 500-plus, and virtual delivery, with named bureau credits across UK and European corporate, healthcare, and industrial buyers. Biography highlights Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and qualified Winter Mountain Leader, holding a BA in Outdoor Leadership and the British Mountain Leader summer and winter awards. Author of The Trail of the Mountain Folk (2017), based on a 108-day solo winter crossing of the mountainous spine of Asia from Hong Kong to Istanbul, covering eleven countries and fourteen mountain climbs. Founder of Wild Edge, host of The Wild Edge Podcast. Currently completing The Ultimate Seven, a world-first series of human-powered journeys from lowest point to highest summit on each continent, being filmed by True to Nature for broadcast. Death Valley to Denali, 3,588 miles in 64 days, the first person this century to complete the journey by human power. Coverage in BBC, The Times, National Geographic and Red Bull. Has led expeditions in over 75 countries including Iraq, DR Congo, Somalia, Socotra, Siberia, Tajikistan, and the Aleppo region of Syria. Biography Lac Assal in Djibouti is the lowest point on the African continent. Kilimanjaro is the highest. Oli France cycled and climbed the 1,636 miles between them in 28 days, the first leg of an ongoing world-first sequence called The Ultimate Seven. The South America leg followed in January 2025, 1,730 miles from Laguna del Carbon to Aconcagua in 34 days, through 49 mph Patagonian winds and 43-degree desert heat. The pattern matters because it is not a single career chapter. France runs a continuously updated expedition record, each leg of the project giving him fresh, documented material on planning under unknowns, leading small teams through compounding risk, and holding composure when the route ahead is genuinely unclear. The Death Valley to Denali leg in spring 2024 was covered by the BBC, The Times, National Geographic and Red Bull. His credentials sit underneath the work, not in front of it. France is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, holds a BA in Outdoor Leadership and both summer and winter British Mountain Leader awards. His first book, The Trail of the Mountain Folk, was published in 2017 after he travelled overland alone from Hong Kong to Istanbul across the spine of Asia in winter, eleven countries and fourteen mountain climbs over 108 days. He founded Wild Edge to lead small groups into hard-to-reach terrain, and hosts The Wild Edge Podcast, where he interviews operators working at the extreme end of human performance. For senior audiences, the value is specific. France gives leadership teams a decision-making case study with real, named consequences: minefields, militia, illness, dehydration, weather windows that close inside an hour. The keynote is built for groups looking to test how their own composure holds up when the comfortable version of the plan stops working. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained pressure High-performing teams in remote and high-risk environments Decision-making with incomplete information Self-leadership and composure Expedition planning and risk management Vision, commitment and ambitious goal-setting Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and CEO summits where the brief calls for a credible non-management voice on resilience and judgement Sales kick-offs, all-hands and conference keynotes seeking a specific expedition narrative rather than generic motivational content Programme leads responsible for high-stakes change rollouts, restructures or operational pressure points After-dinner and award ceremony slots where authority and storytelling matter equally Audience outcomes A working language for composure: how senior people hold their judgement together when the plan stops cooperating A specific, recent expedition case study attendees can reference with their own teams afterwards A reset on what counts as an obstacle and what counts as a decision under uncertainty A renewed appetite for ambitious, defensible goals tied to a credible planning method

Why organisations work with Oliver Kahn He is the only goalkeeper in history to be named best player of a FIFA World Cup, a credential that earns immediate attention from any audience and frames the conversation around individual performance under maximum visibility. He has held leadership roles on both sides of the touchline: 49 times captain of the German national team and CEO of FC Bayern Munich AG between 2021 and 2023, giving him a working vocabulary for boardrooms as well as dressing rooms. His MBA from Privatuniversitaet Schloss Seeburg, with a thesis on strategic management in professional football, gives him an analytical frame for talks that goes beyond anecdote. He speaks with first-hand authority on the technical content of composure, recovery from public failure, and what it costs to sustain elite standards across a 14-year run at one club. Biography highlights 86 caps for Germany; 49 as captain. 2002 FIFA World Cup Golden Ball winner, the only goalkeeper to receive the award. Eight Bundesliga titles and the 2000–01 UEFA Champions League with FC Bayern Munich. Four UEFA Best European Goalkeeper awards and three IFFHS World’s Best Goalkeeper awards. CEO of FC Bayern Munich AG from July 2021 to May 2023. MBA, Privatuniversitaet Schloss Seeburg (2012); ZDF football analyst since 2008; author of “Ich. Erfolg kommt von innen.” (riva Verlag, 2008). Biography Pressure is what separates the people who win things from the people who almost do. The 2001 UEFA Champions League final went to a penalty shoot-out against Valencia. Bayern Munich’s goalkeeper saved three of them, was named man of the match, and added a Champions League winner’s medal to a set that already included a UEFA Cup, a German title, and the captaincy of the national side. Twelve months later, Oliver Kahn became the only goalkeeper in the history of the FIFA World Cup to be named the tournament’s best player. Germany lost the final to Brazil and he made a costly error on the opening goal, playing through a torn ligament. The Golden Ball was awarded after that match, alongside the Lev Yashin Award for best goalkeeper. The two together describe how his peers and the international press read his career: the most demanding individual position in the sport, played at the highest level for two decades. The numbers from the club career are unusual even in elite football. Eight Bundesliga titles, six DFB-Pokal wins, four consecutive UEFA Best European Goalkeeper awards from 1999 to 2002, three IFFHS World’s Best Goalkeeper honours, two German Footballer of the Year trophies. Kahn played 557 Bundesliga matches for Bayern, the most by any goalkeeper in the league’s history. The second career is what makes him unusual on a corporate stage. He took an MBA at Privatuniversitaet Schloss Seeburg in 2012 with a thesis on strategic management in professional football, worked as a ZDF analyst across multiple international tournaments, and served as CEO of FC Bayern Munich AG from July 2021 until May 2023. His book “Ich. Erfolg kommt von innen.” was published by riva Verlag in 2008 and remains the published source for his thinking on the inner conditions of sustained performance. Key speaking topics Composure and self-leadership under pressure High-performance culture in elite teams Accountability at the individual position Recovery from public failure Leadership transitions from operator to executive Mental preparation and the psychology of winning Ideal for Executive leadership teams and boards setting the tone on accountability and standards Sales organisations and front-line revenue teams operating under monthly and quarterly visibility Senior leaders moving from operating roles into executive seats Annual leadership conferences and corporate kick-offs anchored on performance and resilience Audience outcomes A clearer working definition of composure as a trained capability, not a temperament Specific reference points from elite sport for how teams sustain standards across years, not seasons A direct account of what high-pressure decision-making feels like at the position where every error is visible Language for talking about accountability inside a team without it becoming punitive A sharper view of the difference between individual excellence and team performance, from someone who held both responsibilities

Why organisations work with Oswald Rodrigo Pereira He has summited five eight-thousand-metre peaks without supplementary oxygen or Sherpa support, a credential held by a small population of climbers worldwide and one that gives his risk material a basis no simulation can replicate. He has been on the active end of two high-altitude rescues, including the 2023 evacuation of 84-year-old Carlos Soria from Dhaulagiri, and uses both as worked examples of crisis decision-making rather than as anecdote. His twelve years as a television journalist before mountaineering give him a working method for information triage under deadline, which he applies directly to how leadership teams handle incomplete data. He directs and shoots his own documentary work in the death zone, including The Silent Escape, which gives his sessions visual evidence at a level most speakers in the resilience category cannot match. Biography highlights Five eight-thousand-metre summits without supplementary oxygen: Broad Peak, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri, Makalu, Kangchenjunga Ten Himalayan and Karakoram expeditions in seven years, including two winter K2 attempts Director of The Silent Escape, awarded Best Mountain Film at the Krakow Mountain Festival 2023 and screened in more than twenty countries Co-led the 2023 high-altitude rescue of climber Carlos Soria on Dhaulagiri Twelve-year prior career as a television journalist in Poland covering politics, economics and sport Law studies at the University of Warsaw and the University of Lisbon Biography The death zone above eight thousand metres is the highest-stakes operating environment a person can voluntarily enter. Judgement degrades, oxygen falls below half of sea-level value, and the consequences of a slow decision are irreversible. Oswald Rodrigo Pereira has worked in that environment for seven years, on ten expeditions, and has summited five of its peaks without supplementary oxygen. His route to the mountain ran through journalism. Twelve years in Polish television covering politics, economics and sport gave him a working discipline around information under deadline. The pivot came on a winter K2 expedition, where he went as a correspondent and stayed as a climber. He now films what he climbs. The documentary The Silent Escape premiered in Seoul in October 2023, won Best Mountain Film at the Krakow Mountain Festival, and has since screened in over twenty countries. Two rescues anchor his crisis material. The 2023 evacuation of 84-year-old Carlos Soria from Dhaulagiri, reported in detail by Explorersweb, required him and climbing partner Bartek Ziemski to return to altitude with stretcher and oxygen after their own summit and ski descent. The decisions in that sequence, who moves, in what order, with what margin, are the substance of his risk and decision-making sessions, not the dressing. What he offers leadership audiences is not motivation. It is a working description of how a small team triages information, allocates physical and cognitive reserve, and decides what to abandon when conditions change faster than the plan. The translation to boardroom risk is left to the audience, deliberately, and that is the strongest test of whether the material lands. Key speaking topics Risk management in extreme conditions Decision-making under sustained pressure Crisis response and rescue operations Resilience and recovery Information triage from journalism to crisis leadership High-altitude filmmaking and storytelling Personal transformation and physical reinvention Ideal for Executive teams and boards running risk, safety, or crisis-response remits Operations and field leaders in industries with consequential physical risk (energy, construction, logistics, defence) Leadership offsites focused on decision-making under pressure Conferences in insurance, security, or resilience adjacent sectors Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how a small team makes consequential decisions when information is partial and time is short Two worked examples of high-altitude crisis response, used to surface the structure of good and bad calls under load A framing of risk that separates the avoidable from the inherent, and treats the inherent as something to be managed rather than removed Footage and first-person material from inside the death zone that gives the abstract content concrete weight

Why organisations work with Paris Norriss The Grit Code gives organisations a repeatable method for developing resilience: not a motivational moment, but a structured framework built from both extreme first-hand experience and interviews with more than 50 documented high performers. It can be applied, not just felt. His source material is verified broadcast content. The adventures Paris describes are not anecdotes: they are documented on productions distributed via Amazon Prime and Apple TV. When the Pacific storm or the 40-foot wave hits, no one questions whether the stakes were real. He draws a distinction most resilience speakers do not: between teams that perform well when conditions are manageable and teams that hold when those conditions break down. The gap between the two is where most organisational performance is actually lost. His career spans investment banking, media production, and extreme endurance sport, which means he can translate the mechanics of sustained performance directly into commercial and operational terms, without forcing the adventure metaphor. His speaking record runs from the US Military in Hawaii to DHL in Athens to COP28 in Dubai. The breadth of context is itself evidence that The Grit Code’s framework transfers across sector, culture, and seniority level. Biography highlights Creator of The Grit Code, a structured resilience framework built from extreme endurance experience and research with more than 50 high performers Rowed 4,800km across the Pacific Ocean (California to Hawaii) with the Brothers N Oars team over 39 days (2023), raising funds for the Blue Marine Foundation and the Invictus Games Completed the World Marathon Challenge: 7 marathons on 7 continents in 5 days and 21 hours (2025), having previously run a single marathon Host and Executive Producer of “Guy in Dubai” and “Guy in the Sky,” distributed on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, OSN, and Emirates Airlines across more than 120 countries Founder of Blazing Sand Studios (formerly GID Media Production), an Abu Dhabi-based production company established in 2017 Regular contributor to Dubai Eye radio; business columnist for The National MA (Hons), Business Studies (Finance), University of Edinburgh; earlier career in investment banking and private equity Biography Most organisations discover they have a resilience problem not during planning but when things go wrong. A skilled, well-resourced team will perform competently under normal conditions. Whether that same team can sustain judgement, cohesion, and output when conditions break down is a different question: and one that most leadership development programmes never directly test. Paris Norriss has spent a decade answering it under conditions where the cost of failure was not theoretical. In 2023 he rowed 4,800 kilometres across the Pacific Ocean with the Brothers N Oars team over 39 days: navigating two storms, 40-foot waves, and a near-collision with a cargo ship. In 2025, having previously run a single marathon, he completed the World Marathon Challenge across seven continents in 5 days and 21 hours. The experiences are not the argument. The argument is what they required: a decision-making framework that holds when resources, morale, and conditions are all working against you. The Grit Code is that framework. Structured from both Paris’s own extreme experiences and interviews with more than 50 high performers, it gives organisations a repeatable method for developing the mental durability that sustains performance under real pressure. Paris has applied it across audiences spanning the US Military, DHL, Nokia, and COP28; contexts with little in common except the fundamental challenge of keeping a team functional when nothing is going to plan. His parallel career as founder of Blazing Sand Studios and executive producer of “Guy in Dubai” and “Guy in the Sky”, distributed on Amazon Prime and Apple TV across more than 120 countries, separates him from other speakers working in the same space. He has not merely survived extreme experiences; he has spent a career converting them into narrative form for mass audiences. That capacity to distil high-stakes experience into something transferable and usable is precisely what The Grit Code delivers in an organisational setting. Key speaking topics Mental resilience and performance under pressure Team cohesion in high-stakes environments Leadership in adversity Decision-making under stress The Grit Code framework for building organisational resilience Visual storytelling and narrative in business Adventure filmmaking and destination media Ideal for Leadership and senior management teams preparing for high-pressure transformation, restructuring, or sustained competitive pressure Sales, operations, and commercial teams where consistent output under difficult conditions is a performance priority HR and L&D leaders looking to embed resilience as a systemic organisational capability rather than a wellbeing initiative Conference organisers serving Gulf, Middle East, and international markets seeking a speaker with verified regional credibility and global media distribution Audience outcomes A working definition of grit as a learnable, structured capability – not a fixed personality trait Practical tools for identifying the internal motivational triggers that determine how individuals perform under sustained adversity A clear framework for distinguishing teams that hold under pressure from teams that only perform when conditions are favourable Insight into the mechanics of leadership and decision-making during the specific period when resources, morale, and conditions are all depleted simultaneously Understanding of how internal purpose and motivational alignment sustain team output beyond the point where conventional incentives and management techniques lose traction

Why organisations work with Pau Gasol Two NBA championships, three Olympic medals and a FIBA World Cup title give him a working definition of high performance grounded in repeated wins across cultures, coaches and rosters, not a single peak. He speaks credibly about the operating reality of elite teams: ego management next to a generational star (Kobe Bryant), role clarity, and the unglamorous habits that hold a group together across an 82-game season. A Basketball Hall of Fame induction in 2023 and a retired Lakers jersey place him among the small group of athletes whose authority on team and leadership is taken seriously inside a boardroom, not only on a stage. His work outside sport (Gasol Foundation on childhood obesity, IOC Athletes’ Commission, Gasol16 Ventures) shows a leader who has built institutions, not only played in them. The J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award is the NBA’s formal recognition of that. He presents fluently in English and Spanish, with direct experience of US, European and global organisations, which suits international leadership audiences without translation overhead. Biography highlights Two NBA Championships with the Los Angeles Lakers (2009, 2010); six-time NBA All-Star; four-time All-NBA selection. 2002 NBA Rookie of the Year, the first non-American player to win the award. Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Class of 2023; jersey No. 16 retired by the Los Angeles Lakers. FIBA World Cup champion and MVP 2006; three EuroBasket golds with Spain (2009, 2011, 2015); two-time EuroBasket MVP. Three Olympic medals with Spain: silver in 2008 and 2012, bronze in 2016. President and co-founder of the Gasol Foundation; UNICEF Global Champion for Nutrition and Zero Childhood Obesity; member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission; 2012 NBA J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. Biography Two NBA Championships, three Olympic medals and a FIBA World Cup title are not won by the same individual playing in different teams. They are won by leaders who help different groups behave the same way under pressure. Pau Gasol spent two decades inside the highest-stakes team environments in professional sport, with Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, alongside his brother Marc on the Spanish national team, and across rosters in Memphis, Chicago, San Antonio and Milwaukee. The interest for senior leaders is not the trophy count. It is what it took to sit beside a generational star like Bryant and still deliver, year after year, in the locker room as much as on the court. Role clarity, ego management, honest conversations between named individuals, and a standard that did not move with the score. Gasol’s account of that period is one of the more credible insider readings of elite team performance available from any speaker in the market. His record off the court is unusually substantive for an athlete. He co-founded the Gasol Foundation in 2013 with Marc Gasol, working on childhood obesity and child wellbeing in Spain and the United States. He serves as UNICEF’s Global Champion for Nutrition and Zero Childhood Obesity, sits on the International Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission, and runs Gasol16 Ventures, an investment platform in sport, health and wellness. The NBA recognised the community work with the 2012 J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023, with his number retired by the Los Angeles Lakers the same year, Gasol now speaks to leadership audiences in English and Spanish on what it actually takes to build a team that wins more than once. Key speaking topics Leadership and team performance under sustained pressure Building trust and role clarity inside elite teams Resilience and self-leadership through injury, transition and setback Sport as a model for organisational culture and standards Purpose-driven leadership and life after a professional career Child health and the leadership case for long-term social investment Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and CEO conferences focused on team performance and culture Sales kick-offs and annual conferences seeking a credible voice on resilience and standards Sports, health and consumer-brand audiences engaging with athlete leadership International audiences requiring delivery in English or Spanish Audience outcomes A working picture of what elite team performance looks like behind the result, told by someone inside it A direct view of how leaders manage ego, role and trust around a dominant individual Specific reference points for resilience and decision-making through injury, transition and public scrutiny A leadership case for long-term investment in people and purpose beyond the immediate quarter

Why organisations work with Paul de Gelder He has lived the full arc of catastrophic shock and operational return, from the moment of injury through six months of rehabilitation back to instructing Navy divers. Few speakers can describe recovery from inside the experience with this specificity. His military discipline gives the talk operational substance. The framework is the Australian Defence Force mantra Improvise, Adapt, Overcome, applied to the practical question of how a leader makes decisions when the original capability is gone. He has built a second career advocating for the species that nearly killed him, hosting more than 20 Discovery Channel Shark Week documentaries since 2013. The choice itself is the lesson: fear converted into purpose, on camera, repeatedly. He has been trusted to coach Will Smith, Ronda Rousey, and Mike Tyson through shark dives. Audiences see a speaker who teaches composure to people who already perform under pressure. He has addressed the United Nations and Fortune 500 leadership audiences across the US, China, the UK, Vietnam, and New Zealand, with a message that travels across cultures and sectors. Biography highlights Australian Army paratrooper, then Australian Navy clearance diver, specialising in bomb disposal and counter-terrorism diving operations. Survived a bull shark attack in Sydney Harbour in February 2009 that took his right hand and right leg, returning to full-time Navy service after six months. Continued instructing Australian Navy divers for three years post-injury before leaving full-time service in August 2012. Host of more than 20 Discovery Channel Shark Week documentaries since 2013. Author of Uncaged (autobiography), Tough AF (training and mindset), and Shark: Why we need to save the world’s most misunderstood predator (HarperCollins, 2022). Speaking platforms include the United Nations and Fortune 500 corporate audiences across five continents. Biography A bull shark closed on a Navy diver in Sydney Harbour in February 2009. The diver was Paul de Gelder, on a counter-terrorism exercise. He lost his right hand and right leg. Six months later he was back in uniform. That return is the substance of the work. De Gelder served as an Australian Army paratrooper, then qualified as a Navy clearance diver in bomb disposal, before the attack. After it, he continued instructing Navy divers for three years and left full-time service in August 2012. The discipline that carried him through rehabilitation is the same discipline he now translates for leaders facing forced reinvention: improvise, adapt, overcome, applied to capability that has actually changed. His second act is the more unusual proof of the argument. Since 2013 de Gelder has hosted more than 20 Discovery Channel Shark Week documentaries and written Shark: Why we need to save the world’s most misunderstood predator, published by HarperCollins in 2022. He has guided Will Smith, Ronda Rousey, and Mike Tyson through dives with the same species that nearly killed him. Fear, in his account, is not something a leader masters once. It is something a leader keeps walking toward. The work resonates because it refuses metaphor. He addresses leadership audiences from the United Nations to Fortune 500 boardrooms with a single, operational claim: composure under shock is a trainable capacity, and the people you lead will calibrate their response to yours. Key speaking topics Resilience after catastrophic shock Self-leadership under extreme pressure Fear, risk, and decision-making Adaptation and operational return Mental fortitude and recovery Purpose and reinvention Ocean conservation and shark advocacy Ideal for Senior leadership teams navigating restructure, market shock, or capability loss Sales, operations, and frontline teams facing high-stakes decisions under pressure Wellbeing and mental health audiences focused on substantive recovery, not soft motivation Conferences seeking a credible keynote on resilience with a verifiable lived foundation Audience outcomes A direct account of recovery and return from someone who has lived it, not theorised it The Improvise, Adapt, Overcome framework as a usable decision discipline under pressure A reframing of fear as a signal to engage with, not suppress A credible argument that capability change is not capability loss Renewed conviction that composure is a learned, repeatable practice

Why organisations work with Paul McGee He gives organisations a single, named, portable language for resilience. SUMO has been translated into more than 20 languages and used inside global brands, which means the ideas travel beyond the keynote into how teams actually talk about setbacks. His behavioural-psychology background turns wellbeing content into something a senior buyer can defend commercially. The argument is rooted in cognition and behaviour change, not motivation. His track record sits in serious operating environments: Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS, Manchester City FC and Specsavers have all booked him for change, performance and confidence work. Self-Confidence held number one on the WHSmith Business Book chart for 24 weeks, which is unusual evidence that the content lands with a workplace audience and not only a self-help one. Visiting Professor at the University of Chester Business School, a role held since 2019 and awarded for translating academic behavioural research into practical use. The credential supports the seriousness of the work without academic detachment. Biography highlights Visiting Professor, University of Chester Business School (visiting professorship held since 2019) Creator of the SUMO Method (Shut Up, Move On); Sunday Times bestseller, translated into 20+ languages Author of Self-Confidence, which reached number one and held the WHSmith Business Book chart for 24 weeks Capstone-published author of nine titles, including How to Speak So People Really Listen, How Not to Worry, How to Succeed with People, and YESSS! Delivered keynotes for 1,000+ organisations across 40+ countries, including Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS, Manchester City FC and Specsavers Background as a behavioural psychologist with more than 30 years of applied practice Biography Most organisations underestimate how much of their performance problem is a confidence problem. Strategy is rarely the missing ingredient. What gets in the way is the personal cost of repeated change, knocks to self-belief, and the quiet drain of pressure that nobody names. SUMO (Shut Up, Move On) gave that problem a vocabulary. It is a behavioural framework that asks people to stop, examine the thinking that holds them back, and choose a different response. The framework belongs to Paul McGee, a former behavioural psychologist who now sits as Visiting Professor at the University of Chester, an appointment made in 2019 to recognise his work translating academic research into practical use. SUMO became a Sunday Times bestseller and has been translated into more than 20 languages. His follow-up, Self-Confidence, spent 24 weeks at number one on the WHSmith Business Book chart, a result that is hard to fake and tells you who the content actually serves. Nine books for Capstone, the Wiley business imprint, sit behind the keynote work. They cover communication, worry, confidence and resilience, but the through-line is behaviour change inside ordinary working lives. The delivery is known for humour, which is what lets the behaviour-change content land rather than lecture. The argument is consistent: small, repeatable mental habits compound into the resilience that organisations now need from their people, especially under sustained change. The client list reads as a workplace one rather than a wellness one. Harrods, GSK, Adidas, Virgin, Lloyds Bank, NHS, Manchester City FC and Specsavers have all commissioned McGee for change, performance and confidence work. Across 40+ countries and more than 1,000 organisations, the brief is usually the same: give our people something that holds up after the keynote ends. Key speaking topics Resilience and personal performance under pressure Confidence and self-leadership at work Behaviour change and the SUMO framework Leading through change and uncertainty Communication and influence Wellbeing as an operating capability Ideal for HR and people leaders building resilience capability across the workforce Senior leadership teams managing fatigue from repeated change programmes Customer-facing and high-pressure functions where confidence directly shapes performance Learning and development heads commissioning durable, named frameworks rather than one-off motivational content Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary, drawn from SUMO, for naming and interrupting unhelpful thinking patterns Specific behavioural habits to rebuild confidence and composure after setbacks A practical way to separate the parts of a problem people can act on from the parts they cannot A clearer view of how individual resilience translates into team performance and customer outcomes

Why organisations work with Paula Radcliffe Sixteen years as the women’s marathon world record holder, a span that covers an entire generation of competitors and is unusual in any endurance event. A direct, first-person account of recovering from the most public failure in her career, the 2004 Athens Olympic marathon, and returning to win the New York Marathon four months later and the World Championship the following year. Continuing technical authority on the sport through her BBC commentary role and her seat on the World Athletics Athletics Integrity Unit, which keeps her current with the system she once competed inside. A practical perspective on competing with a chronic condition, asthma, that translates well to executive audiences thinking about health, capacity and long-horizon performance. Biography highlights Held the women’s marathon world record at 2:15:25 from 2003 to 2019. Three-time London Marathon champion (2002, 2003, 2005) and three-time New York Marathon champion (2004, 2007, 2008). 2005 World Marathon champion, Helsinki. Two-time World Cross Country champion. Two-time World Half Marathon champion. BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2002. MBE 2002, OBE 2026, both for services to sport. BBC athletics commentator and member of the World Athletics Athletics Integrity Unit. UN Environment Programme Advocate for Clean Air. Author of “Paula: My Story So Far” (Simon and Schuster, 2004). Biography The 2003 London Marathon women’s world record stood at 2:15:25 for sixteen years. Paula Radcliffe set it. No other woman beat it until 2019. For a generation of elite distance runners that mark defined what the sport thought possible. The interesting story for a business audience is not the record. It is what happened the year after. The 2004 Athens Olympic marathon ended with Radcliffe sitting on the kerb in front of a global television audience, unable to continue. Four months later she won the New York Marathon. The following August she won the World Marathon Championship in Helsinki. The recovery is the content, not the breakdown. She has stayed inside the sport since retiring as a competitor. She commentates on athletics for the BBC, including the Olympic Games and the London Marathon, and sits on the World Athletics Athletics Integrity Unit, which adjudicates anti-doping and eligibility cases. She is a UN Environment Programme Advocate for Clean Air, a role rooted in her own diagnosis of exercise-induced asthma as a teenager. The credentials are unambiguous. MBE in 2002, OBE in the 2026 New Year Honours, BBC Sports Personality of the Year, a first-class degree in modern languages from Loughborough University in 1996 where the running track now carries her name. The autobiography “Paula: My Story So Far” was published by Simon and Schuster in 2004. What a senior buyer is hiring, though, is a specific account of composure under pressure that almost no other speaker can offer at the same level of demonstrable evidence. Key speaking topics Performance under sustained pressure Recovery after public failure Long-horizon goal setting Composure and decision-making in high-stakes moments Competing with a chronic health condition Integrity and accountability in elite systems Women in elite sport Ideal for Leadership offsites focused on resilience, composure and recovery, particularly for executive teams facing a visible setback or restructure. Sales and commercial kick-offs where the brief is sustained performance across a multi-year cycle rather than a single-quarter push. Health, wellbeing and human performance conferences for HR and people leaders. After-dinner and main-stage moments at sports, charity and corporate hospitality events where the brief is a credible elite-performance voice. Audience outcomes A first-person account of recovering from a high-visibility failure and the practical work that recovery required. A concrete sense of what sixteen years of sustained elite performance looks like from the inside, including the planning horizons it depends on. A useful frame for thinking about health, energy and capacity as commercial inputs, not personal extras. A more grounded view of integrity in performance systems, drawn from her work on the World Athletics Athletics Integrity Unit.

Why organisations work with Pellegrino Riccardi His TEDxBergen talk on cross-cultural communication has been viewed nearly two million times – giving him a level of pre-built credibility and independent reach that few speakers in this space can point to before they walk on stage. He does not study cultural difference from the outside. Born in the UK to Italian parents and living in Norway since 1995, he has navigated three distinct cultural systems from the inside – a quality of embedded perspective that changes what his audiences trust him to know. His “Six Basic Human Needs” framework gives leadership teams a diagnostic for why motivation and engagement falter in multicultural environments – not a generalisation about national character, but a universal human model applied precisely to the point where cultural difference becomes organisational friction. He makes the Nordic workplace model legible and actionable for global organisations – addressing a specific and growing gap for multinationals operating in, entering, or partnering with Scandinavian markets. Named Norwegian Speaker of the Year by Talerlisten in 2020, selected from more than 600 national nominees, and a finalist in both 2021 and 2022 – a competitive national award that reflects consistent delivery rather than a single strong appearance. Biography highlights Norwegian Speaker of the Year 2020 (Talerlisten); finalist 2021 and 2022 – selected from a field of more than 600 national nominees Three TEDx talks; TEDxBergen cross-cultural communication talk approaching two million views Two Master’s degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oslo; additional qualifications in psychology, NLP, and pedagogy Author of Drowning Quietly: Memoir of a Man’s Shortcomings (Greenleaf Book Group, 2022) Regular commentator on Norwegian national television on culture and immigration Client work spans Merck, Skanska, DNB, IKEA, IBM, BP, ExxonMobil, and the European Commission Biography Most cross-cultural training starts with the other culture. Pellegrino Riccardi starts with you. His central argument – that misunderstanding in multicultural teams rarely begins with ignorance of another culture, but with the unchecked assumptions you carry about your own – has reached nearly two million people through his TEDxBergen talk alone. It is not an academic position. It is a practitioner’s diagnosis, sharpened over three decades of working with organisations where the gap between cultural intent and daily reality was costing them real performance. Riccardi was born in the UK to Italian immigrant parents and has been based in Norway since 1995. He is not a consultant who has studied these three cultural systems – he has lived inside all of them. That distinction is audible in the room. His definition of culture, “a system of behavior that helps us act in an accepted or familiar way,” is deliberately simple: it is designed to move the conversation from observation to self-examination, fast. For senior leaders who have sat through cultural awareness sessions and left unchanged, the shift in entry point matters. His frameworks give organisations something to work with after the session. The Six Basic Human Needs – which he describes as the human batteries that determine whether people bring their full energy to work – and the Three Human Drives give teams a shared language for diagnosing disengagement that does not reduce to personality or politics. He holds two Master’s degrees from the University of Leeds and the University of Oslo, with further qualifications in psychology, NLP, and pedagogy, and appears regularly on Norwegian national television as a commentator on culture and integration. In 2020 he was named Norwegian Speaker of the Year by Talerlisten from a field of more than 600 national nominees – a recognition he followed with finalist standings in both 2021 and 2022. His memoir Drowning Quietly (Greenleaf Book Group, 2022) extends his examination of human identity and behaviour beyond the professional context. His organisational client list includes Merck, Skanska, DNB, IKEA, IBM, BP, ExxonMobil, and the European Commission. Key speaking topics Cross-cultural communication and workplace dynamics Corporate culture and culture transformation Nordic workplace values and leadership mindsets Employee motivation and human engagement Multicultural team performance Change, uncertainty, and organisational resilience Storytelling as a driver of business culture Ideal for CHROs and People & Culture leaders managing globally distributed or multicultural workforces Leadership teams of multinationals operating in, entering, or partnering with Nordic markets Organisations navigating culture change, post-merger integration, or rapid workforce diversification Senior leaders seeking to move beyond cultural awareness programmes to measurable change in team communication and trust Audience outcomes Why good people misunderstand each other at work, and the invisible assumptions that drive it A working definition of culture that changes how leaders recognise the source of cross-cultural friction The Six Basic Human Needs framework, and a sharper read on why unmet needs surface as quiet disengagement rather than open dissatisfaction How Nordic communication norms (silence, economy of language, psychological safety) read to outsiders, and what global teams need to do differently Practical ways to build trust and create the kind of conversations people actually feel safe having

Why organisations work with Penny Mallory Her central argument: that mental toughness is a measurable, trainable personality trait rather than an innate quality, gives leadership and L&D teams a practical case for investing in mindset, not just skills or process. She deploys the MTQPlus psychometric assessment in her work, allowing organisations to measure mental toughness across teams, identify where the gap lies, and target development with data rather than instinct. As the first and only woman in the world to compete in a World Rally Car for Ford in the WRC, her performance credentials are not a metaphor, they are a career built on exactly the conditions she teaches organisations to handle. Three books published over fifteen years (Take Control of Your Life, World Class Thinking, World Class Behaviour, 365 Ways to Develop Mental Toughness) give the keynote intellectual depth and longevity that extends well beyond the event itself. Her trajectory, from teenage homelessness in London to national rally champion, is not backstory; it is the proof of concept for an argument that resilience is built, not inherited, and that organisations can deliberately develop it. Biography highlights First and only woman to compete in a World Rally Car, driving for Ford in the World Rally Championship National Ladies Rally Champion TEDx speaker: Mental Toughness: The One Thing That Will Change Everything, delivered at TEDxRoyalHolloway, hosted on the TED platform Author of three books: 365 Ways to Develop Mental Toughness (John Murray One, 2023), World Class Thinking, World Class Behaviour (2018), and Take Control of Your Life (2010) Television presenter across two decades: Channel 4’s Driven, Channel 4 WRC coverage, ITV’s Used Car Roadshow, Accident Blackspots, Good Morning Britain, BBC Breakfast Client roster includes Microsoft, Google, Santander, Coca-Cola, NatWest, Airbus, Tesco, Jaguar, and Sony Biography Penny Mallory became the first and only woman in the world to compete in a World Rally Car for Ford in the World Rally Championship. Before that, she was National Ladies Rally Champion. Both achievements came after a teenage period of homelessness, living in hostels in London, in circumstances that made either outcome statistically unlikely. Her career is the argument she makes in every room she enters. Mental toughness, in her framework, is not a disposition some people are fortunate enough to have. It is a trainable personality trait – measurable through the MTQPlus psychometric and buildable through deliberate practice. The 4Cs model underpinning that tool (Control, Commitment, Challenge, Confidence) gives organisations a shared language for the mindset conversation and a diagnostic foundation for acting on it. Mallory uses this assessment in her coaching and workshop work, making her delivery measurable rather than merely motivational. The intellectual case for this is laid out across three books, from Take Control of Your Life (2010) through World Class Thinking, World Class Behaviour (2018) to 365 Ways to Develop Mental Toughness, published by John Murray One in 2023. The TEDx talk, Mental Toughness: The One Thing That Will Change Everything, delivered at TEDxRoyalHolloway and hosted on the TED platform, extends the same argument to a wider audience. Across two decades of television presenting; Channel 4, ITV, and BBC, she developed the communication discipline to make complex performance psychology accessible without diluting it. The organisations that work with her; Microsoft, Google, Santander, Coca-Cola, NatWest, Airbus, are not primarily looking for inspiration. They are looking for a framework their people can use under pressure. The motorsport history gives Mallory a credibility floor that few performance speakers can match; the psychometric grounding and publishing record give her the structural depth to sustain the conversation after the event. Key speaking topics Mental Toughness and Performance Psychology Resilience Under Pressure High-Performance Mindset Sustaining Peak Performance in Teams Leadership Behaviour Under Stress Building a Performance Culture Personal Accountability and Commitment Psychological Approaches to Change Ideal for Senior leadership and executive teams facing sustained performance pressure, significant change, or post-restructuring recovery CHROs and People Directors building the case for psychological resilience as a workforce development priority Sales, commercial, and revenue-critical teams operating under consistent target pressure Leadership conferences in financial services, professional services, technology, and corporate sectors Audience outcomes A working definition of mental toughness as a trainable trait – grounded in the 4Cs model – that participants can apply immediately in a business context Specific, named practices for building confidence, focus, commitment, and resilience under sustained pressure Greater awareness of how personal accountability shapes collective team performance A reframe of pressure from an obstacle to a manageable and even generative condition Insight into the relationship between mindset, sustained performance, and organisational results

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

Why organisations work with Perry McCarthy He brings a first-person account of operating inside a Formula One team that was actively working against its own driver, including being sent out at Spa with a broken steering component pulled from his teammate’s car. The lesson lands because the stakes were physical. His route into F1 ran through fourteen-hour shifts on North Sea oil rigs to fund the seat. Audiences hearing about resilience from him are hearing it from someone who priced it. The Stig role gives him a cultural hook into rooms that would not normally book a motorsport speaker, which makes him a strong choice for sales conferences, kick-offs, and after-dinner slots that need energy without losing substance. He is a working media commentator on Sky News and BBC News, not a retired driver reading off a script. The delivery is current and the timing is built for live audiences. Biography highlights Drove for Andrea Moda Formula in the 1992 Formula One World Championship. Tested for Williams and Benetton F1 teams. Competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on five occasions between 1996 and 2003. Original black-suited Stig on BBC’s Top Gear across the first two series. Author of “Flat Out, Flat Broke: Formula 1 the Hard Way!” (2002), with a foreword by Damon Hill. Regular motorsport contributor on Sky News and BBC News. Biography Reaching Formula One as a privateer is a financial problem before it is a sporting one. McCarthy worked fourteen-hour shifts on North Sea oil rigs to fund his junior career, then arrived at the 1992 world championship with Andrea Moda Formula, a team owned by an Italian shoe businessman that was, by any honest reading, set up to fail. He never made the grid. He also never crashed the car, which at one point was sent out at Spa with a broken steering component lifted from his teammate’s car. What he did get from that season was a working knowledge of how to keep operating when the people around you are not. He went on to test for Williams and Benetton, then built a career in sports cars that included five appearances at the 24 Hours of Le Mans between 1996 and 2003. In 2002, a chance meeting with Jeremy Clarkson at the launch of his autobiography “Flat Out, Flat Broke” led to the role that made him recognisable outside motorsport. He was the original Stig on BBC’s Top Gear, the black-suited version, across the first two series. His identity was exposed by a Sunday newspaper in early 2003. The speaking work is built on the same material. Damon Hill’s line about him still travels: “I have constant admiration on how he turns a no hope situation into some sort of triumph.” For a corporate audience, that is the asset. McCarthy can describe, with specifics, what it takes to keep performing when the equipment is wrong, the support is missing, and the result is no longer in your hands. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Resilience and recovery from setback Self-leadership in hostile conditions Team performance and trust Risk and decision-making Motorsport as a business analogy Ideal for Sales conferences and annual kick-offs needing high-energy keynote opening or close After-dinner audiences at corporate hospitality, awards, and partner events Leadership offsites focused on composure and persistence under pressure Automotive, motorsport-adjacent, and engineering brand events Audience outcomes A vivid, first-person account of operating inside a Formula One team that was actively against its own driver A practical reframe of resilience as a daily working habit rather than a slogan The cultural payoff of hearing the Top Gear Stig story directly from the original Stig Energy and humour that sets the tone for the rest of the agenda