Motivation and Inspiration

Why organisations work with Jamie Theakston Heart Breakfast reaches a daily UK audience in the millions, which means an internal audience recognises him on sight and an external audience trusts the room he is in. He has hosted live network television in formats that test pacing and composure: Live & Kicking on BBC1, Top of the Pops, The Games on Channel 4. Long-form live experience translates directly to long awards evenings. His on-air partnership with Amanda Holden on the UK’s biggest commercial breakfast show is built on interview craft, which carries into panel moderation and senior interview slots on conference stages. He works comfortably across formats: awards host, conference MC, after-dinner host, panel moderator, all from the same booking. Biography highlights Co-host of Heart Breakfast, Heart Radio’s national UK breakfast show, with Amanda Holden. Co-presenter, with Zoe Ball, of Live & Kicking on BBC1, 1996 to 1998. The show won a BAFTA. Host of Top of the Pops, BBC1, 1998 to 2003. Narrator of Traffic Cops, on BBC and Channel 5 since 2003. Co-host, with Alexander Armstrong, of a wine podcast. Trained at the National Youth Theatre from age 13. Biography National breakfast radio is the hardest live shift in British media. Three hours, every weekday, with no script that survives contact with breaking news, traffic, listener calls or a co-host on a tangent. Jamie Theakston has held one of those chairs since 2005, currently alongside Amanda Holden on Heart Breakfast, the UK’s largest commercial breakfast show. Before Heart, he co-presented Live & Kicking on BBC1 with Zoe Ball from 1996 to 1998, the BAFTA-winning Saturday morning show that pulled twice the audience of any rival in its slot. He hosted Top of the Pops through its final mainstream era between 1998 and 2003, interviewing every major artist that passed through it. He has narrated Traffic Cops on BBC and Channel 5 since 2003. That mileage is the product organisations book. Awards evenings, internal conferences, customer events, after-dinner formats: the work that goes wrong when the host cannot read a room, cannot recover when an autocue fails, cannot move from a comedy bit to a moment of genuine recognition without breaking tone. Theakston has done that work on live national television and live national radio for nearly three decades. He hosts as a known quantity. The audience knows the voice and the face. The executive team gets a host who has covered everything from royal memorial broadcasts to chart shows and treats both with the same level of preparation. Key speaking topics Awards hosting Conference and event MC Panel moderation Senior leader interviews on stage After-dinner hosting Ideal for Internal awards and recognition evenings Annual customer and partner conferences Sales kick-offs and all-hands events Charity galas and fundraising dinners Audience outcomes A live event that runs to time, holds energy through the long middle section, and lands its key recognition moments cleanly. Senior leader interviews and panels that produce usable answers rather than rehearsed talking points. A familiar broadcast voice on stage that warms the room before the substantive content begins.

Why organisations work with Jeanette Kwakye A working national broadcaster, not a former athlete trading on past results. Buyers get a host who runs live BBC Sport and ITV current affairs every week, with the on-stage instincts that come with it. Rare credibility on women in sport and media. She broke a 24-year drought as a British woman in the Olympic 100m final, then became the first Black female UK presenter to front a terrestrial boxing production. Hosting and moderation experience with Google, Nike, BMW, the IOC and World Athletics, which translates into clean panel craft for senior leadership audiences. Direct, unsentimental on the transition from elite sport to a second career. Useful for talent, learning and DEI conversations that have grown tired of the standard sportsperson keynote. Biography highlights Sixth place in the 100m final at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the first British woman in that final since 1984. Silver medallist over 60m at the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships, equalling the British record of 7.08. BBC athletics trackside reporter; host of BBC Radio 5 Live’s Football Daily podcast; co-host of BBC Radio 5 Live Weekend Breakfast. Co-host of The Martin Lewis Money Show on ITV1. First Black female UK TV presenter to lead a boxing production on a terrestrial channel, on Channel 5. Appointed MBE in the 2021 Birthday Honours for services to sport and sports broadcasting. Loughborough University graduate in Politics and Economics; author of the children’s book Femi the Fox. Biography A British woman had not reached an Olympic 100m final for twenty-four years when Jeanette Kwakye ran 11.14 in Beijing in 2008 and finished sixth. The earlier rounds, not the final, are the part that matters. She trained at Loughborough, came through British championships in both the 100m and 200m, and took silver over 60m at the World Indoors that same year, equalling the British record of 7.08. The second career has the same shape. After retiring in 2014 she went through an NCTJ qualification, started in local BBC radio, and built outwards. She is now a BBC athletics trackside reporter, hosts the Football Daily podcast on BBC Radio 5 Live, co-hosts Weekend Breakfast on the same station, and co-presents The Martin Lewis Money Show on ITV1. In 2020, she became the first Black female presenter on a terrestrial UK boxing production. Her hosting and moderation portfolio outside broadcast covers Google, Nike, BMW, the International Olympic Committee and World Athletics. Senior audiences hire her because she runs a room cleanly, pushes panellists, and brings a working journalist’s instinct to questions of representation and performance rather than a retired-athlete reflection. She was appointed MBE in 2021 for services to sport and sports broadcasting. She is also the author of the children’s book Femi the Fox. Key speaking topics Representation in sport and media Women in broadcasting and elite sport High-performance mindset Career transition from elite sport Olympic preparation and selection Sports broadcasting and journalism Resilience after injury Ideal for Conference and summit organisers needing a host or moderator with senior on-stage credibility DEI, talent and people leaders running events on representation and women’s progression Sports industry, federation and rights-holder events Internal kick-offs and leadership offsites looking for an Olympic-finalist perspective on performance under pressure Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what representation actually changes inside elite environments, told from inside two of them A working definition of high performance that survives contact with injury, deselection and reinvention Practical ground for talent and DEI leaders considering how the pipeline into senior visible roles really moves A panel or fireside that lands cleanly, with a host who keeps senior speakers honest

Why organisations work with Julie Gautier A first-hand discipline of working under physiological pressure that few keynote speakers can credibly claim. Two French records in constant weight freediving, minus 68 metres on a single breath, are evidence of a practice, not an anecdote. A creative body of work that translates the discipline into something an audience can feel. Ama, shot in a single breath in the world’s deepest pool, has reached a wide international audience and has become a reference point for how breath, focus and stillness are cultivated. Direct relevance to leadership audiences asking how to stay composed under public scrutiny, scrutiny markets, board pressure or crisis. The mechanism she describes is concrete: how the breath is trained, how attention is held, how panic is metabolised before it becomes decision. A second register of value for organisations working on creativity, environmental purpose, or the relationship between people and the natural world. Her films sit inside that conversation rather than next to it. Biography highlights Two French records in constant weight freediving, minus 65 metres (2006) and minus 68 metres (2007). Co-founder of Les Films Engloutis, the production label behind her underwater work. Writer and director of Ama, performed in a single breath in the Y-40 deep pool, Italy. Co-director and writer of the underwater music video for Beyoncé and Naughty Boy’s “Runnin’ (Lose It All)” (2015). Director of One Breath Around the World, featured in National Geographic’s Short Film Showcase. TEDxLausanneWomen speaker, December 2019, “Inspiration in the Absence of Breath”. Biography Holding the breath is a trained skill, not a held-back reflex. Gautier worked on it for nine years as a competitive freediver, including two French national records in constant weight, before stepping out of the sport in 2009. The discipline she learned, working with the breath rather than against it, is the substance she now brings to leadership audiences. Her second career has been as a director and performer in underwater cinema. With Guillaume Néry, she co-founded Les Films Engloutis, the label behind films including Narcose, Ocean Gravity and One Breath Around the World, the last of which was carried by National Geographic’s Short Film Showcase. She also co-directed and wrote the underwater music video for Beyoncé and Naughty Boy’s “Runnin’ (Lose It All)”. Ama, released on International Women’s Day in 2018, is the work that brought the practice into the cultural conversation. It is a single-breath performance in the Y-40 deep pool in Italy, choreographed and performed by Gautier herself. It has been read as a piece on grief, on women’s resilience, on the management of pressure, on the value of stillness. It is not a metaphor for any of those things. It is the discipline made visible. For a corporate audience, the relevance is direct. Senior leaders are working in conditions where composure has become a performance variable. Gautier’s contribution is not motivational language. It is a description of how a person who has practised breath and attention under real physiological constraint actually does it, and what transfers when the audience walks out of the room. Key speaking topics Breath, focus and composure under pressure Self-leadership and emotional regulation Creativity drawn from natural environments Personal discipline and long-form practice Ocean storytelling and environmental purpose Ideal for Senior leadership offsites where composure under public pressure is a stated theme Cultural and inspirational segments of conferences for boards, executive committees and partner audiences Wellbeing, performance and people-function summits looking for substantive content on breath and attention Brand, creative and sustainability events where ocean storytelling has natural anchor Audience outcomes A concrete account of how breath is trained as a tool for focus, not as a wellness motif A vocabulary for talking about composure as a learned practice rather than a personal trait Visual material, drawn from her films, that audiences continue to discuss after the session A working frame for how stillness, patience and humility translate into professional performance

Why organisations work with Jordan Banjo A live broadcaster’s instinct for pace, autocue, links and crowd energy, built across Got to Dance, The Greatest Dancer, Dancing On Ice and the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards Five years of daily live radio hosting on KISS Breakfast, the discipline that translates most directly into running a long awards show without the room flagging Recognition that travels across audiences from boardrooms to family-facing events, anchored to Diversity’s 2009 Britain’s Got Talent win and a continuous national TV presence since A second register beyond hosting: a personal arc through Diversity, family, weight loss and a current move into competitive boxing with DAZN, available where a brief calls for motivational content rather than presenting Biography highlights Founding member of Diversity, winners of Britain’s Got Talent series 3 (2009) Co-host of KISS Breakfast with Perri Kiely, 2020 to January 2026 TV credits include Got to Dance, The Greatest Dancer, Dancing On Ice digital, Eat Well For Less, and the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards UK Runner-up on I’m a Celebrity: South Africa All-Stars (2023); previously a series 16 contestant (2016) On-screen presenter for DAZN boxing coverage Co-author with Ashley Banjo of the children’s books Fly High Crew and The Day We Saved The Future Biography Diversity walked onto Britain’s Got Talent in 2009 as an unknown street dance group from Essex and walked off as the winners of the series. Jordan Banjo, then sixteen, was the youngest on stage. The group has remained a fixture of British popular culture ever since, and Banjo has built the broadest broadcasting career of any of its original members. Most of that career has been live. Got to Dance on Sky, The Greatest Dancer on BBC One, Dancing On Ice digital for ITV, Eat Well For Less, and the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards UK have all required the same skill: keep a room or a camera on rhythm without losing the audience. Five years of daily breakfast radio on KISS, alongside Perri Kiely, sharpened it further. For corporate buyers, the value is straightforward. A host with this volume of live-television and live-radio reps does not freeze on a long running order, does not over-talk a sponsor read, and does not let an awards show drift in the second hour. The face is recognisable to a broad audience, which matters when the brief includes family events, consumer-facing brand moments or all-staff celebrations rather than narrow C-suite rooms. Where a brief asks for content rather than hosting, Banjo can speak from his own arc: the discipline of a winning team rebuilt year after year, public weight loss, family, fatherhood, and a current move into the boxing ring with DAZN, following his father Funso Banjo, a former professional fighter. Key speaking topics Awards and conference hosting Live event presenting Team performance, drawn from Diversity Personal motivation and reinvention Family, fitness and boxing Brand and audience engagement on camera Ideal for Internal all-staff conferences and end-of-year celebrations needing a recognisable host Awards nights and gala dinners requiring a broadcast-trained presenter Consumer brand events targeting family and mainstream UK audiences Sponsorship activations and product launches with on-camera elements Audience outcomes A live event run at television pace, with cleaner cues and tighter links Higher audience energy across long-form running orders, particularly in the second half A recognisable on-stage face that broadens the room beyond a purely corporate audience Where booked as content, a personal story of team success, public scrutiny and physical reinvention

Why organisations work with Josie Gibson A nationally familiar face from ITV’s daytime flagship who lands instantly with UK consumer and employee audiences without long set-up. A live-room temperament built across thousands of hours of unscripted daytime television, including I’m A Celebrity 2023, where unpredictability is the format. Brand-event credibility from sustained partnerships with Samsung, Very, Next, Regatta, Babybel and Cawston Press. Genuine warmth on stage that suits internal culture moments, recognition nights and panels where audiences need to feel met, not lectured to. Biography highlights Host on ITV’s This Morning, regularly presenting alongside Alison Hammond, Dermot O’Leary and Rylan. Winner of Big Brother UK Series 11 (Channel 4, 2010). Finalist on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, 2023, finishing fourth. Television credits across The Wheel, Blankety Blank and Bake Off: Extra Slice. Commercial partnerships with Samsung, Very, Next Clothing, Regatta, Babybel and Cawston Press. Biography Live audiences are unforgiving. They feel a host who is performing at them rather than with them, and they switch off fast. The work of carrying a room with warmth, pace and on-the-fly recovery is craft, and it is built only by doing it for years on live television. Josie Gibson has built that craft on ITV’s This Morning, the UK’s longest-running daytime magazine show, where she presents alongside Alison Hammond, Dermot O’Leary and Rylan. Daytime television is unscripted by design: she has the reflexes to handle a guest going off-piste, a feature that runs short, or a tonal shift between segments without losing the audience. Her wider profile sits on top of that broadcast spine. She first reached a national audience as the winner of Big Brother UK Series 11 in 2010, and reinforced her live-television credentials reaching the final four on I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in 2023. Brand work with Samsung, Very, Next Clothing, Regatta, Babybel and Cawston Press has given her sustained experience of representing partners on camera and in live settings. For organisations, this translates into a specific kind of value. Gibson is recognisable to UK staff and customer audiences from a programme they actually watch, and she brings the unscripted live-television temperament that internal events, awards ceremonies and brand activations need to feel like genuine moments rather than corporate set pieces. Key speaking topics Live event hosting Awards night hosting Brand event moderation Panel facilitation On-stage interviews Audience engagement for consumer-facing brands Ideal for Internal company conferences, kick-offs and recognition events with UK consumer-facing staff audiences. Awards ceremonies and brand activations seeking a recognisable ITV daytime presenter. Marketing, communications and HR teams briefing for warm, audience-led moderation rather than subject-matter keynote. Audience outcomes A live event paced and held by a broadcaster the room already knows from television. Panels and on-stage interviews that feel conversational rather than rehearsed. A recognition or awards moment that registers with employees as a genuine reward, not a formality. Brand stories told on stage by a presenter audiences read as warm and credible.

Why organisations work with Alan Stein Jr. Direct working access to Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Kobe Bryant during their formative years gives him firsthand observation of how the highest performers in modern basketball actually prepare, not the version told in interviews. Three published books (Raise Your Game, Sustain Your Game, Next Play) form a connected curriculum on individual performance, sustained output without burnout, and focus discipline. Leaders can extend a keynote into a longer programme. Translates athletic preparation into language a corporate audience already uses. Sales teams, retail operators, and frontline managers leave with habits they can run on Monday morning. Repeat client list crosses retail, financial services, healthcare, and franchise operations: American Express, Pepsi, Under Armour, Starbucks, Charles Schwab, Orangetheory Fitness. The material travels across sectors. Biography highlights Performance coach at the LeBron James Skills Academy and the Jordan Brand Classic Trained Stephen Curry in the month before the 2009 NBA Draft Author of Raise Your Game (Hachette), Sustain Your Game (Hachette Book Group), and Next Play (Amplify Publishing, 2025) Foreword to Raise Your Game by ESPN analyst Jay Bilas, who also features on the Next Play audiobook Corporate clients include American Express, Pepsi, Under Armour, Starbucks, Charles Schwab, Orangetheory Fitness Host of the Raise Your Game podcast Biography The best basketball players in the world are not the most physically gifted people in the room. They are the most prepared. Alan Stein Jr. spent fifteen years inside that preparation as a basketball performance coach, training Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and Kobe Bryant during the years their habits were being formed. That access is the substance of his work. As a coach at the LeBron James Skills Academy, the Jordan Brand Classic, and Mike Jones’s DeMatha programme, Stein watched how elite players approached the unseen hours: warm-ups, recovery, film, the same drills repeated for years. The behaviours were unglamorous and learnable. He now teaches them to senior leaders and their teams. His three books map a single argument across individual, sustained, and focused performance. Raise Your Game (Hachette), with a foreword by ESPN’s Jay Bilas, sets out the habits. Sustain Your Game (Hachette Book Group) addresses stress, stagnation, and burnout. Next Play (Amplify Publishing, 2025) takes Coach K’s two-word philosophy and turns it into a discipline for what to do after a mistake or a win. Corporate clients use the material because it crosses sectors without losing specificity. American Express, Pepsi, Under Armour, Starbucks, Charles Schwab, and Orangetheory Fitness have all booked him. The vocabulary is athletic, but the application is operational: how a sales team prepares for a quarter, how a frontline manager recovers from a bad week, how a leader sets a daily standard the team can see. Key speaking topics Peak performance habits for senior leaders Self-leadership and preparation under pressure Team cohesion and high-performance culture Stress, burnout, and sustained output Sales performance mindset Lessons from elite athletes for corporate leaders Ideal for Sales leaders and chief revenue officers running performance offsites CHROs and L&D leads building leadership development programmes Franchise and retail operations leaders running annual conferences Senior leadership teams resetting standards after a difficult quarter or year Audience outcomes A clear set of preparation habits modelled on how elite athletes actually train Specific routines for managing stress and sustaining performance over a full year, not a quarter A shared vocabulary for accountability and standard-setting that a leadership team can use the next day Concrete examples from named NBA players that make the principles memorable for frontline staff A reframe of “talent” as habit and preparation, useful for managers building younger teams

Why organisations work with Shirley Ballas A live-television presence with nearly a decade on the Strictly judging panel, comfortable hosting awards nights, fundraisers and after-dinner sessions on the same scale as the corporate audiences in front of her. Forty years of performing at the highest level of competitive Latin dance, including ten US Latin American titles and three British Open World titles, gives her a credible voice on sustaining standards over a long career. A working ambassador for the Campaign Against Living Miserably and Suicide and Co, with a personal account of losing her brother to suicide that gives weight to mental health programming inside organisations. President of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, the institutional credential that distinguishes her from celebrity speakers without a substantive professional body behind them. Biography highlights Head Judge, BBC One Strictly Come Dancing, since 2017. Three-time British Open to the World Latin American Champion; ten-time United States Latin American Champion; 17-time British Open finalist. President of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Author of Behind the Sequins: My Life (John Blake, 2020). Ambassador for the Campaign Against Living Miserably and Suicide and Co; Appeal Ambassador for Alder Hey Children’s Charity 7in10 Mental Health campaign. Inducted into the United States and Great Britain Dance Halls of Fame; three-time recipient of the Carl Alan Award. Biography Competitive Latin dance is a brutal long-game discipline. Most champions peak briefly and disappear. By 21, Shirley Ballas had already won nearly every major Latin title available, and she stayed at the top of the international circuit until retiring from competition in 1996. That career produced three British Open World Latin Championships, ten US Latin American titles, and 17 British Open finals across a single division. It also produced the credibility that took her into adjudication and coaching at the highest international level, and on into the President’s chair at the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Since 2017, Ballas has been the Head Judge on Strictly Come Dancing, the role Len Goodman vacated. The BBC seat is the live-television equivalent of her competitive career: scored every week by an audience of millions, with no margin for an off night. Her 2020 autobiography Behind the Sequins covers the cost of that life, including a working-class start in Wallasey, two marriages, and the loss of her brother David to suicide in 2003. That loss is the basis for her public mental health work. Ballas is an ambassador for the Campaign Against Living Miserably and for Suicide and Co, and an Appeal Ambassador for Alder Hey Children’s Charity’s 7in10 mental health campaign. Inside corporate rooms her draw is the combination of celebrity recognition and a serious, lived account of resilience and male-suicide awareness. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery from personal loss Performance under pressure Mental health advocacy and male suicide awareness Sustained excellence across a long career Live broadcast and high-profile judgement Event hosting, Q&A and after-dinner Ideal for Awards nights, gala dinners and charity fundraisers seeking a recognisable host with a substantive personal story. Internal corporate events on resilience, wellbeing or mental health, particularly programmes addressing male mental health. Employee engagement and recognition events looking for a high-profile broadcast personality for Q&A or fireside formats. Audience outcomes A first-hand account of staying at standard across four decades of competitive performance and live television. A direct personal perspective on grief, suicide loss and the work of CALM and Suicide and Co. A Q&A or fireside conversation that lands with audiences who know her from Strictly Come Dancing. A glamorous and confident hosting presence for awards, gala or recognition formats.

Why organisations work with Ramon Ray He has built and exited three of his own companies and runs two active media platforms, so the advice is operator-tested, not theorised from the outside His Celebrity CEO framework gives founders a step-by-step way to build local and category authority, not generic personal-brand advice He has interviewed every Shark Tank investor and President Obama, and shares platforms with Seth Godin and Simon Sinek, which gives him an unusually wide read on what works across founder archetypes He has been invited to the White House and the US Congress on small-business and personal-branding topics, which gives the work institutional weight beyond the usual marketing-conference circuit He is a high-energy event host as well as a keynote speaker, and is regularly hired by Entrepreneur magazine and similar publishers to anchor their flagship conferences Biography highlights Founder of SmallBizTechnology.com and Smart Hustle Media, two long-running platforms serving small-business owners Author of The Celebrity CEO, Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing (Wiley), Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses, and two further titles Conducted the first live Google Hangout interview with President Barack Obama Member of the US Delegation to India led by Ivanka Trump for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit Invited expert witness to the US Congress and speaker at the White House on personal branding Contributor to Inc., Entrepreneur, PC World, Small Business Trends, and Allbusiness.com; co-founder of the Small Business Influencer Awards Biography Most small-business owners do not lose to better products. They lose to better-known competitors. The Celebrity CEO thesis takes that observation seriously and treats personal brand as a growth instrument with measurable outputs: leads, referrals, pricing power, retention. The book is the public face of two decades of work with founders trying to compete against larger rivals. The author of that thesis, Ramon Ray, is a five-time entrepreneur who has built and exited three companies, including SmallBizTechnology.com and Smart Hustle Media. He has written five books across technology, marketing, and personal brand, and his journalism appears in Inc., Entrepreneur, PC World, and Small Business Trends. His access to the top of the founder market is unusual. He conducted the first live Google Hangout with President Obama, joined the US Delegation to India for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, and has been invited as an expert witness to Congress and as a speaker at the White House on personal branding. He has interviewed every Shark Tank investor and shared stages with Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Deepak Chopra. What makes the work commercially useful is the operator’s eye behind it. Ramon co-founded the Small Business Influencer Awards with Anita Campbell, anchors Entrepreneur magazine’s flagship conferences as host, and runs an active mastermind for founders applying the Celebrity CEO playbook. The advice is not theoretical; it is what he is doing for himself in public, in real time. Key speaking topics Personal brand as a growth engine for founders Small-business marketing and customer acquisition Community building and category authority Social media for entrepreneurs Digital tools and technology for small business Entrepreneurial mindset and resilience Ideal for Founders and CEOs of small and mid-sized businesses Franchise networks, dealer councils, and independent business associations Marketing and growth leaders inside larger organisations who serve SMB customers Diversity-in-business and youth-entrepreneurship programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of what a Celebrity CEO is, and what it takes to become one in their market A simple model for turning customer relationships into a referral and retention engine Specific tactics for showing up consistently on social platforms without burning out Renewed conviction that being visible is part of the job, not a vanity project A short list of next moves they can act on the same week

Why organisations work with Mark Millar He has run the project management seat on BBC One’s DIY SOS since 2006, including the Swansea build of the UK’s first adapted surf school for people with disabilities, completed in eleven days. That is a specific, televised record of delivery under extreme constraint. He brings the trade voice to corporate audiences. Manufacturers, merchants, installers and developers book him because he speaks the language of the site as well as the boardroom. His Channel 5 presenting work, Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms with Mark Millar and Build Your Dream Home in the Country, makes him a recognisable on-camera host for product launches, awards nights and trade conferences. He runs a working building firm in Bristol with UK and international clients, so the operating advice is current rather than retrospective. Biography highlights Project Manager on BBC One’s DIY SOS, on screen and behind the scenes, since 2006. Presenter of Channel 5’s Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms with Mark Millar (2021) and Build Your Dream Home in the Country (2023). Led the September 2020 DIY SOS and Children in Need build in Swansea of an adapted surf school for people with disabilities, completed in eleven days. Owner of a Bristol-based building firm with UK and international project work. Trained as a carpenter in Northern Ireland through a four-year apprenticeship. Recurring host and guest across BBC and Channel 5 entertainment programming, including Pointless Celebrities and radio appearances. Biography The Swansea adapted surf school went up in eleven days. Mark Millar ran the site as Project Manager for BBC One’s DIY SOS, working with Children in Need on a build that became the first surf school in the UK designed for people with disabilities. That kind of work, where the deadline is fixed by a broadcast date and the brief is emotionally non-negotiable, is the discipline he has spent two decades practising on screen. Mark trained as a carpenter in Northern Ireland and has been the project management voice of DIY SOS since 2006. The role has been editorial as well as practical: he has visited every site and shaped which stories made it to air. The show has accumulated audiences and BAFTA recognition over its run, and Mark is the figure most associated with its delivery rhythm. Channel 5 built two series around him. Dream Kitchens and Bathrooms with Mark Millar (2021) follows homeowners through the rooms they cannot afford to get wrong. Build Your Dream Home in the Country (2023) takes him to self-build projects across the UK. He continues to run a Bristol-based building firm with celebrity and international clients, which keeps the on-screen advice anchored in current site economics. The reason corporate audiences in construction, manufacturing, merchanting and home improvement book him is specific. He is one of the few public figures in UK media who can carry a room of contractors, hold a brand stage, and explain the trade view to a board, without losing any of the three audiences. Key speaking topics Project management on complex builds The realities of running a building firm Trades, training and apprenticeship Television presenting and brand hosting Charity builds and community projects Customer experience in home improvement Ideal for Construction, merchant and manufacturer audiences at trade conferences and dealer events Home improvement and KBB sector brand activations and product launches Corporate hospitality and after-dinner audiences looking for a recognisable TV host Charity and community fundraising events with a build or trade dimension Audience outcomes A clear, on-the-tools view of how complex builds get delivered to fixed deadlines A working perspective on customer trust in trades, told from the contractor’s side Recognisable broadcast presence for awards, panels and product reveals Stories from DIY SOS sites that ground discussion of community impact in specific builds

Why organisations work with Fleur East A working national breakfast presenter on Hits Radio since 2019, on air four hours a morning, five days a week. The reflexes for live radio carry directly into corporate stage moderation. Co-host of BBC Two’s Strictly: It Takes Two, where the format demands daily turnaround, guest interviewing, and managing emotional content on a tight clock. Reached the Strictly Come Dancing 2022 final with Vito Coppola and scored the series’ first perfect 40, a credibility line that lands instantly with mass-market UK audiences and partners. Co-founder with her sister of Kurl Kitchen, a textured-hair brand built on West African ingredients, launched in 2024. Useful when the brief includes founder stories, representation, or Black British entrepreneurship. Versatile in register, from awards night spectacle to panel moderation to after-dinner, without needing a different speaker for each format. Biography highlights Host of Hits Radio Breakfast (Bauer Media), nationally networked, since July 2019. Co-presenter of BBC Two’s Strictly: It Takes Two from the 2023 series. Strictly Come Dancing 2022 finalist with Vito Coppola; first perfect 40 of that series during Blackpool week. X Factor 2014 finalist; debut single “Sax” reached UK No. 3 and was certified Platinum by the BPI. Television credits including ITV’s Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, The Void, I’m A Celebrity finalist (2018), and Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. Co-founder with her sister Keshia East of Kurl Kitchen, a natural haircare brand launched in 2024. Biography Hits Radio Breakfast goes out from 6am every weekday to a national audience, and the host has to be functional from the first link. Fleur East has held that chair since 2019. Live radio at that hour, four hours at a stretch, is the closest training a presenter gets to running a corporate mainstage when the autocue fails. She came up through The X Factor in 2014, finishing as a finalist after her cover of “Uptown Funk” became the first contestant track to reach number one on the UK iTunes chart during a live series. Her debut single “Sax” hit number three on the Official Chart and went Platinum the following year. The music career gave her the stage instincts; the broadcasting career taught her the discipline. In 2022 she reached the final of Strictly Come Dancing with Vito Coppola, scoring the series’ first perfect 40 in the Blackpool week. The BBC brought her back as co-host of Strictly: It Takes Two from 2023, a daily live show that runs across the Strictly season and demands fast guest interviewing and tight format control. Other television credits include I’m A Celebrity, Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, ITV’s The Void, and a guest role in Apple TV’s Ted Lasso. Beyond presenting, she co-founded Kurl Kitchen with her sister Keshia in 2024, a textured-hair care brand grounded in West African ingredients. That gives her something to draw on when a brief calls for a founder story, a perspective on Black British entrepreneurship, or a host who can credibly talk to a CPG or beauty audience without being briefed in. Key speaking topics Live event hosting and awards presenting Conference moderation and stage interviewing Founder story: Kurl Kitchen and Black British entrepreneurship Representation in UK broadcast media Resilience and reinvention in a public career Women in entertainment and media Ideal for Awards nights and gala dinners requiring a recognisable national broadcaster on stage Corporate conferences needing a confident moderator across keynote interviews and panels Brand activations in beauty, CPG, retail, or media targeting UK and Black British audiences Internal events for HR, DEI, or talent leaders looking for a credible voice on representation in media Audience outcomes A live event held together by a host who keeps energy and pace through running-order changes Guest interviews that go beyond the prepared questions and land specific quotes the team can use afterwards A founder narrative grounded in a real, trading consumer brand rather than a generic entrepreneurship story A representation conversation that stays useful for an internal audience rather than slipping into platitudes

Why organisations work with Karim Ellis A John Maxwell Team founding partner, which puts him inside the most widely sold leadership development network in the US corporate market and gives buyers a recognised pedigree to point to internally. Corporate training experience across Ford, Honda, Toyota, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson, Procter and Gamble, Kroger, USPS and the US Department of Defense, so he is calibrated for large, regulated, blue-collar and white-collar audiences in the same brief. A signature framework, GPS My Success, published as a book and built around five named principles for translating individual vision into action, which gives organisers a structured deliverable rather than a generic motivational set. A platform style trained directly under Les Brown, certified at Platinum level, which is what a programme committee is buying when they want an energising US-style closing keynote that lifts a room. Biography highlights Founding partner of the John Maxwell Team. Author of GPS My Success: The Address You Input In Life Determines Your Destination (2020). Two-time TEDx speaker, including TEDx Cincinnati. Les Brown Certified Platinum Speaker. 2022 Speakercon Motivational Speaker of the Year. Corporate clients include Ford, Honda, Toyota, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson, Procter and Gamble, Kroger, USPS, SHRM and the US Department of Defense. Biography Large organisations spend significant budgets on leadership and engagement programmes that fail to move the dial on day-to-day behaviour. People are inspired in the room, then the routine resumes. The problem is rarely talent or content. It is the absence of a shared, repeatable language for what good looks like and how individuals contribute to it. Karim Ellis works in that gap. As a founding partner of the John Maxwell Team, he trained inside the leadership network John C. Maxwell built, then developed his own framework, GPS My Success, around five principles for turning individual vision into a destination the rest of the organisation can recognise. The book of the same name, published in 2020, is the spine of his corporate keynote. His audiences are mainstream US corporate: Ford, Honda, Toyota, General Electric, Johnson and Johnson, Procter and Gamble, Kroger, USPS and the US Department of Defense, alongside SHRM and the National Urban League. The brief is consistent. Lift the room, give people a structured way to talk about ambition and accountability, and send them back to work with something they can use on Monday. The platform craft sits on top of formal training with Les Brown, where Ellis holds Platinum certification, and two TEDx appearances. Speakercon named him its 2022 Motivational Speaker of the Year. The work is built for events that need an energising US-style keynote backed by a defined leadership and personal-development model, not a strategy lecture. Key speaking topics Leadership development Vision and goal-setting Personal effectiveness and peak performance Motivation and audience engagement Communication and presence Sales and customer service mindset Ideal for Internal leadership development conferences and L and D programmes. Annual sales kick-offs and field-force events seeking an energising main-stage keynote. Diversity, employee engagement and culture events looking for a US motivational headliner with corporate fluency. Audience outcomes A named five-part framework, GPS My Success, that individuals can apply to their own goals after the session. A shared language for vision, ambition and accountability that managers can carry back into team conversations. A renewed sense of personal agency on performance, grounded in concrete principles rather than slogans. A high-energy closing or opening moment that lifts engagement scores for the event.

Why organisations work with Monty Criswell Five number-one country singles across three decades, including “I Saw God Today” for George Strait, “Five More Minutes” for Scotty McCreery and “Hell of a View” for Eric Church, give him a body of work most after-dinner speakers cannot match. His material is built around real songs played live, not slides. The performance element makes the resilience message land with senior audiences in a way a conventional keynote cannot. A stage 3 colon cancer recovery, tied to active support of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, gives the health and recovery thread substance rather than sentiment. Thirty years in a commercial creative industry, with named hits for George Strait, Eric Church, Trace Adkins, Scotty McCreery and Parker McCollum, makes him credible on the realities of sustained creative output under commercial pressure. Biography highlights Co-writer, “I Saw God Today” (George Strait, 2008), CMA Single of the Year; Grammy and Dove nominations. Number-one country singles include “Just Fishin'” (Trace Adkins), “Five More Minutes” (Scotty McCreery, triple platinum), “Hell of a View” (Eric Church, double platinum) and “Handle on You” (Parker McCollum). Two Grammy nominations for Country Song of the Year; multiple BMI and NSAI songwriting awards. Songwriter Session presenter at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, Nashville. Publishing history with Hamstein Music Group, Sony/ATV/Tree and currently Spirit Music Group. B.A. American Studies, cum laude, University of Alabama. Biography Country music is one of the few commercial creative industries where the same writer can sustain hits across thirty years. It is also one of the most unforgiving. Hit songs decide careers, and most writers never get one. Monty Criswell has written or co-written five number-one country singles in four different decades, including “I Saw God Today” for George Strait, which won CMA Single of the Year in 2008 and was nominated for a Grammy. The catalogue runs from Trace Adkins to Eric Church to Parker McCollum. “Five More Minutes” for Scotty McCreery went triple platinum. “Hell of a View” for Eric Church went double platinum. The longevity matters more than any single credit. It is what gives him a working theory of how a person keeps producing under commercial pressure when the room around them changes. Halfway through that run he was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. He recovered, returned to writing, and continued to land number ones. He now supports Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and sits with his wife on Vanderbilt’s Canby Robinson Society. The cancer story is not a frame for the talk; it is the second source of evidence behind it. “An Evening with Monty Criswell” is a live performance, not a conference session. He plays the songs, tells the stories behind them, and draws lessons on persistence, craft and recovery from a working life that produced both. For organisations looking for an inspirational close to a conference, an awards dinner or a leadership offsite, the offering is unusual: a credible commercial creative who can hold a room with songs the audience already knows. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after serious illness Sustaining creative output over a long career Storytelling as a leadership tool Persistence in commercially unforgiving industries Country music songwriting craft Faith and personal values in working life Ideal for Conference closing keynotes and gala dinners where an inspirational live performance is required Sales kick-offs and leadership offsites in need of a resilience and persistence anchor Cancer charities, healthcare audiences and corporate wellness events Audiences in the United States with country music affinity, including Nashville-based events Audience outcomes A live experience of how a hit country song is built, told by its writer A first-hand account of stage 3 cancer recovery and the return to high-output work Stories drawn from a thirty-year Nashville career, with named artists and named songs A close that lands emotionally without leaning on a slide deck