Peak Performance speakers

Why organisations work with Dr Tess Morris-Paterson She has carried the same performance methodology through three of the most demanding operating environments in the world: Premier League football, NASA-aligned spaceflight research, and a Royal Engineers command. Few practitioners have a comparable triangulation. She designs the actual selection criteria for human spaceflight, so her view on how to assess composure, judgement and team fit is grounded in systems that are used to decide who flies. Her research on microgravity physiology and astronaut training has been recognised by the International Astronautical Federation, the Aerospace Medical Association and NASA’s Human Research Program. She talks to executives the way she talks to operators, with no astronaut mythology and no sports-cliche residue. The transfer to commercial settings is direct. She is credible on inclusion in male-dominated environments without leaving the performance frame: five years as one of three women in the Premier League, and an officer corps that is roughly five percent female. Biography highlights Chartered Scientist; PhD, King’s College London, Centre of Human and Aerospace Physiological Sciences. Visiting scientist, NASA Ames Research Center; alumna of the International Space University. Founder of a consultancy supporting international space agencies on astronaut selection and training. Award recipient of the International Astronautical Federation, the Aerospace Medical Association and NASA’s Human Research Program; named a 2019 Emerging Space Leader. Former Head of Performance across Premier League football, the Football Association, Women’s Super League, McLaren Formula One, and Olympic and Paralympic programmes. British Army Reserve Officer, Royal Engineers, with command of a unit of up to 100 personnel. Biography Astronaut crews are not the most talented people in the room. They are the people most likely to make the right call on the worst day of the mission, and the selection process is built to find that. Morris-Paterson designs that kind of process for international space agencies, and the same logic now informs how she advises commercial leadership teams. She came to spaceflight through elite sport. For five years she was one of three women operating at Head of Performance level in the Premier League, with later work spanning the Football Association, the Women’s Super League, McLaren Formula One, and Olympic and Paralympic programmes. The shared question across those settings was always the same: what conditions reliably produce a good decision when there is no margin for a bad one. That question carried into her research. As a chartered scientist trained at NASA Ames Research Center and the International Space University, her work on microgravity physiology and astronaut training has been recognised by the International Astronautical Federation, the Aerospace Medical Association and NASA’s Human Research Program, and she was named a 2019 Emerging Space Leader. She now runs a consultancy that supports astronaut selection and training for international space agencies. A third operating environment sharpens the picture. As a British Army Reserve Officer in the Royal Engineers, she has held command of a unit of up to 100 personnel. The combination matters because her arguments about leadership under pressure are not assembled from secondary sources. They come from environments where the cost of getting it wrong is direct, measurable, and sometimes irreversible. Key speaking topics Performance under extreme conditions Astronaut selection, training and human spaceflight Team design and decision-making in elite sport Leadership in male-dominated operating environments Resilience and recovery in high-stakes work Translating elite-performance methodology into commercial settings Ideal for Executive teams and boards facing decisions where error cost is high and recovery time is short CHROs and chief talent officers redesigning selection, assessment and leadership-development pipelines Leadership audiences in defence, aerospace, energy, financial services and elite sport Programmes focused on women progressing in male-dominated technical or operational fields Audience outcomes A working model for how high-stakes operators are selected, not just trained Specific selection signals that predict composure and judgement under load A clearer view of how elite teams in sport and spaceflight handle feedback, recovery and the cost of error Evidence-based language for talking about inclusion in technical environments without losing the performance frame Transferable practices from astronaut, Premier League and military preparation that hold up in commercial settings

Why organisations work with Willie Jolley Cavett Award winner, the National Speakers Association’s highest honour and an award given to one peer-elected member per year. Few keynote speakers active today carry that level of inside-the-profession validation. Worked with Ford Motor Company during its 2006 to 2009 turnaround period; former Ford CEO Alan Mulally endorsed the book that came out of that work. A named framework, Setback to Comeback, that gives leadership teams a shared language for how to behave when the business is under pressure, not just inspiration in the room. Sustained media platform on SiriusXM and Radio One puts him in front of senior business audiences weekly, so his frame is already familiar to many of the executives he speaks to. Equally credible with a senior executive room and a wider all-employee audience, which matters for clients running town halls, sales kickoffs and culture events off the back of restructure. Biography highlights Cavett Award, National Speakers Association, 2023; first African American man to receive it. Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, January 2023, for sustained voluntary service. Inductee, NSA Speaker Hall of Fame (CPAE Council of Peers Award of Excellence). Author of five books including A Setback Is A Setup For A Comeback and Turn Setbacks Into Greenbacks, the latter endorsed by former Ford CEO Alan Mulally. Host, The Willie Jolley Wealthy Ways Show on SiriusXM Channel 141, with companion podcast distributed on iHeart Radio, C-Suite Radio, Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Engaged by Ford Motor Company during the Mulally era turnaround; corporate client list includes Walmart, Verizon, Marriott, Johnson and Johnson, Coca-Cola and Prudential. Biography Ford was burning through cash in 2006 when Alan Mulally arrived as CEO. The turnaround that followed is now a business school case. Jolley was inside that period as a regular speaker to Ford teams, and the work formed the spine of Turn Setbacks Into Greenbacks, a book Mulally went on to endorse. That engagement still defines how serious operators read his work: practical content for leaders managing pressure, not a stage act. His core proposition is a framework called Setback to Comeback. Across five books, including A Setback Is A Setup For A Comeback and An Attitude of Excellence, he treats resilience as a leadership discipline that can be taught, with named steps. Vision. Decision. Action. Desire. That gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary for how to behave when the numbers are bad and the workforce has stopped trusting the announcements. The credibility inside the speaking profession is unusual. In 2023 the National Speakers Association awarded him the Cavett, its highest honour, voted by peers and given to one member a year. He was the first African American man to receive it. The same year he received the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award for voluntary service. Earlier in his career, Toastmasters International named him one of the outstanding five speakers in the world. The platform compounds the message. The Willie Jolley Wealthy Ways Show runs weekly on SiriusXM, interviewing business leaders and operators. By the time he walks on a corporate stage, the framework is already in circulation with the audience. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after organisational setback Leadership through change and restructure Attitude and performance in high-pressure teams Personal effectiveness and self-leadership Workplace culture and engagement Sales force motivation and renewal Excellence as an operating discipline Ideal for Leadership teams running restructure, integration or cost programmes that have fatigued the workforce CHROs and culture leads booking all-employee town halls or post-restructure resets Sales leaders running annual kickoffs where the team needs renewed conviction, not new product slides Public sector and faith-aligned audiences where a motivational frame is welcomed alongside leadership substance Audience outcomes A named four-step framework, Vision, Decision, Action, Desire, that leaders can apply to their own situation the same week A reset in how the audience reads setback inside their own organisation Specific behavioural moves a manager can take with a struggling team A lift in collective conviction at the moment a leadership team most needs it A shared reference point that survives past the event and into team conversations

Why organisations work with Yuvaraj S Lingappa A clinician in the room, not a wellness commentator. Three decades of frontline medical practice sit behind every recommendation on stress, sleep and weight. Formal obesity-medicine credential from the World Obesity Federation (SCOPE Certified), which few corporate wellbeing speakers hold. Built and runs SlimIsEasy, a working consumer weight-management product, so the content is grounded in what actually shifts behaviour at scale, not workshop theory. Author of Easy Guide to Stress Relief, a short-form workplace stress book designed for time-poor corporate readers. Biography highlights Physician trained at Madras Medical College, Chennai. Over 30 years in clinical practice including paediatrics and family medicine at Victoria Hospital, St Lucia. SCOPE Certified by the World Obesity Federation, London. Author of Easy Guide to Stress Relief. Co-founder of the SlimIsEasy weight-management app. Speaker and corporate trainer on stress management, weight, and peak performance for executive and employee audiences. Biography Most corporate wellbeing programmes treat stress and weight as soft topics. The clinical reality is different. Both are measurable drivers of attention, decision quality, absence and attrition, and both respond to specific interventions rather than general encouragement. That is the territory Yuvaraj S Lingappa works in. He trained as a physician at Madras Medical College and practised for more than three decades, including a long tenure as a paediatrician and family practitioner at Victoria Hospital in St Lucia. The clinical grounding shapes the way he talks to corporate audiences: he treats stress as a physiological condition and obesity as a medical one, not as a motivational problem to be willed away. The obesity work carries a formal credential. He is SCOPE Certified by the World Obesity Federation in London, the international body’s professional standard for obesity care. Alongside the speaking and coaching practice, he co-founded SlimIsEasy, a consumer weight-management app, which gives him a live view of what behaviour change looks like outside the seminar room. His book Easy Guide to Stress Relief is written for corporate readers who will not finish a longer text. The same instinct runs through the speaking work: short, clinically grounded sessions that give an executive audience something to act on before the end of the week. Key speaking topics Workplace stress management Clinical approaches to weight and metabolic health Sleep, energy and executive performance Behaviour change at scale Health as a workforce productivity lever Peak performance for high-pressure roles Ideal for CHROs and heads of employee wellbeing reviewing the clinical substance of their wellness offer. Executive and leadership audiences where stress, sleep and weight are degrading performance. HR and benefits leaders in healthcare, professional services, financial services and high-pressure operating environments. Internal health and wellbeing weeks and leadership offsites that need a medically credentialed voice. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how stress and weight actually affect workforce performance, from a clinician’s standpoint. Specific, low-friction techniques for managing stress that work inside a normal corporate day. A grounded view of what serious weight and metabolic intervention looks like, and what most workplace programmes miss. Practical steps individuals can take in the week after the session, rather than aspirational targets.

Why organisations work with Duncan Goodhew His personal story is not simply inspirational. It is instructive. Two named conditions (alopecia universalis from age ten, dyslexia diagnosed at thirteen) that could have ended ambition became the foundation of a specific discipline: redefining success on individual terms rather than defaulting to external expectation. That argument is directly usable by organisations managing performance under pressure. His published thesis, developed in Sink or Swim (co-written with Victoria Hislop), is that success is an entirely individual matter; a claim with direct implications for how organisations set targets, evaluate performance, and retain people who do not fit a standard template. He co-founded the Youth Sport Trust in 1994 with Sir John Beckwith, securing £2 million in initial funding; the organisation now operates across every primary school in England. This is institution-building at scale, not just personal achievement. The corporate organisations that have engaged him; IBM, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express, and Barclays were not buying an Olympic story. They were working on a shared problem: how to maintain consistent human performance under commercial pressure. As President of Swimathon, which has raised more than £34 million for national charities, he brings direct experience of building and sustaining large-scale movements, not simply motivating individuals in a room. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, 100m breaststroke, and bronze medallist, 4×100m medley relay, 1980 Moscow Olympics Captain of the Great Britain swimming team, 1978-1980; three silver medals at the 1978 Commonwealth Games, Edmonton MBE awarded 1983 for services to sport Co-founder, Youth Sport Trust (1994), now active across every primary school in England President of Swimathon, which has raised more than £34 million for charity across its history Author of Sink or Swim and Fix Your Life – Now!, both co-written with Victoria Hislop Inducted into the Swim England Hall of Fame, 2019 Biography Duncan Goodhew won Olympic gold in Moscow in 1980, competing as a young man who had been bald since the age of ten and formally diagnosed with dyslexia at thirteen. His published work, developed in Sink or Swim (co-written with Victoria Hislop), makes a specific claim: sustained high performance depends on one insight above all others – success is an individual matter. People who perform consistently under pressure are almost always those who have stopped competing against someone else’s definition of what winning looks like. For organisations managing performance through disruption or change, that has practical implications for how targets are set and how people are evaluated. His record beyond the speaking circuit is equally concrete. He co-founded the Youth Sport Trust in 1994 with Sir John Beckwith, securing £2 million in initial funding; the organisation now operates across every primary school in England. As President of Swimathon, he has overseen an organisation that has raised more than £34 million for national charities. The organisations that have engaged him over the course of his career; IBM, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express, Barclays were working on a consistent underlying challenge: how to maintain human performance when conditions are difficult, stakes are high, and the outcome is not guaranteed. That is the question his work is designed to answer. Key speaking topics Resilience and performance under pressure Overcoming adversity and personal reinvention Individual definitions of success and goal-setting Mental toughness in high-stakes environments Leadership through uncertainty and change Team motivation and sustained engagement Youth sport, physical activity, and long-term wellbeing Ideal for Senior leadership and C-suite audiences navigating organisational change or sustained commercial pressure HR, talent, and people leaders responsible for employee engagement, resilience, and retention Sales, commercial, and operational teams where consistent performance in demanding conditions is a strategic priority Corporate conferences where a credible, evidence-grounded narrative around resilience and peak performance is the brief Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of what peak performance actually requires, and why individually defined success criteria outperform externally imposed targets Practical insight into how elite athletes manage sustained pressure, maintain motivation, and continue performing through extended adversity A clearer sense of how personal disadvantage or difference can be converted from liability into competitive foundation Reflection on whether their organisation’s definitions of success are genuinely motivating the people they most want to retain A memorable, evidence-backed narrative around resilience that individuals and teams can carry into their own work

Why organisations work with Ebony-Jewel Rainford-Brent She built the ACE Programme from a Surrey initiative in 2020 into a national charity with hubs in six cities, giving boards a working example of how inclusion moves from statement to system. As ECB Non-Executive Director and Surrey’s first female Director of Women’s Cricket, she speaks from inside governance, not as an external observer of it. Her career as the first Black woman to play cricket for England gives a credibility on race, talent pipelines and belonging that few business speakers can match. She translates elite-sport performance habits, preparation under pressure, recovery, decision-making in narrow margins, into language operating teams recognise. Through The Art of Success podcast and her broadcasting work for BBC Test Match Special and Sky Sports, she has interviewed and dissected the methods of high performers across sport and business at length. Biography highlights World Cup winner with England, 2009 ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup, Sydney First Black woman to play cricket for England MBE for services to cricket and charity, 2021 Birthday Honours Founder of the ACE Programme; the charity now operates hubs across six English cities ECB Non-Executive Director; first female Director of Women’s Cricket at Surrey CCC BBC Test Match Special commentator and Sky Sports cricket pundit; host of The Art of Success podcast Honorary degree, Loughborough University, 2023 Biography Most diversity initiatives in professional sport collapse at the first hard year. ACE has not. Founded at Surrey in January 2020 in response to a sharp decline in Black British professional cricketers, the programme became an independent charity and now runs hubs in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield. Its founder built it while serving as Surrey’s first female Director of Women’s Cricket and now sits on the ECB Board as a Non-Executive Director. That operational record is what gives the speaking work its weight. The argument is not that inclusion matters in principle. It is what governance, scouting, scholarships and academy pathways have to look like for the numbers to move, and what stops them moving when the early enthusiasm fades. The performance content draws on a playing career that ended in a World Cup-winning England side in Sydney in 2009 and an Ashes retention later that year. It runs through the BBC Test Match Special commentary box, the Sky Sports studio, and seven years of conversations with high performers on The Art of Success podcast. The texture is specific: how teams handle narrow margins, how individuals rebuild after injury and selection setbacks, how a culture either absorbs pressure or buckles under it. The MBE in 2021 and the honorary degree from Loughborough in 2023 are recognition of work already in motion, not the point of the story. The point is a body of practice on representation and high performance that organisations can actually use. Key speaking topics Inclusion as institutional practice High-performance culture in elite teams Resilience and decision-making under pressure Talent pipelines and representation Leadership in male-dominated environments Building programmes that survive their first hard year Performance lessons from elite sport for business Ideal for CHROs and Chief People Officers redesigning inclusion strategy beyond brand statements Boards and ExCos confronting representation gaps with hard data, not narrative Leadership and talent functions building cross-cultural pipelines Senior teams under sustained pressure looking for usable lessons from elite sport Audience outcomes A clear-eyed view of why most inclusion programmes stall and what design choices keep ACE moving A vocabulary for performance under pressure that elite teams actually use, separated from motivational generalities Specific examples of governance, sponsorship and pathway design that change participation numbers Renewed conviction that representation work is a leadership discipline, not a communications exercise

Why organisations work with Ed Jackson He turns resilience from a slogan into a method. Jackson rebuilt movement, identity and career after a C6/C7 spinal injury, and the incremental decision logic he used is directly translatable to teams managing prolonged uncertainty. His credibility sits on two separate careers, not one. Professional rugby captaincy at England U16 and U18 level, followed by a second career as a Channel 4 Paralympics and rugby presenter, charity founder and author. He wrote the book, literally. “Lucky” (HarperCollins) became a Sunday Times bestseller and is the primary source text for his keynote material, not a marketing tie-in. His charity work is operational, not ornamental. Millimetres 2 Mountains, which he co-founded, delivers structured recovery programmes for people facing physical or psychological trauma, giving him a working frame for how individuals rebuild after rupture. The feature documentary “The Mountain Within Me,” released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment in 2024, gives audiences a shared reference before he walks on stage, which shortens the distance between story and application. Biography highlights Former professional rugby union No. 8 for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons. England captain at U16 and U18 level; part of the U18 Four Nations-winning squad. Author of “Lucky” (HarperCollins), a Sunday Times bestselling autobiography. Subject of “The Mountain Within Me,” a feature documentary distributed by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and premiered at Edinburgh International Film Festival. Co-founder of Millimetres 2 Mountains, a registered charity supporting survivors of physical and psychological trauma. Channel 4 presenter for the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Paralympic Games, European Champions Cup rugby highlights, and Six Nations commentary. Biography In April 2017, a dive into a shallow swimming pool fractured the C6 and C7 vertebrae of a 28-year-old professional rugby player. The diagnosis was Brown-Sequard Syndrome. The prognosis was that he would not walk again. Within a year, he stood on the summit of Snowdon. That compressed span between medical certainty and physical fact is the working material of the keynote. Before the injury, Jackson had already built a full career. He captained England at U16 and U18, won the U18 Four Nations in 2006, and played professionally for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons. The second career began from a hospital bed, and it has been more public. “Lucky,” published by HarperCollins, reached the Sunday Times bestseller list. The 2024 feature documentary “The Mountain Within Me,” released by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment after premiering at Edinburgh International Film Festival, took the same story to cinema audiences. Alongside the speaking and writing, he co-founded Millimetres 2 Mountains with his wife Lois and former England international Olly Barkley. The charity runs structured outdoor recovery programmes for survivors of physical and psychological trauma. This matters for corporate audiences because Jackson is not describing resilience from a single data point. He is watching the same process play out across other people, every year, and refining what actually works. The Channel 4 broadcasting work, Paris 2024 Paralympics, Tokyo 2020, European Champions Cup, Six Nations, gives him a second professional register. He is used to speaking in front of cameras on live transmission to a national audience. For a corporate client that means a speaker who does not need to be managed on stage, and who has spent eight years refining how to make a recovery story useful to the person listening. Key speaking topics Resilience under prolonged pressure High performance after adversity Team trust and captaincy Rebuilding identity through change Mental and physical recovery Goal setting under constraint Purpose and motivation Ideal for Leadership offsites and all-hands events during periods of restructure or sustained change CHRO and wellbeing leads designing resilience and mental health programmes Sales kick-offs and commercial conferences where sustained performance under pressure is the theme Boardroom and executive team sessions on recovery, reputation and rebuilding after a difficult year Audience outcomes A working definition of resilience grounded in specific recovery decisions, not abstraction A usable model for continuing to perform when long-term outcomes are uncertain Language for talking about setback, mental health and vulnerability inside a professional team A shared reference point that teams continue to discuss after the event

Why organisations work with Ed Stafford He has done something measurable that no one else has done. The 860-day Amazon walk gives every resilience argument he makes a verifiable ceiling, not a rhetorical one. His military service, from Sandhurst to command in South Armagh, grounds his leadership content in operational judgement rather than motivational framing. He speaks credibly to risk tolerance and expedition planning, including how small, slow decisions compound into outcomes that look inevitable only in retrospect. His Discovery and Channel 4 work, from Left for Dead to 60 Days on the Streets, means he brings on-camera narrative discipline, useful for plenary sessions that need pace. Biography highlights First person recognised by Guinness World Records to walk the Amazon River from source to sea, 860 days, completed August 2010. National Geographic Adventurer of the Year 2010; European Adventurer of the Year 2011. Former captain, British Army. Commissioned into the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment after Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Served in Northern Ireland. Author of Walking the Amazon and Naked and Marooned, both published under Penguin Random House imprints. Presenter of Discovery series Naked and Marooned, Marooned with Ed Stafford, Into the Unknown, Left for Dead and First Man Out. Presenter of Channel 4’s 60 Days on the Streets, a three-part documentary on homelessness in Manchester, London and Glasgow. Biography The Amazon had never been walked in full when Ed Stafford set off from the Peruvian coast in April 2008. Twenty-eight months later, having covered more than four thousand miles on foot through Peru, Colombia and Brazil, he arrived at the Atlantic. Guinness World Records recognised him as the first person to do it. The expedition is the obvious credential, but the useful one for organisations is what it took to sustain: a decision framework applied every day for 860 days, under physical duress, logistical collapse and team change. That discipline did not come from adventure. It came from Sandhurst, a commission into the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment, and command responsibility in South Armagh before he was 25. Between military service and broadcast, Stafford led conservation and community expeditions in Belize, Guatemala and Borneo, worked as a UN contractor in Afghanistan, and set up a BBC Natural History Unit base in the Guyanese rainforest. His television work, including Discovery’s Naked and Marooned, Left for Dead and First Man Out, and Channel 4’s 60 Days on the Streets, has turned the same operating instincts into filmed case studies in judgement under scarcity. National Geographic named him Adventurer of the Year in 2010. He was awarded European Adventurer of the Year in Stockholm the following year. For leadership audiences, the value is not the record. It is a working account of how composure, planning and willingness to reset a plan mid-execution hold up when the environment refuses to cooperate. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Decision-making in ambiguous environments Resilience and recovery after setback Risk tolerance and expedition-grade planning Team dynamics in remote and hostile conditions Performance when conditions refuse to stabilise Ideal for Leadership offsites where senior teams are preparing for a period of operational uncertainty CEO and executive-committee sessions on risk appetite and decision discipline Transformation programmes where stamina, not strategy, is the binding constraint Awards, conference plenaries and all-hands events that need a credible human story with operational substance Audience outcomes A sharper picture of how experienced operators actually decide when information is incomplete A usable vocabulary for discussing risk tolerance and pacing on long, hard initiatives Specific, named examples of when to hold a plan and when to break it A reset on what resilience looks like in practice, distinct from how it is marketed

Why organisations work with Eddie Jones Thirty years of head-coach experience at the top of international sport, tested against the sharpest public scrutiny three national rugby unions can apply. A working account, set out in his 2021 book “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, of how to raise standards, rebuild confidence, and hold a team accountable when results are not yet on the board. Authored the single most studied upset in modern rugby: Japan’s 34-32 win over South Africa at the 2015 World Cup, the “Brighton Miracle”, built over three years of culture and conditioning work. World Rugby Coach of the Year 2017, after leading England to a Grand Slam and a record run of consecutive Test wins. A rare speaker who has built and rebuilt teams in three different national cultures (Japanese, Australian, English) and can translate between them for executive audiences. Biography highlights Head coach of England 2015 to 2022: first non-British coach, two Six Nations titles, 2016 Grand Slam, 2019 Rugby World Cup final. World Rugby Coach of the Year, 2017. Head coach of Japan 2012 to 2015, re-appointed December 2023. Head coach of Australia 2001 to 2005, leading the Wallabies to the 2003 Rugby World Cup final. Head coach of the ACT Brumbies, Super Rugby champions 2001. Technical adviser to the Springboks’ 2007 Rugby World Cup-winning squad. Author of “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby” (Macmillan, 2021) and “My Life and Rugby: The Autobiography” (Macmillan, 2019). Biography Japan beat South Africa 34-32 in Brighton in September 2015. The squad had been together three years, trained to a schedule their opponents would not recognise, and made the late call to turn down a draw for a winning try. The head coach was Eddie Jones. That match is the cleanest single case study in his career, but not the only one. Jones has held senior head-coach roles with Japan, Australia, and England, reached two Rugby World Cup finals, served as technical adviser to a third World Cup-winning team, and won a Super Rugby title with the Brumbies in 2001. The through line is not a single style. It is a method for taking on teams that are underperforming relative to their resources, setting a higher standard than the group thinks it can meet, and holding it. His 2021 book, “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, makes that method explicit. It draws on the 2015 Japan campaign, the 2016 England turnaround, and the failures in between to argue that elite performance is a daily discipline of selection, feedback, and standard-setting, not a product of talent or motivation. Jones was named World Rugby Coach of the Year in 2017 after leading England to a Grand Slam and a run of consecutive Test wins second only to the All Blacks. For a senior audience, the value is in the translation. Three national cultures, three turnarounds, one argument about how leaders behave when the team is not yet winning. That is what he brings into a room. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure and public scrutiny Building and turning around elite teams Standards, accountability, and high-performance culture Decision-making in compressed time frames Cross-cultural leadership across international organisations Talent development and succession Ideal for Boards and executive committees leading a turnaround or performance reset CEO and C-suite offsites on standards and accountability CHRO and people leaders working on high-performance culture at scale Sales and commercial leadership teams operating in competitive, results-measured environments Audience outcomes A clearer view of what separates elite teams from good ones in day-to-day behaviour Specific examples of how standards are set, reinforced, and recovered when they slip A model for leading through scrutiny without losing the team Practical reference points from three national turnarounds, not one Language for talking to executives about accountability without euphemism

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

Why organisations work with Emma Hayes She has built two elite teams from different starting points: a Chelsea side she took from mid-table to seven Women’s Super League titles, and a US national team she led to Olympic gold within ten matches of taking charge. Her leadership thesis is published and tested. A Completely Different Game sets out a working method built around team, staff and standards, not personality. She speaks from a current operational seat, not a retired one. Buyers get a working head coach describing live decisions under pressure, not retrospective career narrative. Named The Best FIFA Women’s Coach (2021) and winner of the inaugural Johan Cruyff Trophy (2024); the formal recognition tracks the operational record. She is fluent in the language of senior business audiences from regular broadcast and conference work, including Sky and BBC punditry and the Leaders in Sport platform. Biography highlights Head Coach, United States Women’s National Team, 2024 to present. Manager, Chelsea FC Women, 2012 to 2024; seven WSL titles, five FA Cups, five domestic doubles. Olympic gold medal with the USWNT, Paris 2024. The Best FIFA Women’s Coach, 2021; inaugural Johan Cruyff Trophy, 2024. OBE (2022) and MBE (2016) for services to football. Author, A Completely Different Game: My Leadership Playbook (2024), expanded from the Audible Original Kill the Unicorn. Biography Chelsea FC Women were a mid-table side in 2012. By the time Emma Hayes left in 2024, they had won seven Women’s Super League titles, including five in a row, alongside five FA Cups and multiple League Cups. The rebuild was not the result of a single tactical idea. It was the product of how she organised the staff around her, the standards she held, and the way she handled players, ownership and scrutiny over twelve seasons. The work translated directly. Appointed Head Coach of the United States Women’s National Team in 2024, she led the side to Olympic gold in Paris in her tenth match in charge, winning every knockout game 1-0. The body of evidence sits across two contexts, club and country, with very different constraints. The leadership method travelled. Her book, A Completely Different Game: My Leadership Playbook, sets out the underlying argument. Published in 2024 as the print expansion of the Audible Original Kill the Unicorn, written with Michael Calvin, it dismantles the idea of the lone great leader. Sustained performance, she argues, is built by the staff around the leader and the culture the leader is willing to enforce. The book is grounded in operational practice, not theory. Formal recognition has followed the record. She was named The Best FIFA Women’s Coach in 2021, won the inaugural Johan Cruyff Trophy for the best women’s coach in the world in 2024, and was appointed OBE in 2022 after an MBE in 2016. She continues to coach at the top of the international game, which is what gives her speaking work its weight: the material is live, not retrospective. Key speaking topics Building high-performance teams Leadership through sustained change Culture and standards in elite organisations Decision-making under pressure Women in leadership Coaching as a leadership discipline Ideal for CEOs, COOs and executive teams rebuilding performance after underperformance or restructure CHROs and chief people officers working on leadership development and high-performance culture Boards and senior leadership offsites focused on standards, accountability and team design Audience outcomes A working model for how senior leaders set and hold standards through cycles of pressure A clear view of how culture is built deliberately, not absorbed by accident Concrete examples of decisions made under scrutiny, with the trade-offs named A reframing of leadership away from individual heroics towards staff, team and system design

Why organisations work with Emma Ross She brings the operating knowledge of the person who ran physiology for Team GB across Olympic and Paralympic cycles, applied directly to corporate workforces rather than borrowed as metaphor. She co-founded The Well HQ, the consultancy that has delivered women’s health programmes inside Sport England, England Netball, the Lawn Tennis Association, Vitality, News UK and Barclays; her frameworks are already in production in serious organisations. The Female Body Bible gave her a mainstream platform and a Sunday Times bestseller, which means her language is already familiar to employees and journalists before she walks into the room. She closes the knowing-doing gap leaders struggle with most: turning evidence on menstrual health, menopause, pelvic health and breast health into specific policy, benefits and manager scripts. Her authority is independent and scientific. The Cardiff Metropolitan honorary doctorate and her Fellowship of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science signal that the content is peer-respected, not opinion. Biography highlights Head of Physiology, English Institute of Sport, 2013 to 2021, across Rio and Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic cycles. Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, The Well HQ. Co-author, The Female Body Bible, Sunday Times bestseller, 2023. Changemaker, The Sunday Times Sportswomen of the Year Awards, 2021. Honorary Doctorate, Cardiff Metropolitan University, 2025. Honorary Research Fellow, University of Brighton; Honorary Lecturer, University of Kent; Fellow of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science. Biography Women make up roughly half of most workforces and a larger share of many consumer markets. Until recently, almost no corporate policy, product design or leadership development programme was built on evidence about how female bodies actually work. Emma Ross is one of the people rewriting that. As Head of Physiology at the English Institute of Sport from 2013, she supported Team GB athletes and coaches across the Rio and Tokyo cycles. Inside that system she saw how much of the playbook for elite performance had been written for men, and what happened when women were given training, recovery, nutrition and medical support designed around their physiology instead. In 2021 she co-founded The Well HQ with Baz Moffat and Dr Bella Smith. The consultancy has built education and policy programmes for Sport England, England Netball, the Lawn Tennis Association and the Open University, and has moved into corporate workforces with Vitality, News UK and Barclays. The Female Body Bible, co-authored in 2023, landed as an instant Sunday Times bestseller and took the argument into the mainstream. Her credibility is underwritten by a PhD from Brunel, more than thirty peer-reviewed publications, a Fellowship of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Science, and an Honorary Doctorate from Cardiff Metropolitan University awarded in 2025. The practical value for a boardroom is simpler: she can tell a CHRO, in specific terms, what to change on Monday about benefits, line-manager training, menopause policy, return-to-work protocols and the data the organisation is not yet collecting. Key speaking topics Women’s health in the workplace Female physiology and high performance Menstrual health, menopause and pelvic health at work Policy and manager capability for women’s health Culture change in male-default organisations Lessons from elite sport for corporate performance systems Evidence-based wellbeing for women Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers and Heads of Reward designing benefits, menopause and family-health policy. DEI and ERG leads moving from awareness events to operational change. Executive teams in organisations with large female workforces or female consumer bases. Leadership programmes for senior women and their managers. Audience outcomes A clear read on where your current policies and manager behaviours fail women, and what to change first. Specific, evidence-based actions on menstrual health, menopause, pelvic and breast health that can be taken into HR and benefits. Language that line managers and male leaders can use without fear of saying the wrong thing. A framework for translating women’s health from a wellbeing initiative into an organisational performance lever. Confidence that the content is backed by elite sport science and peer-reviewed evidence, not opinion.

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