Peak Performance

Why organisations work with Demi Stokes A first-hand voice from the England squad that won UEFA Women’s Euro 2022, the most commercially significant moment in English women’s football. Nine seasons at the top of the Women’s Super League with Manchester City, including a WSL title, three FA Cups and three League Cups, plus a return to first-team football after the premature birth of her son. A current player and Newcastle United captain, which gives event audiences access to a live insider perspective rather than a retrospective career story. A credible advocate on premature birth and neonatal care through her Pampers UK ambassadorship with Bliss and UNICEF, suited to wellbeing, parental-leave and ERG-focused events. Biography highlights Member of the England squad that won UEFA Women’s Euro 2022; 69 senior caps between 2014 and 2023. Won the FA Women’s Super League, three FA Women’s Cups and three League Cups with Manchester City between 2015 and 2024. Named in the PFA WSL Team of the Year in 2018 and 2019. Captained Team GB to gold at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan and represented Team GB at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Signed for Newcastle United Women in July 2024 and named club captain ahead of the 2025/26 season. Pampers UK ambassador for the #PampersforPreemies campaign with Bliss and UNICEF. Biography Most elite athletes peak inside a single environment. Demi Stokes built her career across four of them. Sunderland gave her a first-team debut at sixteen and an FA Cup final in 2009. A scholarship to the University of South Florida added four years of US college football. A summer at Vancouver Whitecaps in the USL W League followed before Manchester City signed her in January 2015. What she built at City is the substance of the speaking story. Nine seasons, more than 100 first-team appearances, the 2016 FA WSL title, three FA Women’s Cups and three League Cups. Two PFA WSL Team of the Year selections, in 2018 and 2019. A senior England debut in 2014, and a place in the squad that won UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 at Wembley, the most commercially important moment in English women’s football. The personal layer runs alongside the career. Stokes was born ten weeks premature herself, and her son Harlen spent time in a neonatal unit after a difficult pregnancy that included pre-eclampsia. She has spoken openly about that period in interviews with Grazia and Mother & Baby, and works with Pampers UK on the #PampersforPreemies campaign in partnership with Bliss and UNICEF. The throughline that audiences hear is how a senior international footballer sustains performance through events that most workplaces still struggle to talk about. She left Manchester City in May 2024, signed for Newcastle United Women in July, and was named club captain ahead of the 2025/26 season. The story she brings to a room is current, not archived. Key speaking topics Lionesses and UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 Women’s football and the professionalisation of the game Return to elite performance after a difficult pregnancy Premature birth, neonatal care and family advocacy Leadership in a dressing room and team identity Long-career resilience across clubs, countries and codes Ideal for Internal events tied to International Women’s Day, parental-leave policy launches or working-parent ERGs. Wellbeing, EDI and culture programmes looking for a credible voice on resilience and identity rather than a clinical specialist. Sport-sponsorship activations, hospitality nights and awards dinners where a current Lioness presence is the brief. Audience outcomes An inside account of the England squad that won UEFA Women’s Euro 2022, told by a senior squad member. A direct view of how a top-flight athlete returns to performance after a high-risk pregnancy and a premature birth. A useable reference point for managers thinking about how to support employees through major personal events. A current-player perspective on dressing-room leadership and the demands of being a club captain.

Why organisations work with Dean Ashton A first-person account of how an elite career ends without warning, and what it takes to construct a credible second one from scratch in a watched, public arena. Direct experience of performing under scrutiny, from Premier League football and an FA Cup final to live broadcast on talkSPORT, Sky Sports, ITV and Quest, is useful to leaders whose own work has become more publicly observed. A grounded, unvarnished voice on mental health, injury and identity loss, drawn from being told at 26 that the work he had trained his life for was over. An after-dinner presence that lifts the energy of a room, with material a sports-literate UK audience recognises immediately: Crewe academy, Norwich, the £7.25m move to West Ham, the 2006 cup final, the England debut against Trinidad & Tobago. Biography highlights Capped by England at the senior level; made his debut against Trinidad & Tobago on 1 June 2008. Signed by West Ham United from Norwich City in January 2006 for a then club-record £7.25m fee. Scored in the 3-3 FA Cup final against Liverpool in May 2006. Career ended in December 2009 at age 26 following a long-term ankle injury sustained in England training in August 2006. Product of the Crewe Alexandra academy under Dario Gradi; scored 74 goals in 177 appearances for the club. Now a pundit and co-commentator across talkSPORT, Sky Sports, ITV, Premier League TV and The EFL Show on Quest. Biography Ashton was a £7.25m centre-forward, an FA Cup final scorer, and an England international by the time he was 24. By 26, he was retired. The ankle injury sustained in an England training session in August 2006 never fully healed, and in December 2009, West Ham confirmed publicly what he had been trying to outrun for three years. The interesting part of the story for organisations is what came next. The default path for a player in that position is a quiet drift out of public life. Ashton instead built a second career inside the same scrutiny he had been performing in as a player, this time as a broadcaster, working as a pundit and co-commentator across talkSPORT, Sky Sports, ITV, Premier League TV and The EFL Show on Quest. That arc is the substance of his speaking work. The material is not abstract resilience theory. It is a specific account of identity loss at 26, the practical mechanics of rebuilding professional credibility in a new field, and the discipline of performing under live scrutiny when the result is judged in public. He talks honestly about mental health, public pressure and the version of yourself you have to construct when the original plan is gone. For a UK corporate audience, Ashton sits at the intersection of after-dinner sports speaker and credible voice on dealing with career shock. The football material gives the room an immediate point of entry. The reinvention material is what a leadership audience actually takes away. Key speaking topics Resilience after career-ending shock Reinvention and second careers Performing under public scrutiny Mental health and identity in elite performance environments Team culture and high performance in professional sport After-dinner sports speaking and Premier League punditry Ideal for HR, leadership and wellbeing conferences where the brief calls for an honest first-person voice on resilience and mental health. Sales kick-offs, awards dinners and partner events are looking for a UK sports-literate after-dinner speaker with substance behind the anecdotes. Internal leadership offsites addressing change fatigue, role loss after restructure, or the reset that follows a strategic shock. Audience outcomes A grounded sense of what resilience looks like in practice when the original plan is no longer available. A more honest internal vocabulary for talking about mental health, identity and pressure at senior levels. A reference point for thinking about career reinvention as a deliberate, constructed process rather than a recovery story. An engaged, sports-literate room, set up well for the rest of the agenda.

Why organisations work with Aoife Mannion She has rebuilt her career twice from ACL ruptures, including a 16-month layoff after a Champions League injury, and can describe the rehab discipline that goes with it without losing the room. Her mental-health work is institutional rather than personal commentary: she sits on FIFPRO’s Mental Health Taskforce, the global players’ union body that shapes player welfare standards. She holds back-to-back PFA WSL Team of the Year selections from her Birmingham City years, a peer-voted credential rather than a media one. She represents the Republic of Ireland after a long youth career in the England system, and can speak credibly to identity, belonging and late-career reinvention without trading on clichés. Biography highlights Centre-back for Newcastle United Women and the Republic of Ireland senior squad Former Manchester United, Manchester City, Birmingham City, and Aston Villa player 2024 Women’s FA Cup winner with Manchester United PFA WSL Team of the Year 2017-18 and 2018-19 Member of FIFPRO Mental Health Taskforce Senior Ireland debut on 22 February 2023 versus China Biography Recovery from a serious ACL injury takes around twelve months on a clean run, longer when the second one arrives before the first is fully behind you. Aoife Mannion has done both. The first rupture came during a 2019 Champions League tie against Atletico Madrid and kept her out for sixteen months. The second came in March 2022, eight months into her Manchester United contract. She was a peer-voted selection for the PFA WSL Team of the Year in two consecutive seasons at Birmingham City, then won the Women’s FA Cup with Manchester United in 2024 after that second comeback. She now plays for Newcastle United Women in the WSL2 and the Republic of Ireland senior squad, having made her international debut in February 2023 after a long youth career inside the England system. The mental health work is structural. Mannion sits on FIFPRO’s Mental Health Taskforce, the global players’ union body that sets welfare standards across professional football, and has spoken through FIFPRO on what long injury layoffs do to identity and to a person’s relationship with the work that defines them. The argument she makes to corporate audiences is the one she had to make to herself twice: composure is a discipline you build before you need it, and the conversation around the setback is the part that reduces the suffering. She speaks for organisations dealing with people in long, uncertain recoveries of their own, whether after restructure, after public failure, or after the kind of personal setback that does not respect the working week. Key speaking topics Resilience after a serious setback Rehabilitation discipline and the long return Mental health in high-performance environments Self-leadership under prolonged pressure Identity, belonging and dual nationality Feedback and honest performance conversations Ideal for CHROs and people leaders building resilience programmes that go beyond wellbeing branding Executive teams and leadership offsites where the brief is composed under sustained adversity Organisations in or after restructure where the workforce is dealing with prolonged uncertainty Networks for women in sport, performance and corporate leadership Audience outcomes A clearer language for what real recovery from a setback looks like over months, not weeks A practical view of how mental health support works inside elite teams, drawn from FIFPRO’s policy work Honest reference points for separating identity from role when the role is interrupted Reasons to take rehabilitation, recovery and feedback seriously as leadership disciplines, not soft skills

Why organisations work with Yogi Roth Co-authorship with Pete Carroll of Win Forever, a New York Times bestseller, gives him direct authority on the “Always Compete” philosophy now used widely in sport and corporate culture programmes. Two decades inside elite football locker rooms, first as a USC quarterbacks coach, then as a Big Ten, Pac-12, ESPN and Fox analyst, gives him a first-hand evidence base most culture speakers do not have. He brings a filmmaker’s command of narrative into the room. As producer and narrator of The Drive on the Pac-12 Networks since 2013, he has spent his career studying what actually makes high-performing cultures cohere on camera. Track record speaking for Nike, World Surf League, Capital One, Dignity Health and JCPenney, alongside major college athletic programmes, means he reads both commercial audiences and team-led organisations without recalibration. Biography highlights Co-author with Pete Carroll of Win Forever: Live, Work, and Play Like a Champion, which reached number seven on the New York Times bestseller list. Los Angeles Emmy winner in 2020 for Fight On: A Jackson Family, produced for the Pac-12 Networks. College football analyst across the Big Ten Network, Pac-12 Networks, Fox, ESPN and NFL Network, joining Big Ten Network in 2024. USC football quarterbacks coach under Pete Carroll, 2005 to 2009, following a playing career as a wide receiver at the University of Pittsburgh. Master’s degree in Communication Management from the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, graduating magna cum laude. Elite 11 quarterback coach and host since 2009; producer and narrator of the documentary series The Drive on Pac-12 Networks since 2013. Biography Pete Carroll’s Win Forever philosophy did not stay inside USC’s football programme. The book that codified it, co-written with Yogi Roth in 2010, reached number seven on the New York Times bestseller list and has since travelled through corporate culture programmes, athletic departments and leadership offsites. Roth is the storyteller who shaped how that philosophy reads on the page and how its central idea, “Always Compete,” lands in a room. His route to that work was unusual. He walked on as a wide receiver at the University of Pittsburgh, earned a full athletic scholarship, then moved into coaching at USC under Carroll from 2005 to 2009. He studied alongside that work, completing a master’s in Communication Management at the USC Annenberg School. Coaching gave him the inside view of how an elite competitive culture actually behaves. Annenberg gave him the craft to translate it. The translation has been a 20-year career across broadcast and film. He has been an on-air college football analyst for the Big Ten Network, Pac-12 Networks, Fox, ESPN and NFL Network, and has produced and narrated The Drive since 2013, the long-running documentary series on the Pac-12 Networks. In 2020 he won a Los Angeles Emmy for Fight On: A Jackson Family. He also coaches and hosts the Elite 11, the country’s premier high school quarterback competition. That body of work is the substance behind his keynote practice. He has spoken for Nike, World Surf League, Capital One, Dignity Health and JCPenney, applying the same idea: organisations perform when leaders make what matters specific, repeat it relentlessly, and reward the behaviours that show people are competing for it together. The Latin root of compete, he points out, is “to strive together.” Most culture programmes forget that part. Key speaking topics Culture and the “Always Compete” philosophy Storytelling as a leadership tool High-performance team dynamics Personal brand and authentic communication Coaching and feedback in competitive cultures Purpose, clarity and discipline in winning organisations Ideal for Sales leaders and commercial teams running culture or kickoff events HR and people leaders building engagement programmes around purpose and team behaviour Athletic departments, sports organisations and performance-led businesses Marketing leaders and brand teams working on internal storytelling and identity Audience outcomes A working definition of what their team is actually competing for, beyond the stated mission Specific stories they can carry back into their own teams to make values concrete A clearer sense of where culture is real in their organisation and where it is decoration Renewed conviction that the behaviours leaders model in small moments are what shape a winning culture

Why organisations work with Jodie Taylor Taylor won the Golden Boot at 31, after a serious knee injury had disrupted her career in her mid-20s. The story is sustained performance through real adversity – not a single peak moment – which is what makes the resilience argument land with competitive organisations. A career spanning 17 clubs across six countries – from NWSL franchises to Lyon’s UEFA Champions League-winning squad – means direct exposure to how elite performance cultures actually differ. She brings comparative insight into what drives delivery under pressure, not a single exportable model. She is now Arsenal Women’s Technical Director – the first person to hold the role at the club – which means her thinking about the conditions for elite performance is being tested in a live organisational context, not drawn solely from memory of a playing career that ended years ago. As the first Englishwoman to score a hat-trick in a major international tournament, she carries a specific, named, verifiable performance record. That kind of credential anchors credibility differently than a career overview. A UEFA A coaching licence and an in-progress Masters in Sports Directorship mean her framework for translating athletic performance into organisational learning has structured analytical rigour behind it – a distinction that matters in leadership conversations where storytelling alone doesn’t carry the room. Biography highlights UEFA Women’s EURO 2017 Golden Boot winner – five goals in four appearances, including the first hat-trick by an Englishwoman in a major international tournament 51 England senior caps and 19 international goals; represented England at the 2015 and 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cups (England won bronze in 2015) UEFA Women’s Champions League winner with Lyon (2019-20); FA Cup winner with Birmingham City (2012) Vauxhall England Player of the Year 2017; Oregon State University Athletics Hall of Fame inductee (2020) Career spanning 17 clubs across six countries – England, USA, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and France Appointed Arsenal Women’s Technical Director (January 2026) – the first person to hold the role at the club Biography At UEFA Women’s EURO 2017, Jodie Taylor scored five goals in four appearances, took the Golden Boot, and became the first Englishwoman to score a hat-trick in a major international tournament. She was 31, and had already spent more than a decade moving between clubs across six countries. That breadth matters. Seventeen clubs in England, the United States, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and France is direct exposure to how elite performance cultures are built, maintained, and dismantled in genuinely different environments. Alongside the Golden Boot, Taylor won the FA Cup with Birmingham City and the UEFA Women’s Champions League with Lyon, earned 51 England caps, and was named Vauxhall England Player of the Year. She did all of it while navigating a serious knee injury and the structural uncertainties of a women’s game that was still building its professional infrastructure. What is less common is the transition she has made since retiring from professional football in 2023. Appointed Arsenal Women’s Technical Director in January 2026 – the first person to hold that role at the club – Taylor now works directly on the organisational conditions that enable elite performance: the structures, cultures, and systems that translate individual talent into consistent team output. She holds a UEFA A coaching licence and is completing a Masters in Sports Directorship. The result is a perspective that sits at the intersection of frontline competitive experience and structured organisational thinking. Taylor has seen high-performance culture from the inside of 17 different teams and is now building it from the outside. That combination is rare, and it is precisely what makes her valuable in leadership conversations about performance, resilience, and what teams actually need to deliver when the stakes are highest. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure High-performance team culture Resilience and sustained performance Leadership in competitive environments Building and maintaining team trust Mindset and focus in high-stakes situations Navigating setbacks and career adversity Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite audiences focused on performance culture and competitive resilience CHROs and People leaders building or transforming high-performance team environments Women’s leadership networks and inclusion programmes Sales, commercial, and performance-driven teams in competitive industries Audience outcomes A concrete, evidence-based account of what the conditions for sustained high performance actually look like – drawn from elite competition across multiple cultures and environments Clearer thinking about the gap between individual talent and collective team delivery, and what leaders can do to close it before pressure arrives Practical reflection on how trust, culture, and individual mindset interact in high-stakes moments A sharper vocabulary for leadership conversations about resilience, performance, and team culture Perspective from a practitioner who has both competed at the highest level and is now building organisational performance structures inside a major professional club

Why organisations work with Tanya Oxtoby She has built winning environments at both ends of the resource spectrum: Bristol City Women, operating on the WSL’s smallest budget, and Chelsea Women under Emma Hayes, the most dominant club side in English football. She has held a UEFA Pro Licence in a sport where fewer than a handful of women in the British and Irish game hold that qualification, and she has used it inside national-team rebuild conditions at Northern Ireland. She speaks directly about leading squad transitions; under her at Northern Ireland the average age of the squad dropped from 27 to 23, nine players debuted, and the world ranking improved while results remained mixed. That is the texture of real change leadership rather than the slide version. She brings a working perspective on inclusion as performance practice, drawing on her own indigenous Australian background and her record of developing female coaches and players inside the elite game. Biography highlights Manager, Newcastle United Women, appointed November 2025 on a contract to June 2029. Former manager, Northern Ireland senior women’s national team, 2023 to 2025. Former assistant coach, Chelsea FC Women, under Emma Hayes; two FA Women’s Super League titles and three Women’s FA Cups during her two seasons. Former manager, Bristol City Women, July 2018 to early 2022; record WSL points tally and a sixth place finish in her first season, with two Manager of the Month awards. UEFA Pro Licence holder. Former professional centre-back for Perth Glory, Western Waves and Doncaster Rovers Belles; captained Western Australia and Perth Glory. Biography Bristol City Women had the lowest budget in the Women’s Super League when Tanya Oxtoby took over in July 2018. By the end of her first season they had a record points tally, a sixth place finish in the WSL, and she had collected two Manager of the Month awards. That is the work that defines her as a leader: building standards inside teams that are not supposed to win at the level they end up competing at. The Chelsea years sharpened the credential. Two seasons as assistant to Emma Hayes, two FA Women’s Super League titles, three Women’s FA Cups. She joined the staff in 2021 and left in 2023 for the senior international job with Northern Ireland, a four-year project to reset a national team that had qualified for its first major tournament under the previous regime. Northern Ireland was the harder leadership test. She handed nine players their senior debuts, dropped the average squad age from 27 to 23, and improved the country’s world ranking, while results on the pitch stayed inconsistent. The squad reset was the point. In November 2025 she left to take the manager’s job at Newcastle United Women, on a contract running until 2029, in a recruitment process led by Director of Women’s Football Grace Williams. Oxtoby is one of a small group of women in the British and Irish game who holds a UEFA Pro Licence. She speaks publicly about her indigenous Australian heritage and the absence of visible role models from that background during her playing career at Perth Glory and Doncaster Rovers Belles. That gives her work on inclusion a specificity that most sports-speaker treatments of the subject lack. Key speaking topics Leadership under resource constraint Building winning cultures inside elite teams Squad and team renewal Performance leadership in high-pressure environments Inclusion and representation in elite sport Coaching at the top of professional football Ideal for CHROs and senior people leaders managing teams through restructure or budget pressure Operating leaders and divisional heads inside organisations rebuilding underperforming units Women’s leadership networks and senior development programmes Executive teams looking for an outside performance perspective on sustained pressure and public scrutiny Audience outcomes A sharper read on what raising standards actually looks like inside a team that is outspent or under-resourced A working framework for thinking about squad and team renewal without losing the people you keep A specific account of how a leader holds standards while results are inconsistent An honest perspective on inclusion as performance work rather than corporate signalling

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

Why organisations work with Trent Shelton He reaches people that internal messaging and management cannot. A digital following built over more than a decade lets him speak to a workforce in a register company communications rarely achieve. His argument that self-worth drives ownership sits on a published body of work, including “Protect Your Peace” (Hay House, 2023) and “The Greatest You” (HarperCollins Leadership, 2019). He applies a professional athlete’s understanding of preparation and pressure to how ordinary employees show up at work, rather than to elite-performance abstractions. More than a decade running RehabTime, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, means he has operated the message on ownership and standards, not only spoken about it. Biography highlights Former NFL wide receiver: Indianapolis Colts, Washington Redskins, Seattle Seahawks Baylor University, BA Speech Communications, 2007 Founder and president, RehabTime Organization (501(c)(3) nonprofit, established 2011) Author of “Protect Your Peace” (Hay House, 2023), “The Greatest You” (HarperCollins Leadership, 2019), and “Straight Up” Host of “The Trent Shelton Podcast” (launched 2019) Built one of the largest personal-development digital audiences in the United States Biography Most accountability problems inside organisations are not really accountability problems. People miss the standard because, underneath, they do not believe the outcome is worth their full effort. Skill and systems are rarely the real constraint. Self-worth is. Shelton arrived at that argument from an unusual direction. A wide receiver with the Colts, Redskins, and Seahawks, he left the NFL earlier than planned and founded RehabTime in 2011, a nonprofit that took 501(c)(3) status in 2013 and has run for more than a decade. The work forced a practical question: what makes people keep showing up when the external rewards disappear. That question runs through his books. “The Greatest You” (HarperCollins Leadership, 2019) and “Protect Your Peace” (Hay House, 2023) argue that self-worth is the infrastructure of performance rather than a wellbeing add-on. His podcast, launched in 2019, has produced close to 200 episodes for a large international audience. For a corporate audience, the draw is register as much as content. Shelton speaks to ownership and accountability in the language of people who have stopped listening to management, and he reaches employee populations that internal programmes struggle to move. He is now built around a single keynote, “It All Starts With You,” which puts self-worth ahead of the accountability systems most organisations rely on. Key speaking topics Employee wellbeing and burnout Mental health in the workplace Resilience and recovery from setback Self-leadership and personal accountability Mindset and peak performance Motivation and inspiration Ideal for Corporate kick-offs, leadership summits, and company-wide events where the message needs to reach beyond senior leadership Sales conferences and frontline teams where ownership and consistency drive results University convocations and athletic programmes seeking a performance and accountability message CHROs and culture leads running accountability or culture-change initiatives Audience outcomes A direct case for why ownership follows a high personal standard, not a management instruction The distinction between accountability people hold themselves to and pressure applied from above A reframing of self-worth as the thing that keeps performance steady under pressure A setback-and-rebuild narrative from professional sport that lands across every level of seniority

Why organisations work with Alison Canavan She turns wellbeing from a benefits line item into something employees do during the working day. Her signature 5-Minute Journal practice and short mindfulness routines are designed for people who say they have no time for wellbeing. She brings a UCLA Semel Institute mindfulness credential into rooms that would otherwise be sceptical of meditation language, which gives HR and people leaders a defensible programme to stand behind. She built a structured wellbeing series for an airline, Aer Lingus, on a workforce known for shift fatigue and circadian disruption. That kind of operational application travels well into other shift-heavy and high-pressure environments. She speaks from a lived recovery narrative, postnatal depression, addiction, single parenthood, without turning the talk into therapy. Audiences disclose more honestly afterwards, which is what HR teams say they need. She is comfortable with both a 200-person town hall and an executive offsite, which matters for organisations rolling a single wellbeing voice across multiple formats. Biography highlights UCLA-trained Mindfulness Facilitator, Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior Author of Minding Mum: It’s Time to Take Care of You, published by Gill Books, Ireland Master NLP Practitioner, HeartMath facilitator, and graduate of the Irish Institute of Nutrition and Health (Advanced Diploma in Diet and Nutrition Therapeutics) Creator of the Wellbeing in the Skies series for Aer Lingus Corporate keynote and workshop work cited with Google, YouTube, Deloitte, Coinbase, Allianz, Bank of Ireland, PayPal, Bristol Myers Squibb, Deutsche Telekom and Vitality Regular contributor to Irish broadsheet and broadcast media on mental health and wellbeing, including The Sunday Independent and Ireland AM Biography Most wellbeing programmes inside organisations underperform for the same reason. They treat stress and mental health as a benefits category rather than something that happens minute by minute during the working day. Alison Canavan’s corporate work is built around closing that gap. She trained as a Mindfulness Facilitator at UCLA’s Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and combines that with practitioner-level work in NLP, HeartMath and nutrition. The point of stacking those disciplines is practical. Different parts of a workforce respond to different entry points, and her programmes are designed to give people a route in that does not require them to call it meditation if they do not want to. Her book Minding Mum, published by Gill Books in Ireland, established her early authority on postnatal mental health and self-care. The corporate work has since broadened into stress, burnout, anxiety, hybrid working pressure, and the slow erosion of attention that senior teams now describe as their biggest people problem. Her Wellbeing in the Skies series, built for Aer Lingus cabin crew, is one example of a structured programme designed for a workforce that cannot easily step away from the job to look after itself. What audiences tend to take from her sessions is not a concept but a habit. The 5-Minute Journal practice she teaches is the most cited example. It is short enough to survive a real working week, which is the only test that matters for workplace wellbeing content. Key speaking topics Workplace mental health and burnout Mindfulness and daily practice for high-pressure teams Stress, anxiety and recovery Hybrid working and return-to-office wellbeing Self-leadership and emotional regulation Resilience and sustainable performance Postnatal mental health and parental wellbeing Ideal for CHROs and heads of people designing the next iteration of their wellbeing strategy Wellbeing, DEI and employee experience leads commissioning company-wide programmes Operational leaders of shift-based or high-pressure workforces (airlines, healthcare, financial services, contact centres) Leadership offsites and senior team meetings where stress and personal capacity have become a strategic conversation Audience outcomes A daily practice, anchored in the 5-Minute Journal method, that survives a real working week A clearer language for stress, burnout and anxiety that employees and managers can actually use with each other Specific techniques for nervous system regulation that work in the gaps between meetings A more honest conversation about mental health inside the room, which most HR teams report as the single hardest thing to engineer

Why organisations work with Jutta Kleinschmidt She is the only woman ever to win the Dakar Rally outright, a fact buyers can repeat without qualification, in a field where most “first woman” credentials require footnotes. She brings a physics-engineering mind to a topic, high-pressure performance, that is usually dominated by intuition and anecdote. Audiences get the mechanics, not just the story. Her current FIA role gives her a serving leadership platform in international motorsport, which keeps the material current rather than retrospective. She speaks credibly to mixed audiences on team performance, risk tolerance and the practical limits of preparation, drawing on a 17-attempt Dakar career across motorcycles and cars. She works fluently in English and German, which matters for German-speaking corporates booking a global-grade keynote without losing the original voice. Biography highlights First and only woman to win the Dakar Rally outright, in 2001, driving a Mitsubishi Pajero with co-driver Andreas Schulz. President of the FIA Cross Country Rally Commission since 2019. Inaugural Championship Driver for the Extreme E electric off-road series; raced for ABT Cupra XE in 2021. Trained physicist (Isny University of Applied Sciences) and former BMW vehicle development engineer. Author of the autobiography “My Victory at the Dakar.” Recipient of the Monaco World Sports Legends Award (2018), FIM Legend status (2013) and the Lord Wakefield Trophy from the British Women Racing Drivers Club. Biography The Dakar Rally runs for two weeks across some of the most punishing terrain on the planet, with no second chances and no controlled environment. In January 2001, a German driver in a Mitsubishi Pajero crossed the line in Dakar 2 minutes 39 seconds ahead of her teammate. That driver was Jutta Kleinschmidt, and she remains the only woman ever to have won the event outright. Her route to that result is what makes her useful to senior teams. She studied physics at Isny University of Applied Sciences, completed her diploma thesis at BMW, and spent five years as a vehicle development engineer there before going professional in motorsport in 1993. She first contested Dakar in 1988 on a BMW motorcycle, switched to cars in 1994, took her first stage win in 1997, and stood on the podium in 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2005 across 17 starts. Since 2018 she has been Senior Advisor for Cross Country Rally at the FIA, and since 2019 President of the FIA Cross Country Rally Commission, where she has pushed the discipline toward more sustainable technologies. She joined the Extreme E electric series as its inaugural Championship Driver and Advisor in 2021, racing for ABT Cupra XE. For business audiences, her material is the engineer’s read on what actually drives outcomes when conditions turn hostile: how to build a team that can absorb a hit and keep deciding, what preparation is worth and what is theatre, and how to keep a clear head when the equipment, the weather and the field are all working against you. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme pressure Team performance in endurance environments Risk management and preparation Resilience and recovery from setback Women in male-dominated industries Sustainable mobility and the future of motorsport Leadership in mixed-discipline, high-stakes teams Ideal for Boards and executive teams running performance, safety or operational risk agendas Sales and commercial leadership conferences focused on competitive edge Senior leadership programmes building resilience and decision quality Engineering, automotive and mobility audiences working on the energy transition Audience outcomes A working language for what high performers actually do when the plan fails A sharper view of where preparation pays off and where it stops Specific examples of team coordination under physical and time pressure A credible counterweight to the assumption that elite performance is mostly talent Confidence that high-stakes decisions can be trained, not just hired for

Why organisations work with Sean Conway He has lived the extreme version of the problem most leadership teams face: producing output every day, for months, while conditions degrade. The lessons translate because they were earned under measurable load. His 105-Ironmans-in-105-days record is a documented case study in pacing, recovery design and decision-making under fatigue, not a metaphor for one. He is one of a handful of people who hold multiple unsupported world records across disciplines, which gives him standing to speak on consistency over years, not single-event peak performance. Practical content for leaders: how to set targets so ambitious that conventional planning breaks, then build the operating rhythm to hit them anyway. Biography highlights World record: 105 consecutive full-distance Ironman triathlons in 105 days, 2023. World record: longest triathlon, 4,200 miles around the coast of Britain, 2016. World record: fastest unsupported solo cycle crossing of Europe, Portugal to Russia in 24 days, 18 hours, 39 minutes, 2018. First person to swim the length of Britain, 900 miles, 2013. Author of seven books, including Hell and High Water (Penguin Random House). Featured on Rich Roll, BBC, 220 Triathlon and national press for endurance records. Biography The hardest problem in endurance is not the peak day. It is the eighty-fourth day, when the body is broken, the conditions are worse than forecast, and the decision is whether to continue at all. Conway has solved that problem more times than almost anyone alive. In 2023 he completed 105 full-distance Ironmans in 105 days, beating the previous world record by four. The achievement matters less than the operating system behind it: a daily structure of swim, bike, run, eat, sleep, repeat, designed so that performance held when motivation could not. He has applied the same discipline to swimming the length of Britain, cycling unsupported across Europe faster than anyone before him, and circumnavigating Britain by swim, bike and run. His route to this work is unusual. He arrived in the UK from Zimbabwe with limited means, built a corporate photography business, sold it for £1 to fund a first round-the-world cycle, and has worked as a full-time endurance athlete and writer ever since. Seven books, published by Penguin Random House and others, document the practical content of how the records were built. What he gives senior audiences is the engineering of long-haul output: how to set targets that conventional planning would reject, how to design recovery so it produces capacity rather than guilt, and how to make decisions cleanly when the body and the conditions are voting no. Key speaking topics Ultra-endurance performance Resilience under prolonged stress Goal setting beyond conventional limits Recovery and pacing as performance disciplines Decision-making under fatigue Mindset for sustained output High-performance habits Ideal for Leadership teams running multi-year transformation or turnaround programmes Sales, operations and delivery functions facing extended high-output periods Executive offsites focused on resilience, performance and ambition setting Conferences seeking a credible peak-performance keynote with verifiable record-breaking achievements Audience outcomes A working model for sustaining output across long periods, drawn from a documented 105-day case. A sharper view of how recovery and pacing produce performance, rather than restrict it. Concrete techniques for decision-making when fatigue and conditions are working against you. Permission and a method for setting targets the rest of the planning system would reject.

Why organisations work with Jamie Roberts He carries 94 Wales caps, two Lions tours and a 2009 Lions Player of the Series award, with the operational vocabulary that goes with it: selection, cycle planning, recovery, accountability inside a small group. He completed a Cardiff University medical degree, a Cambridge MPhil in Medical Science and a Loughborough MBA while playing professional rugby, giving him a credible voice on dual-career discipline that most athlete speakers cannot match. As an Independent Non-Executive Director on the Welsh Rugby Union Board, he speaks from current governance experience, not retired anecdote. His autobiography Centre Stage, written with Ross Harries and published by Hodder and Stoughton, gives buyers a sourced, on-record account of the moments he draws on from stage. Biography highlights 94 Wales caps and two British and Irish Lions tours (2009, 2013); named Lions Player of the Series in South Africa, 2009. Two Six Nations Grand Slams (2008, 2012) and the 2013 Six Nations Championship title. BSc Sport and Exercise Science from Cardiff Met, MBBCh in Medicine from Cardiff University, MPhil in Medical Science from Queens’ College, Cambridge, and MBA from Loughborough University. Independent Non-Executive Director on the Welsh Rugby Union Board, appointed October 2023. Author of Centre Stage (Hodder and Stoughton, 2021), co-written with Ross Harries. Honorary Fellow of Cardiff Metropolitan University (2023); started NHS Foundation training in Cardiff and Vale Health Board in 2025. Biography Inside elite rugby, the gap between training and Test match is small, public and unforgiving. Selection lasts a week. Recovery windows are measured in hours. The same group has to perform again, in front of cameras, after the last result has been dissected on television. That is the operational world Jamie Roberts lived in for seventeen years. He won 94 caps for Wales between 2008 and 2017, lifted Grand Slams in 2008 and 2012, took the Six Nations title in 2013 and toured twice with the British and Irish Lions. On the 2009 tour to South Africa he was named Player of the Series alongside Brian O’Driscoll in midfield. Most athletes at that level commit fully and exclusively to the game. Roberts was qualifying as a doctor at the same time. He completed his medical degree at Cardiff University in 2013, an MPhil in Medical Science at Queens’ College, Cambridge in 2017 and an MBA at Loughborough in 2020. The combination is unusual and useful. It gives him a vocabulary for performance that translates easily to clinical settings, board agendas and commercial teams, without leaning on rugby metaphor. Since 2023 he has sat on the Welsh Rugby Union Board as an Independent Non-Executive Director, a role he took during a difficult period for the governing body. He began NHS Foundation training in Cardiff in 2025. His autobiography Centre Stage, written with Ross Harries, is the on-record source for the stories audiences hear from him: selection, injury, the loss of a Wales place after a decade, and what holds a senior group together when the result is public. Key speaking topics Team performance under public pressure Leadership inside elite small groups Dual-career discipline and identity Resilience after setback and reinvention Sport, medicine and governance crossovers Mental approach to high-stakes selection Ideal for Senior leadership teams under sustained external scrutiny Sales, partnership and trading floors operating on short performance cycles Healthcare, professional services and regulated organisations interested in dual-career and clinical-leader perspectives Conferences and dinners seeking a credible, articulate sports voice with substantive content beyond playing anecdote Audience outcomes A clearer view of how elite teams sustain performance across a long competitive cycle, not a single peak Practical reference points for composure when results are visible and immediate A frank account of what selection, demotion and recovery feel like inside a high-performing group Insight into how a serious second discipline can sit alongside, rather than dilute, a primary role A grounded perspective on leadership and governance from someone currently inside both clinical and rugby boardroom settings