Motivation and Inspiration

Why organisations work with Matthew Pinsent One of only three rowers ever to win gold at four consecutive Olympic Games, giving leadership audiences a rare first-person account of how a team holds form across more than a decade. Direct experience of rebuilding a winning crew after the retirement of Sir Steve Redgrave, a credible parallel for any executive team facing the loss of a defining figure. Two decades inside Olympic broadcasting for the BBC, covering eight Games as reporter and commentator, which gives him a wider view of high performance than his own career alone. Speaks from a discipline measured in fractions: the Athens 2004 final was decided by ten centimetres after a three-minute review, and he uses that margin as the spine of his argument about preparation and discipline. Honoured with the Thomas Keller Medal, rowing’s highest individual recognition, alongside a knighthood, providing audiences with credentials a buyer can name without hedging. Biography highlights Four Olympic gold medals: Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 Ten World Championship gold medals across his international career Knight Bachelor (2004) and CBE; Thomas Keller Medal recipient (2005) Elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission in 2001 BBC sports broadcaster covering Olympic Games from Beijing 2008 to Paris 2024 Author of “A Lifetime in a Race”, a Sunday Times Bestseller published by Ebury Biography Athens 2004 came down to ten centimetres. The British and Canadian coxless fours crossed the line together, and three minutes of officials’ review separated the gold from the silver. That final was Pinsent’s fourth Olympic title in a row, the closing chapter of a partnership with Sir Steve Redgrave that had defined British rowing for more than a decade. The thread through his career is repetition under pressure. Pinsent and Redgrave won at Barcelona, Atlanta, and Sydney before Pinsent built a new crew with James Cracknell, Ed Coode, and Steve Williams for Athens. The team changed; the standard did not. He retired with four Olympic golds and ten World Championship titles, and was knighted in the New Year’s Honours of 2004. Since 2004 he has worked as a BBC sports broadcaster, reporting from the Olympic Games in Beijing, Vancouver, London, Sochi, Rio, Tokyo, Beijing again, and Paris. He fronted the BBC’s “World Olympic Dreams” series ahead of London 2012, following twenty-five athletes across multiple sports, and directed “Unbelievable: The Chad Le Clos Story” in 2016. That second career has given him a working knowledge of elite performance well beyond his own discipline. For corporate audiences he draws on the specifics. How a crew is selected, how trust is built across a boat where one weak stroke loses a race, what changes when the senior figure retires and the unit has to find a new centre of gravity. His memoir “A Lifetime in a Race” set out the same material in long form and reached the Sunday Times Bestseller list. Key speaking topics Sustained high performance Team leadership under pressure Building a crew after a defining figure leaves Preparation and marginal gains Olympic broadcasting and elite sport Resilience across long competitive cycles Ideal for Executive teams and boards working through leadership transition or succession Sales, partnership, and customer-facing leadership conferences focused on sustained output rather than one-off wins Awards dinners and recognition events where a credible Olympic voice frames the evening Leadership development cohorts studying high-performing teams Audience outcomes A sharper sense of what separates one-time success from repeated success across cycles A clearer picture of how senior teams absorb the loss of a defining figure Concrete language for talking about preparation, selection, and trust inside a small unit A first-person account of competing and winning by margins measured in centimetres

Why organisations work with Matt Dawson A direct, first-person account of the 2003 Rugby World Cup final, including the pass that set up Wilkinson’s drop goal, used as material for what shared accountability looks like in a single moment. Twenty years inside one of the most-watched sports panel shows on British television, which translates into a presenter and host who can carry a corporate room without scripting. Lessons on team culture grounded in named clubs and named coaches: Northampton Saints, London Wasps, Sir Clive Woodward’s England squad, not generic sports analogy. A second career arc as a broadcaster and Lyme disease advocate, giving him credible material on resilience, identity after performance, and leading a public conversation on health. Biography highlights Member of the England squad that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup; assist for Jonny Wilkinson’s winning drop goal. 77 England caps, nine as captain; three British and Irish Lions tours. MBE for services to rugby. Team captain on BBC’s “A Question of Sport” for two decades. Winner of BBC Celebrity MasterChef; finalist on Strictly Come Dancing. Author of “Nine Lives” (HarperCollins, 2004). Biography The 2003 Rugby World Cup final in Sydney came down to a single phase of play with seconds left. The scrum-half made an unscripted break, took the ruck deep into Australian territory, then fed the ball to the fly-half for the winning drop goal. That scrum-half was Matt Dawson, and the moment is taught in coaching rooms as a study in shared accountability under pressure. Across 77 caps for England and three British and Irish Lions tours, Dawson played at the centre of a generation of English rugby that professionalised the sport’s performance culture. He played for Northampton Saints and London Wasps, won a Premiership title in his first season at Wasps, and was awarded an MBE for services to the game. His autobiography “Nine Lives”, published by HarperCollins in 2004, gives an unusually candid first-hand account of the dressing-room dynamics that produced the World Cup result. Since retiring he has held one of the most consistent presences in British broadcasting, as a team captain on BBC’s “A Question of Sport” since 2004 and as a rugby pundit and presenter on BBC Radio 5 Live. He won Celebrity MasterChef in 2006 and reached the final of Strictly Come Dancing, work that gave him the on-camera range that distinguishes him from most former-athlete speakers. In 2016, after a tick bite in a London park, Dawson was diagnosed with Lyme disease and underwent two heart surgeries. He has since become one of the most visible UK voices on tick-borne disease awareness, partnering with The Big Tick Project and using national platforms to push the issue into public health conversation. Key speaking topics Teamwork and team culture Leadership under pressure Winning mentality Performance in elite environments Resilience and recovery Broadcast hosting and event facilitation Ideal for Sales kick-offs and annual conferences seeking a credible team-performance keynote Awards ceremonies, gala dinners and client hospitality requiring an experienced host or after-dinner speaker Leadership offsites that want a sport-to-business translation grounded in a named, verifiable team result Health, insurance and public-sector audiences engaging with patient advocacy and tick-borne disease awareness Audience outcomes A specific, lived account of how an elite team prepares for a single decisive moment. A clear sense of what shared accountability looks like in practice, anchored in named teammates and a named result. Concrete language for talking about culture, standards and trust without resorting to abstraction. A change in register: humour and warmth from a broadcaster who has hosted live television for two decades.

Why organisations work with Mark Foster A first-person performance argument for inclusion. Foster competed at five Olympics while hiding that he was gay; his account of what that cost him is harder to dismiss than any case study. Twenty-three years of elite-level pattern recognition on what separates athletes who reach a final from those who win it, drawn from a career that produced six World Championship golds and eight world records. Credibility with broadcast audiences. As a BBC Sport analyst across four Olympics and four Commonwealth Games, he is comfortable in front of senior rooms, on stage with a host, and in moderated panel formats. A flag-bearer story that is not the usual one. Foster led Team GB into the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony, the first British swimmer to do so since 1964, and uses it to talk about visibility and what representation actually does for the people watching. Biography highlights Five-time Olympian: Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Beijing 2008 Six World Championship golds, eleven European titles, two Commonwealth titles, eight world records across a 23-year career Flag bearer for Great Britain at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games opening ceremony BBC Sport swimming analyst across the London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics, alongside Clare Balding and Rebecca Adlington Honorary Doctor of Health Sciences, Anglia Ruskin University (2016) Patron of The Anaphylaxis Campaign and ambassador for SportsAid UK Autobiography, My Double Life, scheduled for 2026 publication Biography Most performance cultures are built around what people produce, not around what people are carrying while they produce it. The gap between the two is where output quietly gets lost. Foster’s contribution is to make that gap legible to a corporate audience using the only evidence harder to argue with than data: a 23-year career he competed through while hiding who he was. The competitive record stands on its own. Six World Championship golds, eleven European titles, two Commonwealth titles, eight world records, and selection for five Olympic Games between Seoul 1988 and Beijing 2008. He carried the Union Flag at the Beijing opening ceremony, the first British swimmer to lead the team in since Anita Lonsbrough in 1964. What he has said publicly since 2017, and what his autobiography My Double Life addresses in full, is the part of that career that did not appear in the results. Foster competed at the highest level while closeted, and has been specific about the energy that consumed and the performance margin it cost. For a senior leader thinking about inclusion as a productivity question rather than a values one, that is a useful first-hand source. His broadcast work keeps him sharp on stage. Foster has been a BBC Sport swimming analyst across four Olympics and four Commonwealth Games, regularly on air with Clare Balding and Rebecca Adlington, and Anglia Ruskin University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2016 in recognition of the contribution. Key speaking topics Inclusive performance cultures Visibility and representation in high-performance environments Resilience across a long career Goal-setting and reinvention Olympic-level preparation and mindset Working under pressure Coming out at work Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads building the business case for inclusion in performance terms Senior leadership offsites where the brief is performance under sustained pressure Employee Resource Groups and Pride networks looking for an external voice with sporting credibility Awards dinners, conferences and broadcast-style panels needing a confident on-stage presenter Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how concealment at work shows up in output, and what it actually costs A practical view of what twenty-three years of competing taught him about setbacks, plateaus and second acts A sharper sense of why representation at senior levels matters, told from the person being represented A reframing of resilience as something built across a career, not summoned in a moment

Why organisations work with Mark Beaumont He has cycled and recovered from multi-month performance projects with measurable outcomes, but what made them possible was the planning and the team behind the rider. The 18,000 miles in 78 days and 14 hours was a logistics and physiology problem before it was a sporting one. His work as an Operating Partner at Envoy Group, and as an executive chair, gives him a working command of capital allocation and operational discipline that most adventure speakers cannot offer. He has filmed documentaries for fifteen years across the BBC, Amazon Prime and GCN, so he can speak credibly to leaders about performing under public scrutiny and telling a story that lands. He frames endurance as a planning problem: nutrition, sleep, route, contingency, support team. That structure transfers cleanly to a senior team running a long transformation. The British Empire Medal and his Guinness World Records titles are credentials a buyer can put on a board agenda without needing to explain them. Biography highlights World record holder, fastest cycle around the world: 18,000 miles, 78 days, 14 hours (2017). World record holder, fastest solo ride length of Africa: Cairo to Cape Town in 42 days, 8 hours (2015). Author of six books, including The Man Who Cycled the World, Africa Solo, and Around the World in 80 Days. Partner at Eos Advisory, an early-stage innovation fund backing science, engineering and technology companies. BBC documentary subject and contributor for over 15 years, including Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games global coverage. British Empire Medal, 2018 New Year Honours, for services to sport, broadcasting and charity. Biography The 80-day cycle around the world looks like a sporting record. It is closer to a 24-hour-a-day operational project with one performer, a small support crew, a fixed deadline, and no option to renegotiate the route. Holding sixteen hours of cycling a day for eleven weeks, on four hours of broken sleep, is a planning and recovery discipline first. These projects run across two decades and many expeditions: an 18,000-mile circumnavigation in 2008, the length of Africa in 2015, and a faster circumnavigation in 78 days and 14 hours in 2017. The earlier rides were filmed for the BBC, the later ones for GCN and Amazon. All were audited by Guinness World Records and run with a support team handling logistics, nutrition and recovery. What he sells a business audience is the working method behind them. The investor side of the work matters here. Beaumont spent six years as a partner and investor at Eos Advisory, an early-stage fund backing Scottish science and technology businesses, before joining Envoy Group as an Operating Partner. His working week goes on capital allocation, founder assessment and scale-up risk. That gives him a commercial register most adventure speakers do not have when they walk into a leadership offsite. What a senior team gets from him is a structured account of how to plan for the long middle of a hard project: where decisions break down, what data to track, when to slow the team to protect the team. The British Empire Medal in 2018, awarded for services to sport, broadcasting and charity, sits alongside six published books and a documentary record stretching back fifteen years. Key speaking topics Sustained performance under prolonged pressure Planning and execution of multi-month projects Recovery and decision-making after setback Risk management in high-consequence environments Early-stage investment and scale-up discipline Endurance physiology applied to business performance Ideal for Executive teams running multi-year transformation or restructuring programmes Sales and operations leadership conferences focused on sustained performance Founder and scale-up audiences working with early-stage investors Senior offsites where resilience is the substantive agenda, not the entertainment Audience outcomes A working method for pacing senior teams through long, demanding projects Specific lessons from three audited world-record expeditions on planning, support and recovery A clearer view of where decision-making degrades under fatigue and how to design around it An investor-side perspective on what separates ambition from operational discipline

Why organisations work with Lewis Pugh He has helped secure formal protection for more than two million square kilometres of ocean, including the Ross Sea Marine Protected Area, the largest in the world. That is a track record on environmental policy outcomes very few private-sector advisors or speakers can match. He brings a working maritime lawyer’s grasp of treaty, sovereign negotiation, and multilateral process. His framing of climate and ocean commitments is grounded in how rules actually move, which lands with boards wrestling with regulatory and ESG risk. As the UN’s first Patron of the Oceans, he carries institutional weight inside the system most companies are now being judged against, including UNEP, COP processes, and national governments. He converts physical expeditions into specific decisions about preparation, team selection, and changing course under hostile conditions. Audiences leave with a usable account of how leaders behave when the plan stops working, sourced from the North Pole, Mount Everest, the Red Sea, and Antarctica. Biography highlights UN Patron of the Oceans, appointed by the United Nations Environment Programme in 2013. Founder of The Lewis Pugh Foundation, established in 2015 to drive the creation of Marine Protected Areas worldwide. First person to complete a long-distance swim in every ocean of the world; first across the North Pole, the length of the English Channel, the Red Sea, and around Martha’s Vineyard. Maritime lawyer trained at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Cape Town; former practitioner at Ince and Co in the City of London; former Reservist in the British SAS. Author of Achieving the Impossible (Simon and Schuster, 2010) and 21 Yaks and a Speedo (2014); twice a TEDGlobal speaker. Awarded South Africa’s Order of Ikhamanga (Gold Class); named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum; inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame; named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. Biography The Ross Sea Marine Protected Area, off Antarctica, is the largest protected ocean reserve on the planet, larger than the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy combined. Lewis Pugh swam in its near-freezing waters in a Speedo to push 25 nations, including Russia, into signing the agreement that created it. Few advocates working on the ocean and climate file have that kind of policy outcome attached to their name. Pugh trained as a maritime lawyer at Jesus College, Cambridge and the University of Cape Town, and practised at Ince and Co in the City of London. During those years he served as a Reservist in the British SAS. The combination matters for the work he now does. The legal training shapes how he reads treaties, jurisdiction, and sovereign behaviour. The military background shapes how he plans expeditions and assembles teams. The endurance swimming is the public-facing instrument that pulls governments to the table. In 2013 the UN appointed him as its first Patron of the Oceans. In 2015 he founded The Lewis Pugh Foundation, dedicated to Marine Protected Areas, the ocean equivalent of national parks. Through that work he has helped secure protection for more than two million square kilometres of marine ecosystem, an area the size of Western Europe, and is campaigning for 30 percent of the world’s oceans to be formally protected by 2030. His books, Achieving the Impossible (Simon and Schuster) and 21 Yaks and a Speedo, sit alongside two TEDGlobal talks that TED’s editors describe as the work of a “master story-teller”. For corporate audiences, the substance is not the swimming. It is the working method behind it: how a small team prepares for hostile conditions, how an advocate moves sovereign signatories, and how leaders decide when to keep going and when to change course. Key speaking topics Ocean and climate policy Sustainability and ESG commitments at board level Marine Protected Areas and treaty negotiation Resilience and leadership in hostile conditions Team preparation and decision-making under pressure Purpose-driven leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams setting climate, ocean, and ESG strategy Sustainability leaders, chief sustainability officers, and ESG committees Senior leadership offsites focused on resilience, preparation, and decision-making under pressure Public-sector and multilateral audiences working on environment and oceans policy Audience outcomes A clearer view of how high-level environmental commitments are converted into binding agreements and protected areas. A working account of how small teams plan for, and recover from, conditions where the original plan fails. A direct line of sight into the UN, COP, and Marine Protected Area processes that increasingly shape corporate disclosure and risk. A sharper sense of what credible, evidenced advocacy looks like, drawn from named expeditions and named outcomes.

Why organisations work with Les Hewitt A coaching method that has been deployed inside more than 300 companies, including Wells Fargo, RBC, FedEx, RE/MAX and the Million Dollar Round Table, with a focus on sales-led and franchise organisations rather than abstract leadership theory. Co-authorship of The Power of Focus with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, a book that has sold more than 825,000 copies in North America and given Hewitt a recognisable thesis his audiences have often already encountered. Three decades of building and running The Power of Focus coaching program, including more than 900 delivered workshops, so the content is operating practice and not a recycled keynote. A clear diagnostic for why senior teams underperform: unclear future targets, leaders not protecting their top objectives, weak internal communication, and habits that quietly cost productivity. Built specifically for sales leaders, owner-operators and franchise networks, audiences that are usually underserved by leadership-development speakers pitched at corporate HQ. Biography highlights Co-author with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen of The Power of Focus, an international bestseller translated into more than 20 languages. Founder of The Power of Focus Coaching Program, used by more than 300 companies across North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia, the Gulf, Singapore and Russia. Named clients include Wells Fargo, Royal Bank of Canada, FedEx, Cameron Inc., Nexen Energy, RE/MAX, Royal LePage, Investors Group and the Million Dollar Round Table. Author of further titles in the series, including The Power of Focus for Women, The Power of Faithful Focus and The Power of Focus for College Students. Built and ran Achievers Canada, the seminar business that delivered more than 450 leadership and sales programs before evolving into the current coaching practice. Originally from Belfast; rose to top salesperson in an international network marketing company before moving into coaching and authorship. Biography Most senior teams are not failing on strategy. They are failing on follow-through. Targets get diluted by competing demands, the highest-value work slips down the calendar, and the habits that quietly govern productivity go unexamined. Hewitt has spent more than thirty years building a coaching practice around that gap. The Power of Focus, the book he co-authored with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, was the first articulation of his method outside the workshop room. It became a long-running international bestseller, has been translated into more than twenty languages, and seeded the coaching program that now carries the same name. The book gave him a public thesis. The coaching business gave him the operating evidence behind it. That coaching business has been deployed inside more than 300 organisations, including Wells Fargo, Royal Bank of Canada, FedEx, RE/MAX, Royal LePage, Cameron Inc. and the Million Dollar Round Table. The work concentrates on a specific cohort: sales-led and franchise organisations where individual leader habits and team focus translate directly into commercial results. More than 900 workshops have been delivered, so the material is tested under load. Hewitt’s distinctive value is the combination of a recognisable book and a long working catalogue of what actually changes inside companies when leaders narrow their targets and protect their top priorities. Audiences leave with concrete habits and language to install on Monday, not a framework to file away. Key speaking topics Focus and follow-through for senior leaders Goal clarity and execution discipline Productivity habits in sales-led organisations Leadership effectiveness and self-management High-performance team behaviour Ideal for CEOs and owner-operators of mid-market and growth-stage businesses Sales leaders, franchise principals and broker networks Senior leadership teams running annual planning and offsite resets Member organisations such as MDRT, RE/MAX, Royal LePage and similar producer networks Audience outcomes A clearer set of personal and team targets, written down and prioritised before they leave the room. Specific habits to protect the highest-value hours of the working week. A common language for accountability that the team can keep using after the event. Practical tactics drawn from sales and entrepreneurial environments rather than abstract leadership theory.

Why organisations work with Lawrence Dallaglio He captained one club, Wasps, through the most successful period in its history: five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups. That is sustained operating leadership at one institution, not a portfolio of short stints. The 2003 England side is one of the most studied teams in modern sport. Dallaglio was the only player on the pitch for every minute of the World Cup campaign. He can describe the mechanics of that team from inside the unit, not through hindsight. He founded and built Dallaglio RugbyWorks into a charity with measurable, third-party-evaluated outcomes for school-excluded young people. That is a specific, hands-on operating story, not a patronage role. He is one of two players to have won the Rugby World Cup in both 15-a-side and 7-a-side formats, a credential that no other speaker on the British circuit holds. Biography highlights 85 caps for England, captain in 1997 and again from 2004. Member of the 2003 Rugby World Cup and Grand Slam-winning side; played every minute of the World Cup campaign. Five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups with London Wasps as a player and captain. One of two players to have won the Rugby World Cup in both 15-a-side and 7-a-side codes. MBE 2004, OBE 2008 for services to rugby and to charity. Founder of Dallaglio RugbyWorks, working with school-excluded young people aged 12 to 18. Author of It’s in the Blood: My Life, Headline, 2007. Biography The 2003 England side is one of the most analysed teams in international sport. Dallaglio was on the pitch for every minute of that World Cup campaign, in a back row with Richard Hill and Neil Back that other coaches still cite as a benchmark for balance and trust between three players in the same unit. The substance of what he speaks about begins there: how an elite team is actually held together over a long campaign. He played his entire professional club career at London Wasps. Under his captaincy, the club won five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups. That is unusual in modern rugby, where careers move and loyalty is shorter. He captained England in 1997 and again from 2004 after Martin Johnson retired, and finished his international career with 85 caps. He is one of two players, with Matt Dawson, to have won the Rugby World Cup in both 15-a-side and 7-a-side codes. Dallaglio founded RugbyWorks in 2009 to work with young people excluded from mainstream education. The charity reports working with 4,439 young people across 101 provisions, with 90% of participants moving into education, employment or training, against 62% for their peers. It has been funded by the Youth Endowment Fund and works with school leaders who report attendance improvements in their cohorts. He was made MBE in 2004 and OBE in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours, the latter explicitly for services to rugby and to charity. His 2007 autobiography It’s in the Blood is unusually direct for a sports memoir. The Daily Telegraph called it “uncontrollably frank”. The book covers his sister Francesca’s death in the 1989 Marchioness disaster, his short and contested first England captaincy, and the long arc back to the 2003 squad. For a corporate audience, the material that travels is the operating discipline behind sustained captaincy at one club, the inside view of the 2003 England unit, and the practical work of building an institution that does measurable good after the playing career ends. Key speaking topics Captaincy and team leadership High-performance culture in elite sport The 2003 England Rugby World Cup campaign Resilience and recovery from setback Charity and social impact through sport Motivation and after-dinner speaking Ideal for Sales conferences and annual kick-offs that need a leadership-anchored keynote with broad recognition Senior leadership offsites focused on team performance and captaincy Sponsorship, hospitality and broadcasting businesses where rugby has clear cultural currency After-dinner and awards audiences where authority and storytelling both matter Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how the 2003 England team operated week to week, not the post-match version Concrete examples of holding a dressing room together across a long campaign and through injury Insight into the operating model behind a charity that produces measurable outcomes for excluded young people A sharper read on what sustained captaincy at one club actually requires over a decade

Why organisations work with Konstantinos Karypidis He holds a room the way a stage performer does, then converts that attention into mindset work, drawing on years performing in theatres and on national television before moving into corporate training. His method is built on clinical ground, not platform clichés: as a licensed psychotherapist he targets the beliefs that keep behaviour stuck, which is where most change initiatives quietly fail. Every workshop is built from scratch against the client’s specific problem rather than delivered from a fixed deck, so the content matches the actual tension in the organisation. He has run sessions for the people-facing functions of demanding multinationals, including Sanofi, Roche, KPMG, L’Oréal and AstraZeneca, across sales, HR and customer-service briefs. Biography highlights Licensed psychotherapist, business consultant and executive coach to senior leaders internationally. Began his career as a performance artist, writing and directing his own shows for theatres and national television. Has delivered keynotes and bespoke workshops for Sanofi, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, Philips, AstraZeneca, L’Oréal, DHL, AXA and JTI. TEDx speaker. Listed in the Thinkers360 Top 50 Global Thinkers & Influencers in Change Management, 2022. Hosts a podcast and a YouTube channel devoted to books worth reading. Biography Most behaviour-change efforts inside organisations stall in the same place. The strategy is sound and the training is delivered, but the people expected to change carry the same assumptions out of the room that they brought into it. Konstantinos Karypidis works on that gap. He came to corporate work by an unusual route. Before the boardroom he was a performer, writing and directing his own shows for theatres and national television. That background gives him a working performer’s command of attention, which he treats as the precondition for any real change rather than the point of it. The substance underneath the stagecraft is clinical. As a licensed psychotherapist, he focuses on the beliefs and mental patterns that govern how people act, the layer most training programmes skip. His sessions are built individually for each client, shaped around the specific friction a team is facing in sales, HR or customer service. That approach has been tested across demanding environments, from Sanofi and Roche to KPMG, L’Oréal and AstraZeneca. He was listed among the Thinkers360 Top 50 Global Thinkers and Influencers in Change Management in 2022, and speaks regularly on the same TEDx and conference platforms where he first built his reputation for getting an audience to question how they think. Key speaking topics Mindset change and behavioural adoption Peak performance and productivity Employee motivation and engagement Non-verbal communication and influence Sales and customer service Embracing organisational change Ideal for Heads of HR and L&D commissioning a keynote that needs to land emotionally and stick afterwards Sales and customer-service leaders running kick-offs or summits where energy and engagement matter Conference organisers who need an opening or closing speaker who can hold a large room After-dinner audiences at corporate events Audience outcomes A clearer view of the mental patterns that hold back individual performance, and practical techniques to interrupt them Specific tools for reading and using non-verbal communication Renewed motivation tied to concrete take-away methods rather than a temporary lift A shared, energised reference point that teams can carry back into day-to-day work

Why organisations work with Kevin Kelly His Xceptional Execution methodology is not motivational scaffolding – it is a documented framework built from original case study research with high-growth entrepreneurs across the globe, making the argument that execution, not vision, is the real driver of commercial success. Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution was endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence, as the book Peters himself had always wanted to write – a specific, named validation from one of the most cited figures in management literature. The Triple A (Attention, Awareness, Authentic Action) and Storytelling frameworks give teams named, repeatable tools for immediately improving how they earn attention, structure conversations, and close in markets where buyers are already sceptical before a call begins. His cross-industry track record is verifiable: rated the highest-performing speaker at Microsoft’s World Partner Conference (92.5% satisfaction score, ahead of five other speakers on the programme) and a repeat keynote speaker at the Million Dollar Round Table – two of the most commercially exacting professional audiences in technology and financial services. His starting point is always the specific failure mode that sales leaders recognise – the knowing-doing gap – rather than generic motivation; audiences leave with a named diagnosis and specific tools, not energy that fades by the following Monday. Biography highlights Founder of Advanced Marketing, established in Ireland in 1990 following a career breaking sales records across construction and manufacturing sectors in Ireland and internationally Author of five business books, including Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution, endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence How? When You Don’t Know How sold 15,000 copies in Ireland – a bestseller for an independent Irish author on a first title Developed the Xceptional Execution Video Series for Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Community; rated top speaker at the 2015 Microsoft World Partner Conference with a 92.5% audience satisfaction score Repeat keynote speaker at the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), one of the most selective annual platforms for financial services professionals globally Has addressed audiences across more than 35 countries, with named corporate clients including GE Healthcare, KPMG, Hologic, Hang Seng Bank, Lane Crawford, and ICON Clinical Research Biography The central problem in most commercial teams is not a shortage of knowledge. It is a shortage of consistent execution. Kevin Kelly, founder of Advanced Marketing, has built a 30-year methodology on that distinction: the argument that competitive advantage in sales and leadership is won not by the team with the most insight, but by the team that acts on ordinary ideas with extraordinary discipline. His framework, Xceptional Execution, emerged from structured research with entrepreneurs and executives across the globe: people who achieved outsized commercial results not through original thinking, but through repeatable, disciplined action. Do! The Pursuit of Xceptional Execution captured this research and was endorsed by Tom Peters, co-author of In Search of Excellence, as the book Peters himself had always wanted to write. The frameworks Kelly uses in his sessions: Triple A (Attention, Awareness, Authentic Action) and Storytelling, are designed to be immediately applicable by sales and leadership teams returning to their desks the next morning. At Microsoft’s World Partner Conference he was rated the highest-performing speaker on a six-speaker programme, with a 92.5% audience satisfaction score. He has since delivered keynotes for the Million Dollar Round Table and for commercial audiences across more than 35 countries spanning financial services, healthcare, technology, and professional services. Based in the west of Ireland, Kelly holds a marketing degree and began his career breaking sales records in construction and manufacturing before founding Advanced Marketing in 1990. His first book, How? When You Don’t Know How, sold 15,000 copies in Ireland. His subsequent body of work (five books in total) returns repeatedly to the same conviction: that performance, at the individual and organisational level, is almost always a question of execution rather than ambition. Key speaking topics Sales performance and commercial execution Attention and persuasion in distracted markets Xceptional Execution methodology and frameworks Storytelling and business communication Leadership, engagement, and team performance Entrepreneurship and growth through disciplined action Communication and influence in multicultural environments Ideal for Sales directors and commercial leaders seeking to close the gap between sales training and sustained field performance CEOs and senior executives accountable for execution culture across distributed or international teams Partner and channel organisations – particularly in technology and financial services – where performance depends on enabling third-party sales behaviours Associations and conference organisers serving entrepreneurial, financial services, or sales professional audiences (including MDRT-type communities) Audience outcomes A named framework (Triple A and Storytelling) for structuring sales conversations and earning attention from overloaded, sceptical buyers A shift in perspective from sales as persuasion to sales as disciplined execution – with specific practices that distinguish knowing from consistently doing Practical storytelling tools for making commercial messages stick in distracted, multicultural, and low-trust environments Clarity on the specific behaviours and mindsets that separate average teams from those that execute consistently under pressure Approaches to converting disengaged employees and resistant prospects into active advocates – grounded in the Xceptionalists research from Do!

Why organisations work with Karl Burrows He turns abstract values into a physical, shared act. Teams leave having done something together, not just heard about it. His framing of authenticity as ego-aware self-leadership cuts through the usual corporate language and gives senior leaders a more honest vocabulary for how they show up. The cultural source material is genuine. Burrows is of Maori and European descent, learned haka and te reo through his Taranaki tribal connection, and treats the practice with the seriousness that distinguishes it from team-building theatre. His commercial track record speaks to a range. Hakaworks has worked with IBM, Vodafone, BP, Shell, Philips, BT, Deloitte, GSK and American Express across keynote, workshop and after-dinner formats. He brings a corporate operator’s lens. An MBA from Cranfield and years as a commercial lawyer for Procter and Gamble, DHL and Equifax mean he speaks the language of the room he is working with. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Director of Hakaworks, London. Co-founder of Manaia, the performance and education company established in London in 2004. MBA, Cranfield University. Former commercial lawyer and negotiator for Procter and Gamble, DHL and Equifax. Corporate engagements include IBM, Vodafone, BP, Shell, Philips, BT, Deloitte, GSK and American Express. Host of the Haka Works Talks podcast; podcast guest on The New P&L Principles and Leadership and TeamBonding. Biography Most corporate culture work happens in slides and surveys. Hakaworks works in the body. The London-based company Karl Burrows founded uses Maori cultural practice, including haka, to make team identity something a group does together rather than describes to itself. The methodology has taken Hakaworks into IBM, Vodafone, BP, Shell, Deloitte, GSK and American Express. The grounding is genuine. Burrows is of Maori and European descent, learned te reo and the haka of his Taranaki tribal area, and co-founded Manaia in London in 2004 as a way for haka performers to share the practice. Hakaworks grew from that, and the seriousness of the cultural source is what separates the work from generic team-building. The intellectual frame underneath the practice is authentic leadership. Burrows argues that authenticity demands self-awareness about ego and the discipline to set it aside, so leaders respond from values rather than identity defence. The argument lands harder because it is paired with a physical act that asks a room to commit visibly to a shared intent. He brings a corporate operator’s vocabulary to the work. An MBA from Cranfield and years as a commercial lawyer for Procter and Gamble, DHL and Equifax mean he understands the rooms he is invited into, and reads what a leadership team actually needs from a session rather than delivering a fixed set piece. Key speaking topics Authentic leadership and ego Team unity and trust Organisational culture and values in practice Purpose and collective performance Ritual as a leadership tool Maori cultural practice in business contexts Ideal for CHROs and culture leads running team-bonding offsites or culture interventions Senior leadership teams working through trust and unity issues Sales kickoffs, all-hands moments and conferences that need a shared experience rather than another panel Executive development programmes focused on authentic leadership Audience outcomes A shared physical experience the team can refer back to long after the room empties A more direct vocabulary for talking about ego, authenticity and how leaders show up under pressure A practical sense of how ritual and ceremony can be used to mark commitment to a strategy or change A felt understanding of what collective intent looks like, beyond a values poster

Why organisations work with Jonny Wilkinson A first-person account of what elite pressure does to judgement, body, and identity, drawn from the kick that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup and the years that followed it. Authority on performance and mental health that comes with a CBE, World Rugby Hall of Fame induction, and 91 England caps, not a consultant’s reframing of athlete clichés. A founder’s perspective from One Living, the B Corp drinks business he built around his own recovery, giving the talk commercial substance beyond the sporting story. Long-form work on presence and human potential through the I Am… podcast and two books, which means the content is developed, not improvised on stage. Biography highlights 91 caps for England, two British and Irish Lions tours, scorer of the drop goal that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup final against Australia. BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2003; IRB International Player of the Year 2003; OBE 2003; CBE 2015. Inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2016. Author of Jonny: My Autobiography and Tackling Life, the latter co-authored with long-time mentor Steve Black. Founder of One Living, a B Corp certified kombucha and functional drinks business stocked nationally in Tesco. Host of the I Am… With Jonny Wilkinson podcast, in conversation with thought leaders on performance, presence and mental health since 2022. Biography The drop goal that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup is one of the most replayed sporting moments in British memory. The man who struck it spent the next decade trying to explain to himself why it did not feel like the answer. Wilkinson’s body broke down through repeated injury, and the perfectionism that had driven the career became the thing he had to dismantle to live well. That second act is what gives his speaking content its weight. He writes and talks about presence, fear, and the relationship between high performance and mental health, drawing on his own recovery rather than secondhand frameworks. Tackling Life, written with his long-time mentor Steve Black, set the early ground. The I Am… podcast, running since 2022, has extended it into a body of conversation with global thinkers on potential and self-awareness. The credentials are not in doubt. 91 England caps, two Lions tours, the 2003 BBC Sports Personality award, the 2003 IRB International Player of the Year, an OBE the same year, a CBE in 2015, and induction into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2016. As a founder he has built One Living, a B Corp certified drinks brand born directly out of his own work on gut health, mental health and recovery. For a corporate audience, the value sits in the honesty about what elite pressure costs and how composure is rebuilt afterwards. The story is recognisable to anyone responsible for performance under public scrutiny, and the takeaways are practical rather than motivational. Key speaking topics Performing under pressure Mental health and recovery after high performance Presence and self-leadership Resilience and reinvention after a defining career Founder lessons from One Living Mindset, fear and the cost of perfectionism Ideal for Senior leadership offsites where composure under pressure is the practical theme CHRO and people director audiences focused on mental health, wellbeing and high-performing cultures Sales kickoffs and annual conferences seeking a credible performance keynote with intellectual depth Awards dinners, panel moderation and after-dinner appearances where rugby authority and on-stage authenticity carry the room Audience outcomes A grounded account of what perfectionism and fear do to performance at the top, and how that pattern is changed Specific habits Wilkinson uses for presence, focus and recovery, drawn from his own practice rather than a generic framework A reframing of mental health as a leadership capability, not an HR concern Permission to talk openly about the gap between visible success and private cost

Why organisations work with Jonnie Peacock The credibility behind his pressure narrative is specific. He won the London 2012 Paralympic 100m in front of 80,000 people, at 19, as the home favourite, having been largely unknown twelve months earlier. The preparation-to-execution discipline he describes is grounded in that exact moment, and he makes it concrete for business audiences in ways retrospective case studies cannot. His Strictly Come Dancing appearance was a deliberate disability advocacy strategy, not a media opportunity. He has described it publicly as a specific effort to shift mainstream perception of disability, which gives organisations working on inclusion a frame grounded in personal agency rather than policy or HR language. He has won at the highest level and lost at the highest level: two Paralympic golds, a bronze when gold was expected at Tokyo 2020, and a fifth place at Paris 2024 after a career as the public face of British Paralympic sprinting. His account of managing that full arc is something few performance speakers can draw on with equivalent specificity. His Channel 4 series Jonnie’s Blade Camp placed him in a structured coaching role with five young amputees, demonstrating that his performance insight has been tested and applied beyond his own biography. Competing at four Paralympic Games across twelve years, he provides a long-cycle view of high performance: managing injury, rival pressure, public expectation, and identity shift across a career, not just the story of a single peak moment. Biography highlights Two-time Paralympic 100m champion (London 2012, Rio 2016); bronze medallist T64 100m Tokyo 2020; silver medallist 4x100m Universal Relay at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 World champion at the IPC Athletics World Championships, Lyon 2013, and the World Para Athletics Championships, London 2017; multiple European champion; former world record holder in amputee sprinting (10.85 seconds) MBE for services to athletics, 2013 New Year Honours First amputee Paralympian to compete on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing (Series 15, 2017), partnered with Oti Mabuse Featured in the Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix (2020) and Channel 4’s “Meet the Superhumans” campaign (2012) Creator and presenter of Channel 4’s Jonnie’s Blade Camp (2021), a structured training programme for young amputees Biography At the 2012 London Paralympic 100m final, a 19-year-old largely unknown twelve months earlier stood behind the start line as the home favourite, in a stadium of 80,000 people. Jonnie Peacock won by a clear margin and set a Paralympic record. The insight that produces is not just biographical. Performing consistently when pressure is highest is one of the hardest things organisations ask of their people. Peacock is a two-time Paralympic 100m champion and former world record holder in amputee sprinting, with medals at three of the four Paralympic Games he has competed in across twelve years. His Channel 4 series Jonnie’s Blade Camp placed him in a structured coaching environment with five young amputees, demonstrating that his understanding of performance development has been applied in a formal teaching context, not only in his own career. His mainstream media presence reflects a deliberate strategy. He became the first amputee Paralympian on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, a decision he has described publicly as an act of disability advocacy rather than entertainment. He features in the Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix and was at the centre of Channel 4’s “Meet the Superhumans” campaign in 2012, both of which sit inside the wider argument about how disability is perceived in high-performance sport. The story underneath all of this is not decorative. Peacock contracted meningitis at five and lost his right leg below the knee. He found athletics through a Paralympic talent identification day and became Paralympic champion in his first competitive senior season. His argument to organisations rests on that arc: the gap between preparation and peak execution under genuine pressure is real, and it can be closed. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Resilience and adversity recovery Elite competitive mindset Disability and inclusion High-performance team discipline Managing expectation in high-stakes moments Long-cycle career performance Ideal for Executive and leadership teams focused on consistency, decision-making, and execution under scrutiny Organisations running DEI programmes seeking inclusion framed through personal agency and elite performance evidence Commercial, sales, and competitive teams preparing for high-stakes pitches or critical competitive moments HR and people leaders building resilience and wellbeing strategies with credible, first-hand evidence Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what mental preparation for maximum-pressure performance feels like, grounded in verified results across four Paralympic Games Sharper distinction between building capability in training and executing consistently when real scrutiny arrives Disability reframed as competitive capability, evidenced through elite sport rather than policy language Greater clarity on managing external expectation from rivals, public audiences, and an organisation’s own culture A longer view of high performance: how to absorb setback, return to competition, and sustain standards across a career