View Profile

Dion Dublin

Senior teams know how to plan for growth. They rarely plan for what happens when a single event removes the plan. A career, a strategy or a market position can be redrawn in an afternoon, and the leaders left in the room have to find a way to keep the organisation moving while they themselves recover.

Why organisations work with Dion Dublin A first-hand account of returning to elite performance after a life-threatening broken neck in 1999, with the medical and professional detail that gives the story credibility beyond inspiration. Twenty years inside top-flight football dressing rooms at Manchester United, Coventry, Aston Villa and the England squad, used as material for senior-team conversations on cohesion and standards. A working portfolio career that few sports speakers can match: BBC daytime presenter on Homes Under the Hammer since 2015, regular pundit on Match of the Day and Final Score, and inventor of the Dube percussion instrument used by Stevie Wonder. Comfortable on stage as host, panel chair or interviewer, drawn from a decade of live broadcast work, which makes him useful for full event hosting rather than only keynote slots. Biography highlights Premier League Golden Boot, 1997-98 season, shared with Chris Sutton and Michael Owen on 18 league goals. Four senior England caps; clubs included Manchester United, Coventry City, Aston Villa, Norwich City, Leicester City and Celtic. Returned to top-flight football within months of a broken neck sustained playing for Aston Villa in December 1999; helped the club to the FA Cup final the following April. Presenter on BBC One’s Homes Under the Hammer since 2015; pundit for BBC Football Focus, Match of the Day and Final Score. Inventor of the Dube, a four-sided percussion instrument used by Stevie Wonder and the Official England Supporters Band. Board member of Cambridge United F.C. since July 2021. Biography A broken neck in December 1999 should have ended a football career. Dion Dublin ran headfirst into a Sheffield Wednesday defender playing for Aston Villa, fractured three vertebrae and underwent surgery in which part of his pelvis was used to replace a crushed bone in his neck. He was back in the Villa side within months and helped the club to the FA Cup final the following April. He still plays with a titanium plate in his neck. That recovery sits inside a career that began at Cambridge United, took in Manchester United, Coventry City, Aston Villa, Norwich City, Leicester City and Celtic, and produced the Premier League Golden Boot in 1997-98, shared with Chris Sutton and Michael Owen. Four England caps followed. The material he uses with senior teams is drawn directly from that period: how high-performing dressing rooms hold each other to a standard, how players manage themselves through long injuries, and what happens to identity when the playing career ends. The post-playing career is unusual. Since 2015 Dublin has been a regular presenter on BBC One’s Homes Under the Hammer and a pundit on BBC Football Focus, Match of the Day and Final Score. He invented the Dube, a four-sided wooden percussion instrument that has been bought by Stevie Wonder and the Official England Supporters Band. In July 2021 he joined the board of Cambridge United, the club where he started. He finished fourth on Celebrity MasterChef in 2021. For corporate audiences the practical value is twofold. He speaks credibly on resilience and team performance from inside the experience rather than as commentary on it. He also hosts well, with a decade of live broadcast practice behind him, which makes him a strong fit for award nights, conference plenaries and panel sessions where a recognisable presence carries the room. Key speaking topics Resilience after acute setback High-performance team dynamics Career reinvention Mental and physical recovery Leadership under pressure Event hosting and panel facilitation Ideal for Sales and commercial teams running annual kick-offs and awards nights Senior leadership offsites focused on team standards and recovery from disruption Conference organisers needing a recognisable broadcast presence for hosting or interview formats Audience outcomes A grounded account of what elite team standards actually look like day to day A concrete recovery story they can map onto their own organisational setbacks A view of career reinvention drawn from three working chapters: sport, broadcast and product invention A confident, recognisable presence on stage that lifts the room

View Profile

Danny Webber

Performance under pressure is rarely the real problem. The harder question is what people do when the role they trained for ends, the team around them changes, and they have to rebuild credibility in a new arena. Most organisations underestimate how brutal that transition is, and how much of leadership is the willingness to start again.

Why organisations work with Danny Webber He played professionally across four divisions, from Manchester United’s youth setup through Premier League football with Sheffield United to non-league title-winning sides at Salford City. He has lived the full spectrum of elite team environments, not one rarefied tier of it. He has reinvented himself twice since retiring as a player: as a pundit and co-commentator working regularly across BBC Sport, Sky Sports, MUTV, ITV and talkSPORT, and as founder and CEO of his own sports agency, Autograph Sports Management. Through Autograph he mentors young athletes on building professional and personal brands, which gives him a current operator’s view of talent development, not retired-player nostalgia. His broadcast career means he can hold a room, run a Q and A, and host a panel without external moderation, which materially expands how he can be used at an event. Biography highlights Former professional footballer for Manchester United, Watford, Sheffield United, Portsmouth, Leeds United (loan), Accrington Stanley and Salford City. Helped Sheffield United win promotion to the Premier League in the 2005-06 season. England Under-20 international. Northern Premier League Division One North champion (2014-15) and Premier Division play-off winner (2016) with Salford City. Pundit and co-commentator for BBC Sport, Sky Sports, MUTV, ITV Sport, talkSPORT and BBC 5 Live. Founder and CEO of Autograph Sports Management, a sports and commercial agency representing players and building athlete brands. Biography A teenager scoring 16 goals in 11 youth appearances for Manchester United is normally on a single track. Webber turned down a three-year contract at Old Trafford at the end of the 2002-03 season to chase senior football elsewhere. The decision shaped everything that followed: a deliberate move toward first-team minutes over reputation. What came next was a Premier League career built around adaptability. Watford, where he scored 21 goals across 72 games. Sheffield United, where his goals contributed to promotion to the Premier League in 2005-06. Portsmouth, Leeds United and Accrington Stanley followed, then a title-winning run with Salford City in the Northern Premier League. Few players cover that range of clubs and divisions inside one career. The second act has been the harder one. After retiring he built a media presence as a pundit and co-commentator across BBC Sport, Sky Sports, MUTV, ITV and talkSPORT, and founded Autograph Sports Management, a player representation and brand-building agency. He now mentors young athletes through the same career decisions he made himself. That is the substance he brings to a corporate audience. Not the highlight reel, but the working knowledge of how elite teams hold together, what reinvention costs when the first career ends, and how to keep performing when the conditions keep changing. Key speaking topics Performance and resilience in elite team environments Career transition and reinvention after a defined first chapter Building and mentoring young talent Mindset and motivation under pressure Personal brand and reputation in public-facing careers Leadership lessons from professional sport Ideal for Sales, commercial and high-performance teams running annual conferences or kick-off events. Talent, learning and graduate development leads designing mentoring and early-career programmes. Sport, broadcast and entertainment organisations briefing on athlete welfare and career-after-career questions. Hosts of leadership or after-dinner formats wanting a sports speaker who can also moderate or interview. Audience outcomes A grounded view of what performance in elite team environments actually requires day to day. A first-hand account of career reinvention, including the periods that do not work. Practical reflections on mentoring younger talent through high-pressure decisions. A useable read on how reputation and personal brand are built in public-facing careers.

View Profile

Andy Cole

Elite teams are built around the same things organisations claim to want: high standards, hard feedback, recovery from setback. Most never test those standards in conditions where careers are on the line every week. Leaders who have done so, and who later faced personal shock outside work, carry a credibility on resilience that few internal voices can match.

Why organisations work with Andy Cole A Premier League Hall of Fame career inside one of football’s most demanding dressing rooms, used to ground sessions on standards, feedback and accountability with detail rather than slogan. Five Premier League titles and the 1999 Champions League final, including a goal tally of 121 for Manchester United, give his team-performance material the weight of evidence. Personal authority on resilience through a 2017 kidney transplant and the founding of the Andy Cole Fund with Kidney Research UK, used in sessions on recovery, mental health and the cost of carrying on. Active Manchester United Ambassador and broadcast pundit, comfortable in moderated panels, post-dinner Q and A and corporate hospitality formats where the audience expects fluency under questioning. Biography highlights Premier League Hall of Fame inductee (2024). 187 Premier League goals; Premier League Golden Boot winner 1993/94 with 34 goals in a 42-game season. Five Premier League titles, FA Cup honours and the 1999 UEFA Champions League with Manchester United. 15 senior England caps; PFA Young Player of the Year, 1994. Author of “Fast Forward: The Autobiography”, Hodder & Stoughton, 2020. Founder of the Andy Cole Fund with Kidney Research UK, launched 2020 with a personal pledge of £250,000. Biography The 1999 Manchester United dressing room is the most studied team environment in English football. Andy Cole spent six years inside it, scoring 121 goals and winning five league titles, an FA Cup and the Champions League final that completed the Treble. The standards inside that group, and the cost of meeting them, are the raw material he draws on when he speaks to senior teams. His Premier League career produced 187 goals across Newcastle, Manchester United, Blackburn, Fulham, Manchester City and others, the Golden Boot in 1993/94 with 34 goals in a 42-game season, and induction into the Premier League Hall of Fame in 2024. The numbers matter for credibility, but the more useful content is what they describe: a working life judged in public, every week, for nineteen years. In 2015 he was diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. By 2017 his kidney function had fallen to seven per cent and his nephew donated the organ that saved his life. He has since spoken openly about the mental health collapse that followed, founded the Andy Cole Fund with Kidney Research UK, and pledged £250,000 of his own money toward research into transplants and patient wellbeing. His 2020 autobiography “Fast Forward” set out the same arc in print: standards, friction, recovery. For corporate audiences, the offer is reflective rather than instructional. He works best in conversation, in moderated panels, and in after-dinner formats where senior leaders want a serious account of performance and recovery from someone who has lived both. Key speaking topics Elite team performance and standards Resilience and recovery after serious illness Mental health in high-pressure careers Manchester United, the Treble and the Premier League era Motivation and team spirit Mentorship and life after sport Ideal for Sales and commercial leadership conferences seeking a credible voice on standards, accountability and team performance. HR, wellbeing and employee engagement events where a personal account of recovery and mental health adds weight to internal programmes. Corporate hospitality, awards dinners and partner events tied to sport, sponsorship or Manchester United audiences. Charity, healthcare and patient-experience events on kidney health, transplant and donor advocacy. Audience outcomes A close-range account of what high standards inside a championship-winning team feel like in practice, not in theory. A direct view of the mental and physical cost of carrying on after a major health shock, told without hedging. A reset on what resilience actually means for individuals working under sustained scrutiny. A confident, honest Q and A with a senior leader who has lived the material on stage and in print.

View Profile

Rachel Brown-Finnis

Industries that spent decades coded male do not become inclusive by issuing a policy. They change when the practitioners coming through are visible, credible, and treated as normal by the institution around them. The pressure point is rarely the strategy document. It is the everyday culture that decides who gets the benefit of the doubt under pressure.

Why organisations work with Rachel Brown-Finnis A first-person account of a workforce professionalising in real time. She joined the England set-up before central contracts existed and was still playing when the FA introduced them in 2009; few speakers can describe an industry rebuilding itself from inside the dressing room. Lead-level broadcast craft. She co-commentated the BBC’s Euro 2025 final between England and Spain alongside Robyn Cowen, on top of long-standing punditry on Football Focus, The Women’s Football Show, BBC 5 Live and BT Sport, which transfers directly to corporate hosting, panels and fireside interviews. The goalkeeper’s perspective on team pressure. The position carries a particular discipline around isolation, recovery from visible error, and the cost of a single mistake; that is useful content for high-stakes corporate teams, not a metaphor. A practitioner voice on women entering male-coded industries, drawn from a 17-year senior international career, two World Cups, three European Championships, and an Olympic Games, not from secondary research. Biography highlights 82 senior England caps from a debut at 16 against Germany in 1997 through to international retirement in 2014. First-choice England goalkeeper at the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup and UEFA Women’s Euro 2009; Team GB squad member at the London 2012 Olympics. FA Women’s Cup winner with Everton in 2010; FA Women’s Cup finalist with Liverpool in 1996 at the age of 15. One of the first female players awarded a central contract by The Football Association in 2009. Co-commentator on the BBC’s Euro 2025 final coverage and long-standing pundit across BBC Sport, BT Sport and BBC 5 Live. Sports Science degree, University of Pittsburgh, where she held the Panthers’ single-season record for fewest goals conceded; subsequent PE teaching qualification at Liverpool John Moores University. Biography Women’s football was an amateur sport when Rachel Brown-Finnis made her senior England debut at 16 against Germany in 1997. It was a professional, broadcast-funded industry by the time she retired from international football in 2014. She played through every stage of that transition: 82 caps, two World Cups, three European Championships, the 2012 Olympics, and the introduction of the first FA central contracts for women in 2009, which she was part of. The playing career was built on a goalkeeping discipline familiar to anyone who has worked in a high-visibility role. The position rewards composure, an honest read of risk, and recovery from public error. She held the first-choice England jersey through the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup and UEFA Women’s Euro 2009. At club level she won the FA Women’s Cup with Everton in 2010 after reaching her first final at 15 with Liverpool. The broadcast career has tracked the commercial expansion of the women’s game. She is a fixture on BBC Football Focus, The Women’s Football Show, BBC 5 Live and BT Sport, wrote a weekly Guardian column through the 2019/20 WSL season, and co-commentated the BBC’s coverage of the Euro 2025 final between England and Spain. The skill set is live broadcast craft: read the room, structure the conversation, manage the interview, hold the line under pressure. When she speaks from the stage, the material is grounded in that experience rather than imported from a framework. Team culture inside elite environments. The texture of being one of very few women in a high-performance system that was not designed for her. The economics and identity of a workforce that has had to build itself in public. The story is specific, recent, and difficult to outsource. Key speaking topics Team culture and trust in high-performance environments Women in male-coded industries Resilience and composure under public pressure The economics and evolution of women’s professional sport Live broadcast hosting, interview craft and on-stage moderation Lessons from a goalkeeping career: isolation, error recovery, and the cost of a single moment Ideal for Leadership teams in financial services, engineering, energy and other historically male-coded sectors running inclusion or women-in-leadership programmes. Sponsors and partners of the Premier League, The FA, WSL and the wider football ecosystem programming hospitality, conferences and awards. Corporate event organisers commissioning a broadcast-trained host or panel moderator rather than a celebrity name. High-performance organisations using sport as a credible reference point for team culture, recovery from error, and pressure management. Audience outcomes A first-person account of a workforce professionalising in real time, with the structural and cultural detail intact. Working language for women in male-coded industries that resists slogan and connects to operational reality. A goalkeeper’s mental model for high-visibility error: how teams should treat the person who carries the moment. Live interview and hosting craft when she takes the stage rather than the keynote slot, applied to panels, fireside conversations and awards.

View Profile

Willie Kirk

Most leaders inherit teams that are underperforming, fatigued, or structurally unstable. The instinct is to demand more from people who are already running out of belief. The harder task is building a culture where standards rise without breaking the people inside it.

Why organisations work with Willie Kirk He has done the work that most leadership speakers describe. Four head-coach appointments across the women’s professional game, each with a different brief: build, promote, contend, restructure. He speaks from inside the professionalisation of women’s football, one of the fastest organisational transitions in modern sport. The lessons on growth without losing coherence are first-hand, not theoretical. He won a domestic cup in his first full season at Hibernian and was named Scottish Women’s Football Manager of the Year in 2013, which is a useful early signal that the results travel with him. He took Everton Women to a 2020 FA Cup Final from a position outside the elite tier, the kind of overperformance that buyers want to understand mechanically, not anecdotally. Biography highlights UEFA Pro Licence coach with over 15 years in senior management Former head coach of Hibernian, Bristol City, Everton and Leicester City Women Scottish Cup winner and Scottish Women’s Premier League Cup winner with Hibernian Scottish Women’s Football Manager of the Year, 2013 FA Women’s Super League Manager of the Month, November 2019 (Everton) 2020 FA Cup finalist as Everton head coach Current head coach, Djurgardens IF Women, Swedish Damallsvenskan Biography Bristol City Women had just been relegated from the Women’s Super League when Willie Kirk took the job in 2015. A year later they were promoted back. That sequence, inheriting a side at its lowest point and returning it to the top flight, is the pattern that has defined the rest of his career. He is a turnaround manager who arrives where the standards have slipped and the dressing room has stopped believing in itself. He had done it earlier at Hibernian Women, where his first season produced a Scottish Cup and where he was later named Scottish Women’s Football Manager of the Year. He did it again at Everton, reaching the 2020 FA Cup Final with a club that had been a long way off that conversation, and picking up a WSL Manager of the Month award in the process. The work is repeatable because the method is repeatable. What organisations get from him is the operating detail of that method. How to read a room of senior performers who have stopped trusting each other. How to set standards that hold under pressure rather than collapse on the first hard week. How to grow a function quickly without losing the discipline that made it work in the first place, which is the live problem facing any business scaling a high-performing team. His career has run alongside the most rapid professionalisation any sport has seen in a generation. Women’s football has gone from semi-professional to broadcast asset inside his coaching lifetime. He speaks from inside that change, with the credibility of someone who has had to manage talent, expectations and infrastructure all at once. Key speaking topics Turnaround leadership in underperforming teams Building team culture under scrutiny High performance and accountability Talent development in fast-growing organisations Resilience and composure for senior leaders Standards-setting and behaviour in elite environments Ideal for CEOs and executive teams inheriting underperforming functions HR and talent leaders responsible for performance culture Sales leadership and commercial teams under quota pressure Leadership development programmes for mid-to-senior managers Audience outcomes A clear picture of what high-performance culture actually requires in practice, not in slogan The specific behaviours a leader uses to reset standards without losing the team A working sense of how elite coaches manage performance, recovery and pressure across a season Permission to lead with clarity in environments where ambiguity has become the default

View Profile

Jonathan Morgan

Most leadership teams know how to plan in stable conditions. They are less sure what to do when the team is losing, the schedule will not move, and every decision is watched. The gap between a sound strategy and a leader who can hold a group together while executing it is where most performance is actually won or lost.

Why organisations work with Jonathan Morgan He took Leicester City Women from a regional fourth tier into the FA Women’s Super League, a multi-season programme of promotion and culture change that maps directly onto how organisations actually move performance. He carries the LMA Championship Manager of the Year award for the 2020–21 season, a peer-judged recognition from the body that governs professional football management in England. He speaks from the manager’s chair rather than the player’s, which is unusual in the sport-to-business category and more useful to executives running teams of their own. His media work for BBC Radio Leicester and Sky Sports has trained him to deliver tactical analysis in plain language to non-specialist audiences, which carries directly into corporate stages. Biography highlights Head coach, Sheffield United Women (2023–2024). Head coach, Burnley Women (2022–2023); team unbeaten for the first 16 league matches of the season. Head coach, Leicester City Women (2014–2021); led the club from FA Women’s Midlands Division One into the FA Women’s Super League for 2021–22. LMA Championship Manager of the Year, 2020–21. UEFA A Licence holder; UEFA Pro Licence candidate. Co-commentator for BBC Radio Leicester and pundit work for Sky Sports. Biography Leicester City Women were a regional side outside the top three tiers of English football when Jonathan Morgan took over as head coach in 2014. Seven seasons later they were in the FA Women’s Super League for the first time, with Morgan named LMA Championship Manager of the Year for the 2020–21 promotion campaign. That arc is the substance of what he carries into a business room. Building a senior team across a long programme of promotions, in a sport where budgets, scrutiny and the public scoreline all move at the same time, is closer to what most executives are trying to do than a single championship-winning season tends to be. He has held head coach roles since at Burnley Women, where his side began the 2022–23 campaign on a 16-match unbeaten league run, and at Sheffield United Women. Alongside the coaching career he has worked as a co-commentator for BBC Radio Leicester and as a Sky Sports pundit, which shapes the way he speaks on stage: a manager’s read of the game in language a non-specialist can follow. The corporate brief he handles best is leadership under pressure: how to hold a group together through losing periods, how to absorb scrutiny without losing the room, and how to plan a multi-year build when the league table will not wait for you. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure Building a high-performing team from a low base Culture and standards inside elite sport Managing scrutiny and external noise Decision-making in losing periods Long-cycle programmes and promotion campaigns Communication and man-management Ideal for Sales and operational leaders running teams through long performance cycles. Executive offsites and conferences where leadership is the headline theme. After-dinner audiences at sector conferences and customer events. HR and people directors examining culture-building inside high-pressure teams. Audience outcomes A working picture of how an elite coach handles losing weeks, public criticism and squad morale at the same time. Specific examples from an FA Women’s Super League promotion campaign, with the decisions and trade-offs named. A usable language for talking about standards and culture inside a team, rather than as a slogan on a wall. A view of leadership from the manager’s seat, not the player’s, that translates more directly to the audience’s own roles.

View Profile

Gary Foote

Most technology leaders are asked to deliver speed, resilience and measurable performance with a flat budget and a shrinking error tolerance. The leadership conversation has moved past digital transformation as a project and now sits inside the operating model itself. What executives want is a working picture of how IT, data and AI compound into competitive advantage when decisions are made in seconds and failure is public.

Why organisations work with Gary Foote He is a current F1 Chief Information Officer, now at GM Performance Power Units, building the technology function for the Cadillac F1 power unit programme from the ground up. He ran the IT and digital operation at Haas F1 for a decade, taking the team from a start-up entry in 2016 to a competitive, data-driven constructor with global infrastructure. His remit at Haas covered IT, digital, facilities, operations, ESG and business continuity, which gives boards a realistic view of how sustainability and technology intersect inside a performance business. He has been named in the UK CIO 100 for five consecutive years and is a Fellow of the British Computer Society, so the credibility holds up in a room of sitting CIOs. His track record spans Cosworth, Honda Racing F1, Brawn GP and Mercedes Grand Prix, covering six motorsport world championships, which lets him speak to high-performance culture without leaning on abstract frameworks. Biography highlights Chief Information Officer, GM Performance Power Units, the General Motors and TWG Global company delivering the Cadillac F1 power unit. Former CIO and Director of Sustainability at MoneyGram Haas F1 Team, a role held for approximately ten years. Earlier senior technology roles at Mercedes Grand Prix, Brawn GP, Honda Racing F1 and Cosworth Technology. Fellow of the British Computer Society. Named in the UK CIO 100 five years running, 2021 to 2025. Trustee at Tove Learning Trust and active advocate for STEM education. Biography Haas F1 arrived on the grid in 2016 with two cars, a lean headcount and a blank technology estate. Gary Foote built the IT and digital backbone that made that entry possible, then spent a decade scaling it into the stack of a competitive constructor. His brief at Haas eventually covered IT, digital, facilities, ESG and business continuity, which is a wider surface than most corporate CIO roles carry. That is the frame he brings to boards: technology strategy shaped by the realities of logistics, carbon reporting, risk and culture inside one business. Today he is CIO at GM Performance Power Units, the General Motors and TWG Global company set up to build the Cadillac F1 power unit. He is doing again what most CIOs never get the chance to do once, which is stand up an elite-sport technology function from a clean sheet while the competitive clock is already running. The credentials back the story. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and has been listed in the UK CIO 100 five years in a row. He writes and speaks in named industry outlets including Computer Weekly, Infosecurity Magazine and Celonis, and he sits on the board of Tove Learning Trust. Key speaking topics Technology leadership in high-performance sport Artificial intelligence and data strategy in Formula 1 Cybersecurity in time-critical operations Digital transformation inside elite teams Sustainability and ESG in motorsport Scaling an IT function from start-up to championship contender High-performance culture and cross-functional operations Ideal for CIO, CTO and CDO audiences looking at AI, data and infrastructure investment decisions Boards and executive teams benchmarking their operating model against high-tempo performance businesses Sustainability and ESG leaders in industrial and logistics-heavy sectors Audience outcomes A working picture of how a Formula 1 team uses data, AI and cloud infrastructure to compete race by race. A sharper view of how technology, facilities and ESG sit inside one leadership remit rather than separate silos. Practical reference points for scaling an IT function quickly without accruing legacy risk. A candid read on cybersecurity and business continuity in an environment where downtime is visible to the world.

View Profile

Laura Bassett

A single visible failure can define a senior career for a decade after the fact. The leaders who recover are not the ones who reframe the moment; they are the ones who keep performing while the moment is still being replayed. Composure under sustained public scrutiny is a discipline most organisations only test in a crisis, and most leaders only practise once.

Why organisations work with Laura Bassett A named, public case study in recovering from a single career-defining moment. The 2015 World Cup semi-final against Japan is one of the most replayed individual incidents in English football. Few speakers can talk about composure after public failure from inside that kind of footage. Sixty-three England caps and five major tournaments over fourteen years, which gives weight to anything she says about sustained performance, selection pressure, and team dynamics under scrutiny. A specific perspective on the women’s game at the point it professionalised. Bassett was among the first 17 players given central FA contracts in 2009, which makes her a credible voice on what changes when an environment moves from amateur to professional standards. Active broadcast presence with BBC, Sky Sports, TNT Sports and DAZN, which means a current public profile and a delivery style trained by live television, not by the speaking circuit. Biography highlights 63 senior England caps between 2003 and 2017. Bronze medallist, 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Captained England at UEFA Women’s Euro 2017. One of the first 17 women awarded FA central contracts (May 2009). 2015 FA WSL Players’ Player of the Year; PFA WSL Team of the Year 2014/15. Pundit and co-commentator for BBC, Sky Sports, TNT Sports and DAZN, including the 2019 and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cups. BSc Sport and Exercise Sciences; UEFA Level 3 coaching qualification. Biography The own goal happened in stoppage time of a World Cup semi-final, on live television, in front of a global audience. England lost to Japan 2 to 1. The footage is still in circulation a decade later. Three days afterwards, Bassett was back on the pitch playing for the bronze medal, which England won. That episode is the obvious headline, but the more useful credential is what surrounds it. Sixty-three England caps across fourteen years. Five major tournaments. A starting place in a team that progressed from semi-professional to one of the most-watched national sides in English sport. Bassett was among the first 17 players given FA central contracts in 2009, which placed her at the front of the professional era of the women’s game. The clubs read as a working defender’s CV rather than a marketing one: Birmingham City, Arsenal, Leeds, Chelsea, Notts County, Canberra United in the Australian W-League. In 2015 her peers voted her FA WSL Players’ Player of the Year. In 2017 she captained England against Portugal at the Euros. The body of work is unusually consistent for an athlete known to the public for a single moment. Since retiring in 2019 she has worked across BBC, Sky Sports, TNT Sports and DAZN as a co-commentator and analyst, including both the 2019 and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cups. For an organisation that wants someone to talk credibly about composure, recovery and team performance under public scrutiny, the case material is on the record. Key speaking topics Composure and recovery after public failure High-performance team dynamics Sustained performance over a long elite career Women’s elite sport and its professionalisation Resilience under public scrutiny Leadership through tournament cycles Ideal for Senior leadership teams preparing for or recovering from a visible setback or crisis moment HR, talent and people functions running resilience, inclusion or high-performance programmes All-staff conferences and leadership offsites looking for a credible sports-keynote anchor Organisations marking moments in the women’s game, including sponsors, governing bodies and partner brands Audience outcomes A concrete reference point for what composure looks like in the hours and days immediately after a high-stakes public failure A working view of what changes when an environment moves from amateur standards to fully professional ones A first-hand account of team behaviour around setbacks at international tournament level Renewed perspective on individual identity versus single-moment definition in a senior career

View Profile

Claire Rafferty

Senior performers are asked to recover from setbacks, hold two demanding identities in parallel, and keep delivering through long cycles where the visible reward is rare. Most leadership training does not address what that actually costs, or what holds a person together when the recovery is physical, public, and uncertain. Organisations need voices who have lived that pressure inside elite competition, not described it from the outside.

Why organisations work with Claire Rafferty Lived experience of operating at the top of two unrelated industries simultaneously, elite international football and investment banking at Deutsche Bank, where most speakers offer one or the other. A specific, named recovery story. Two anterior cruciate ligament injuries during her career, including a second in 2011, followed by a return to international football and a starting place at a World Cup semi-final. A current operating role in the football industry through TransferRoom, where she works on global transfer activity, plus a board seat at Lewes FC, the only professional club paying its men’s and women’s teams equally. Audiences hear someone still inside the commercial mechanics of the sport, not retired from it. Practised broadcast presence across BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT and ITV News, which translates into clean delivery on stage and confidence under live questioning. Biography highlights 18 senior caps for England between 2010 and 2017, including starting left-back at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup where England finished third. 2012 Team GB Olympian at the London Games. 101 senior appearances for Chelsea FC across eleven seasons; FA WSL champion in 2015 and 2017 to 18, FA Women’s Cup winner in 2014 to 15 and 2017 to 18. Economics degree, Loughborough University, 2011; analyst at Deutsche Bank from 2012, held in parallel with her playing career. Senior Customer Success Manager, TransferRoom; Non-Executive Director, Lewes FC. Regular pundit and contributor across BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT, BBC 5 Live and ITV News. Biography Two anterior cruciate ligament injuries can end a career. Claire Rafferty came back from one as a teenager at Millwall Lionesses, then from a second in 2011 to win starting selection for England’s run to third place at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The story sits at the centre of her speaking content because she has not stylised it. Recovery is presented as long, dull, repeatable work, not a redemption arc. Her career also broke a common pattern in elite sport. Through most of her playing years at Chelsea, where she made 101 appearances and finished as the club’s longest-serving player, Rafferty worked as an analyst at Deutsche Bank. The dual track was not a sponsored side project; it was a deliberate choice to keep a professional identity outside football, made before women’s full-time contracts were standard in the English game. Since retiring from West Ham at the end of the 2018 to 19 season, she has stayed inside the commercial machinery of the sport. At TransferRoom she works on global transfer activity across men’s and women’s football. At Lewes FC, on the board since January 2020, she sits inside the only professional club paying its men’s and women’s first teams from a single equal budget. Both roles give her current material, not retrospective material. The broadcasting work runs alongside this. Rafferty contributes to BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT and ITV News, and covered the 2019 Women’s World Cup on multiple platforms. The cumulative effect for an audience is a speaker who can speak about pressure, recovery and parallel careers from the inside of two industries that rarely overlap. Key speaking topics Resilience after physical and professional setback Parallel careers in elite sport and the City Performing under sustained competitive pressure Women in football and equal pay in professional sport Career transition after a defined competitive peak Team performance and high-trust environments Ideal for Leadership offsites and conferences seeking a voice on resilience grounded in elite competition rather than executive theory. Financial services audiences, where the Deutsche Bank parallel career is directly recognisable. Sports business, federation and broadcast audiences working on women’s football, commercialisation and equal-pay structures. ERG and Women in Leadership programmes, particularly those addressing dual-career pressure and recovery from setback. Audience outcomes A concrete account of recovery from career-threatening injury, told in operational rather than motivational terms. A working model for sustaining two professional identities at the same time, drawn from football and investment banking. A current view of the commercial and structural state of women’s football from inside the industry, not from the press box. Renewed credibility for the claim that competitive performance and equal investment can coexist, evidenced by the Lewes FC model.

View Profile

Chloe Morgan

Inclusion programmes have produced strong public statements and weak operational change. Senior teams now need leaders who can speak credibly about what it actually takes for under-represented people to perform in environments not designed for them. The brief is no longer awareness, it is what changes inside the working week.

Why organisations work with Chloe Morgan She has lived the dual-career argument that organisations now ask of high performers: practising as a personal injury solicitor at Irwin Mitchell while playing in goal for Tottenham, Arsenal, and Crystal Palace. Her inclusion content carries weight that policy slides do not: she is a Football Black List honouree, DIVA Sports Star of the Year, and a Pride Power List entrant, recognised by the named bodies in those communities. She speaks to LGBTQ and BAME representation from inside elite sport, not as a commentator on it, which gives senior teams a credible voice for inclusion work that has lost traction since 2020. She runs She’s a Baller, the UK’s largest independent women’s football publisher and creative agency, and brings a working operator’s view of where brand and inclusion narratives still come apart. Biography highlights Former goalkeeper for Tottenham Hotspur Women, Arsenal Women, and Crystal Palace Women across an eight-year elite career. Qualified solicitor (University of Leeds law graduate); civil litigation lawyer at Irwin Mitchell during her playing career. Cyrille Regis Players Award winner, Football Black List 2020. DIVA Sports Star of the Year, 2021; Pride Power List, 2021. Co-host of “Upfront”, the women’s football podcast on the Football Ramble network. Head of She’s a Baller, the UK’s largest independent women’s football publisher and creative agency. Biography Most inclusion programmes were built for an audience that has now moved on. The reputational risk has shifted, the public mood is harder to read, and the people inside the organisation can tell the difference between a values statement and a working environment. The question senior teams now ask is narrower and more practical: what does inclusion look like once the press release has gone out. This is the territory Chloe Morgan speaks from. She played eight seasons at the top of the women’s game, in goal for Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, and Crystal Palace, including Tottenham’s promotion campaign into the Women’s Super League. She did it while qualifying as a solicitor and working as a civil litigation lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, a dual career that is unusual at any level of professional sport and almost unheard of at the elite end. Her inclusion work is recognised by the bodies that matter in the relevant communities. She received the Cyrille Regis Players Award on the Football Black List in 2020, was named DIVA Sports Star of the Year in 2021, and entered the Pride Power List the same year. She speaks as an openly gay Black athlete who has been inside the dressing rooms, boardrooms, and law firms in question, not as a commentator standing outside them. Since retiring in 2022 she has moved into media and operating roles. She co-hosts “Upfront” on the Football Ramble network and now leads She’s a Baller, the UK’s largest independent women’s football publisher and creative agency, where she works with brands on the gap between women’s football marketing and the actual culture of the women’s game. Key speaking topics Inclusion in elite performance environments LGBTQ representation in sport and professional services Race and representation in women’s football Dual-career discipline and high performance Resilience in male-dominated workplaces Women’s sport as a brand and commercial category Leadership lessons from the goalkeeping position Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads rebuilding inclusion programmes after the post-2020 retreat Brand and marketing teams investing in women’s sport sponsorships and partnerships Employee resource groups, particularly LGBTQ and Black professional networks Leadership audiences interested in dual-career performance and resilience Audience outcomes A clearer view of what inclusion looks like in environments with measurable performance pressure, not only in policy. Specific reference points from elite women’s football and a UK law firm, drawn from one career rather than secondhand. A more honest read on where brand activity in women’s sport lands well with players and fans, and where it misfires. Confidence that resilience and dual-career performance can be discussed with substance, not slogans.

View Profile

Serena Guthrie

The hardest leadership job is not turning a struggling team around. It is holding a winning one together once the pressure to repeat sets in, the senior players age out, and every decision is judged against the last result. Most leaders inherit ambition; few are handed a standard and asked to defend it.

Why organisations work with Serena Guthrie She has the rare credential of captaining a national team in the cycle immediately after its biggest win, with the specific leadership problem of defending a standard rather than chasing one. Her playing record is decided in the strongest leagues in the sport: Team Bath in England, Northern Mystics in New Zealand, Giants Netball in Australia, where she was named club MVP for the 2017 season. She speaks credibly about the captain’s role inside a high-performance system, including how a senior player holds a dressing room when the head coach is making selection calls that hurt teammates. An MBE for services to netball and a continuing role as Performance Lead at Jersey Netball mean her authority sits in current practice, not retired commentary. Biography highlights 110 senior caps for England; captain of the Vitality Roses from November 2018 to retirement in March 2022. Gold medal, 2018 Commonwealth Games, with the England Roses. Bronze, 2019 Netball World Cup, as captain. Three Netball World Cups (2011, 2015, 2019) and two Commonwealth Games (2014, 2018). Club career across the three strongest leagues in the sport: Team Bath, Northern Mystics, Giants Netball. Giants club MVP, 2017. MBE, 2020 New Year Honours, for services to netball. Performance Lead, Jersey Netball; founder of Legacy Netball; accredited executive coach; business coaching work with Humanise Solutions. Biography England had never won a major netball title before April 2018. When the Roses came home with Commonwealth gold, the team that had spent forty years finishing behind Australia and New Zealand was suddenly the one being chased. Seven months later, Serena Guthrie was named captain. The captaincy she took on was the difficult one. The first World Cup cycle after a defining win is the cycle in which a team has to prove the result was not a peak. Guthrie led the Roses to bronze at the 2019 World Cup in Liverpool under head coach Tracey Neville’s final campaign, and stayed in the role through the next three years of restructure, coaching change, and a pandemic that interrupted the international calendar. She retired in March 2022 with 110 caps and 28 as captain. Her club career sits alongside that international record. She played at Team Bath in the Vitality Netball Superleague, moved to Northern Mystics in New Zealand’s ANZ Premiership, and then to Giants Netball in Australia’s Suncorp Super Netball, the strongest domestic league in the sport, where she was named club MVP in her first season. That is a player who tested her standards in the environments her opponents came from. What she offers corporate audiences now is the substance of the captain’s role inside a high-performance system. She is direct about the gap between leading on the court and managing the room around selection decisions made by someone else; about how senior players hold standards when results turn; and about what defending a benchmark feels like compared with chasing one. Her current work as Performance Lead at Jersey Netball, founder of Legacy Netball, and an accredited executive coach with Humanise Solutions keeps that material in active practice. Key speaking topics Captaincy and senior leadership inside high-performance teams Holding standards after a defining win Team culture under public pressure and scrutiny Selection, accountability, and the senior player’s role Resilience and composure in decisive moments Talent development and the long arc of an elite career Ideal for Executive teams operating under the pressure to repeat or defend a recent result HR and talent leaders working on captaincy, succession, and senior player roles inside teams Women’s leadership programmes and senior development cohorts Sales and commercial leaders running through a defined competitive cycle Audience outcomes A concrete account of what a senior captain does inside a high-performance system when selection calls are not theirs to make A working reference point for holding team standards after a result everyone now expects you to repeat Honest perspective on the personal weight of leading peers, including senior teammates, through public results A usable model of long-career resilience across three of the most competitive leagues in a global sport

View Profile

Keira Walsh

Senior teams crack quietly. Pressure does not show as panic; it shows as slow passes, late decisions, and a captain who stops calling for the ball. The hard question for leaders is what holds a unit together in the second half of a final, when fatigue has set in and the result is not yet decided.

Why organisations work with Keira Walsh She has held the central midfield role in two winning European finals for England, including as Player of the Match at Wembley in 2022, which is a specific position about reading risk and keeping a team in shape under pressure. Her career carries the weight of a world-record transfer fee, which is a useful frame for any leader being asked to perform after a step-change in expectation, scrutiny or investment. She offers an inside account of an elite team culture, the Lionesses under Sarina Wiegman, that has now won back-to-back European Championships and reached a World Cup final. Her move from Barcelona to Chelsea in January 2025 is a recent, deliberate case study in choosing environment and ambition over comfort, told first-hand. Biography highlights MBE in the 2026 New Year Honours for services to association football. UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 final Player of the Match; UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 winner with England. World-record transfer fee in women’s football when Barcelona signed her from Manchester City in September 2022. Two UEFA Women’s Champions League titles with FC Barcelona. Chelsea midfielder since January 2025 on a four-and-a-half-year deal. Over 100 senior England caps; ever-present in Sarina Wiegman’s midfield through two winning European Championship campaigns. Biography Holding midfield in a winning international final is, in football terms, the most exposed leadership job on the pitch. It is the role that connects defence to attack, absorbs pressure when the opposition raises tempo, and decides which risks the team can afford in the last twenty minutes. Walsh has now done that job twice, at Euro 2022 and Euro 2025, in the two most scrutinised matches in the women’s game. The 2022 final at Wembley was the case study. England were level with Germany when Walsh produced the assist for Ella Toone’s opening goal and was named Player of the Match. UEFA’s technical observers noted that she “balanced the team throughout the game” and rarely lost possession. Three years later she was back in the starting line-up for the Euro 2025 final in Basel, helping England retain the title in a penalty shoot-out against Spain. Her club career has carried a comparable weight of expectation. Barcelona paid a reported 400,000 pounds for her in September 2022, a world record in women’s football, and she went on to win two UEFA Women’s Champions League titles and a domestic continental quadruple. In January 2025 she returned to England with Chelsea on a four-and-a-half-year contract, signed explicitly to help the club convert domestic dominance into European success. For corporate audiences, the substance is composure under exposure. Walsh is a working professional who has been the named senior player in a unit twice asked to win a continental final, and a transfer asset twice priced at the top of her market. The MBE awarded in the 2026 New Year Honours marks the public record. The more useful material is the operating detail behind it. Key speaking topics Composure and decision-making under pressure Elite team culture and cohesion Resilience after setback and injury Performing after a step-change in expectation Women’s sport and the commercial reset of the game Leadership in the holding role Ideal for Leadership teams preparing for a high-scrutiny year: post-IPO, post-acquisition, new mandate CHROs and culture leads building cohesion in senior teams under sustained pressure Conference audiences in sport, media and consumer brands engaging with the growth of women’s football Employee and partner events where the brief is human performance rather than technical content Audience outcomes A first-hand picture of how a winning international squad makes decisions in the final twenty minutes of a closely fought match. A working definition of composure that is usable by senior leaders, not motivational language. A concrete example of what changes when an individual is priced and expected to operate at the very top of their market. An honest account of leaving a winning environment for a harder one, and the reasoning behind it.