Peak Performance

Why organisations work with Andrea Loreni He is the only Italian tightrope walker specialised in high-altitude urban crossings. The lived authority is unusual in a leadership-keynote market saturated with frameworks. He set Italy’s record for the highest city tightrope walk in May 2023, crossing 205 metres at 140 metres altitude between Milan’s Bosco Verticale and the UniCredit Tower. Senior audiences recognise the difference between a story and a verifiable feat. His material is built on a degree in Theoretical Philosophy and Zen training under Shodo Harada Roshi at the Sogen-Ji monastery in Okayama. The intellectual scaffolding is real, not decorative. He works the specific tension between fear and decision quality, which sits at the centre of senior leadership but is rarely addressed with credibility outside therapeutic or sports-psychology framings. He is published in Italian on the discipline, with two books from Funambolo Edizioni, and has spoken at TED, universities, banks and multinationals. Biography highlights The only Italian tightrope walker specialised in high-altitude crossings, performing since 2006 across Italy, Switzerland, Serbia, Israel, Thailand and Japan. Set Italy’s record for the highest urban tightrope walk in May 2023, between Milan’s Bosco Verticale and the UniCredit Tower (covered by CNN). Set an earlier Italian record in 2011 at Pennabilli, 250 metres at 90 metres altitude. Degree in Theoretical Philosophy; Zen meditation deepened at Sogen-Ji monastery in Okayama, Japan, under Shodo Harada Roshi. Author of “Zen e funambolismo” (2019) and “Breve corso di funambolismo per chi cammina col vento” (2020). TED speaker; collaborates with Giulia Schiavone (University of Milan-Bicocca) on tightrope walking as a discipline of personal transformation. Biography In May 2023, a man walked 205 metres of cable strung 140 metres above central Milan, between the Bosco Verticale and the UniCredit Tower. It was Italy’s highest ever urban tightrope walk. CNN covered it. The walker was Andrea Loreni, the only Italian funambulist who specialises in high-altitude crossings. What makes him useful to corporate audiences is not the spectacle. It is what he has had to learn to make the spectacle survivable. Loreni has a degree in Theoretical Philosophy and trained in Zen meditation at the Sogen-Ji monastery in Okayama, Japan, under Shodo Harada Roshi. His working material is the relationship between fear, attention and decision quality at the moment of action. He has performed cable crossings since 2006, in Turin, Bologna, Rome, Venice, Florence, Genoa, Brescia and Trieste, and abroad in Switzerland, Serbia, Israel, Thailand and Japan. He is also the author of two books on the discipline, published in Italian: “Zen e funambolismo” (2019) and “Breve corso di funambolismo per chi cammina col vento” (2020). With Giulia Schiavone of the University of Milan-Bicocca, he researches the tightrope as a vehicle for transformation, not only performance. The keynote sits at a precise point. Senior leaders are asked to act with composure under conditions where the cost of error is high and personal. Loreni does that for a living, on a 20mm rope above a city, and he has the philosophical training to articulate what makes it work. Key speaking topics Composure and decision-making under extreme pressure Fear, risk and acceptance Zen practice applied to performance Managing imbalance and change Attention and presence in high-stakes moments Personal transformation through discipline Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive team gatherings where the agenda includes pressure, composure and decision quality Sales and trading floor audiences accustomed to live decision risk Annual conferences seeking a substantive keynote with lived authority rather than business-school content Leadership development programmes for newly senior leaders Audience outcomes A vivid, credible reframe of fear as something to live with rather than defeat Specific Zen-rooted attentional practice connected to high-stakes performance A new vocabulary for talking about composure, balance and risk in leadership settings A memorable shared reference point that surfaces in subsequent leadership conversations

Why organisations work with Kyle and Brent Pease They are the first push-assist brother duo in history to finish the IRONMAN World Championship in Kona, a fact every audience can verify and few will forget. Their work is operational, not symbolic. The Kyle Pease Foundation has supported hundreds of adaptive athletes, run inclusive employment programmes, and raised over $12 million in cumulative funding. They speak as one unit, not a panel. The dynamic between Kyle and Brent is the content. Audiences see what shared accountability looks like at the level of muscle memory. The “Invisible Wheelchair” frame gives leaders a usable shorthand for the unseen constraints colleagues carry, without the political weight that has stalled mainstream DEI conversations. Biography highlights First push-assist brother duo to complete the IRONMAN World Championship, Kona 2018. Six IRONMAN finishes together, with 100+ endurance races as a push-assist team. Co-authors of “Beyond the Finish” (Mascot Books, 2019), a dual-perspective memoir. Co-founders of The Kyle Pease Foundation, supporting adaptive athletes and inclusive employment in Atlanta and nationally. Subjects of a Hyundai Motor America six-part documentary series chronicling their road to Kona. Kyle holds a Sport Management degree from Kennesaw State University; Brent is a Florida State University graduate and certified endurance coach. Biography The Kona finish line in October 2018 was the first time two brothers had crossed it together as a push-assist duo. Brent had towed Kyle through 2.4 miles of open water in an inflatable kayak, pedalled 112 miles with Kyle reclined ahead of him on the bike, and pushed Kyle in a racing wheelchair through a 26.2-mile marathon in volcanic heat. The crossing was sport history. It was also the clearest public demonstration of a working relationship most organisations claim to want and few build. Kyle Pease was born with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy. He went on to earn a Sport Management degree from Kennesaw State University and now serves as Chief Inspirational Officer at The Kyle Pease Foundation. Brent, a Florida State University graduate and certified endurance coach, is the Foundation’s Executive Director. Together they have completed more than one hundred races and built a 501(c)(3) that supports adaptive athletes, funds adaptive equipment, and runs inclusive employment programmes. Cumulative fundraising sits above $12 million. Their keynote work draws on the same partnership the race made visible. The Invisible Wheelchair frame asks leaders to recognise constraints that colleagues carry without announcement. Find Your Finish reframes goal-setting around the conditions a team controls rather than the times on the clock. Together We Wheel makes the case that shared accountability is a behavioural practice, not a values statement. Their book “Beyond the Finish” (Mascot Books, 2019) tells both sides of the story in alternating voices. For organisations rebuilding trust after restructure, threading inclusion through a fatigued workforce, or anchoring a leadership event in something the room will actually remember, the brothers offer a working example of two people producing a result neither could produce alone. The proof is on the Kona course tape. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained physical and operational constraint Inclusive leadership in practice, not policy Shared accountability and team interdependence Goal-setting beyond performance metrics Adaptive sport, disability advocacy, and the case for adaptive employment Brotherhood, partnership, and trust under load Ideal for All-hands and town hall events where leadership wants the room to leave changed, not briefed Leadership offsites focused on resilience, team trust, or inclusion behaviours Sales kickoffs and annual conferences seeking an anchor keynote with high recall Employee resource group summits, particularly disability ERGs, and culture-change moments inside large organisations Audience outcomes A vocabulary for the unseen constraints colleagues carry, usable in everyday team conversations A reframing of resilience as a shared behaviour rather than an individual trait A vivid reference point for what real partnership looks like when failure is not an option A renewed sense of why inclusion matters in operational terms, beyond compliance framing

Why organisations work with Dan Waldschmidt He has run the turnaround himself. As CRO then CEO of Panzura, he led 150% year-on-year customer base growth and 288% three-year revenue expansion, which gives the speaking material a current operator’s authority. The Edgy Conversations thesis is research-based, drawing on 1,000 case studies of outlier performers across business, science, and sport, and gives audiences a defensible argument for unconventional commercial choices. He speaks credibly to enterprise technology buyers. The Panzura mandate sits in hybrid cloud storage and ransomware resilience, which makes him useful for boards balancing growth ambition with infrastructure risk. His work travels well from sales kickoffs to executive offsites because the same framework is applied to revenue, talent, and brand positioning. The voice is direct and confrontational by design. Senior teams that are tired of motivational keynotes tend to respond to a speaker willing to name what is not working in the room. Biography highlights Chief Executive Officer of Panzura, appointed January 2024, having joined as reFounder and Chief Revenue Officer in 2020. Author of Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Can Achieve Outrageous Success, published 2014. Founder of Waldschmidt Partners International, a strategy consultancy active 2010 to 2018. Wall Street Journal listed his Edgy Conversations blog among the top sales blogs online. Contributor at Entrepreneur.com; featured in Forbes, CNBC, and Business Insider. Ultra-endurance athlete with multiple 100-mile race finishes, including the Everest Marathon course. Biography The hardest part of a turnaround is not the diagnosis. It is doing the work while the business is still running. Revenue targets do not pause for restructuring, customers do not wait for a refreshed value proposition, and the sales team needs a story to tell on Monday morning. Most strategy advice does not survive contact with that pressure. Dan Waldschmidt’s career has been built inside that pressure. At Panzura, the hybrid cloud storage company, he joined in 2020 as reFounder and Chief Revenue Officer, rebuilt the commercial engine, and was appointed CEO in January 2024. The published numbers, 150% year-on-year customer base growth, 288% three-year revenue expansion, 125% net retention, and Inc. 5000 recognition, came from a deliberate repositioning into the enterprise market and a tightening of the sales motion around ransomware resilience and data security. The intellectual backbone is Edgy Conversations, his book based on the stories of 1,000 outlier performers across business, science, mathematics, and sport. The argument is that breakthrough commercial outcomes come from a small number of unfashionable behaviours: deliberate focus, willingness to refuse the conventional path, and a narrow definition of what counts as success. Before Panzura, he ran Waldschmidt Partners International, advising leadership teams on revenue strategy, and his columns and blog have been cited by the Wall Street Journal and Entrepreneur.com. For senior buyers, the practical relevance is the combination of operator and author. The frameworks are not abstract. They are the same frameworks he is currently applying to a public-stage enterprise technology business with real customers and real quarterly numbers. Key speaking topics Revenue turnaround and commercial repositioning Sales transformation in enterprise technology High-performance behaviour in commercial teams Brand and category differentiation under pressure AI and data security as growth narratives Leadership of restructured commercial functions Ideal for Chief Revenue Officers and sales leadership teams resetting commercial strategy CEOs and boards navigating a turnaround or strategic repositioning Founders and scale-up leadership teams in enterprise technology Sales kickoffs, partner summits, and executive offsites where the audience is operators rather than observers Audience outcomes A direct read on which commercial behaviours predict outlier results and which do not A framework for tightening sales motion and customer focus during a strategy reset Specific operating examples from a current enterprise technology turnaround Language for repositioning a business in a contested category A challenge to the default assumption that incremental change will deliver step-change growth

Why organisations work with JJ Birden He translates a specific professional discipline, NFL receiver preparation, into a six-step execution model that sales leaders can actually run their teams against, not a general motivation talk. He is a credible voice on long-odds performance. At 5’10” and 157 pounds across nine NFL seasons, his career itself is the case study for the content he delivers. He is built for sales kickoffs and field events. Buyers consistently book him for national sales meetings where the brief is energy plus a usable framework, not abstract leadership theory. He is the author of When Opportunity Knocks: 8 Surefire Ways to Take Advantage, which gives sales and franchise audiences a take-home structure beyond the keynote itself. Biography highlights Nine NFL seasons, 1988 to 1996, with Cleveland Browns, Kansas City Chiefs, and Atlanta Falcons; 244 career receptions, 3,441 yards, 17 touchdowns. 8th round pick in the 1988 NFL Draft, 216th overall. Member of the University of Oregon 1985 NCAA Championship Track and Field team; inducted into the University of Oregon Athletic Hall of Fame in 2010. Pac-10 long jump champion in 1988 and qualifier for the 1988 US Olympic Trials in the long jump. Author of When Opportunity Knocks: 8 Surefire Ways to Take Advantage. Keynote client list across bureau records includes Bank of America, Aflac, Hershey, Orangetheory Fitness, Arrow Electronics, Merrill Lynch, MassMutual, Pearle Vision, and O’Reilly Auto Parts. Biography The average NFL career lasts roughly three seasons. JJ Birden played nine, at 5’10” and 157 pounds, in a position where every other receiver on the field was bigger and faster on paper. That gap between physical odds and sustained output is the substance of what he now teaches. He came into the league as an 8th round pick of the Cleveland Browns in 1988, the same year he won the Pac-10 long jump title at Oregon and qualified for the US Olympic Trials. Five seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs, two with Atlanta, and a final receiving line of 244 catches for 3,441 yards and 17 touchdowns followed. What Birden built after football is a translation of receiver preparation into business execution. The six-step Beat the Coverage frame runs from reading the field through finding the gap, playing to strengths, drawing the plan, building the reps, and executing under pressure. It is a sales kickoff framework dressed in a playbook, not a motivational metaphor. He is a University of Oregon Athletic Hall of Fame inductee, author of When Opportunity Knocks: 8 Surefire Ways to Take Advantage, and a recurring keynote at national sales meetings for organisations including Aflac, Hershey, Bank of America, Orangetheory Fitness, and O’Reilly Auto Parts. Buyers book him when the brief is execution discipline and competitive intensity for a field audience. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Individual accountability in team environments Opportunity recognition and execution Sales team motivation and discipline Resilience and long-odds performance Preparation as a competitive variable Ideal for Sales leaders running national or regional kickoff meetings Field and franchise organisations under quarterly performance pressure Leadership audiences who want execution content rather than strategy content Athletic and high-performance programmes Audience outcomes A six-step playbook (Beat the Coverage) that sales managers can apply against specific accounts and pipeline stages A sharper read on where preparation actually drives results, separate from talent and circumstance Permission to compete from a disadvantaged position without treating it as a story about disadvantage A direct frame for individual accountability inside teams that have plateaued

Why organisations work with Kevin Brown He brings the operator’s view. Twenty years inside SERVPRO’s leadership team, helping build a franchise system into a billion-dollar category leader, gives him direct credibility with sales, service, and franchise audiences that academic culture speakers cannot match. The HERO Effect is a usable framework, not a slogan. It gives frontline teams and managers a shared language for personal accountability that survives the flight home from the conference. He sits comfortably in front of mixed audiences: sales kick-offs, franchisee conventions, dealer meetings, and customer-experience summits. The same material lands with technicians, agents, and senior leaders. Repeat-booking proof. His client list, which includes American Express, Delta Air Lines, PayPal, ExxonMobil, Chick-fil-A, and Ernst and Young, reflects organisations that buy speakers on outcomes, not on novelty. Recognition from buyer-facing bodies. Global Gurus Top 30 Motivational Speakers (2024), SpeakInc Top 10 Keynote Speakers (2021), and NorthStar Meetings Group Best Keynote Speakers (2019). Biography highlights Author of The Hero Effect: Being Your Best When It Matters the Most (2017) and Unleashing Your Hero (HarperCollins Leadership, 2021). Spent more than 20 years on the senior leadership team at SERVPRO, helping grow the franchise system into a billion-dollar category leader. Creator of the HERO Effect framework, used as the basis of his keynote programmes and books. Named to Global Gurus’ Top 30 Motivational Speakers list (2024). Selected to SpeakInc’s Top 10 Keynote Speakers (2021) and NorthStar Meetings Group’s Best Keynote Speakers (2019). Keynote client list includes American Express, Delta Air Lines, PayPal, ExxonMobil, Chick-fil-A, Verizon Connect, O’Reilly Automotive, Ernst and Young, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Merck. Biography Service-led businesses spend heavily on customer-experience programmes and still lose customers at the moment of contact. The reason is rarely strategy. It is the daily, individual choices of the people closest to the customer, and most cultures do not equip those people to choose well under pressure. That is the territory Kevin Brown has worked in for thirty years, first as an operator and now as a keynote speaker. Two decades of his corporate career were spent on the senior leadership team at SERVPRO, where the team built the franchise system into a billion-dollar category leader. He learned culture from the inside, in a network of independent operators where consistency had to be earned every day rather than mandated from headquarters. Out of that experience came the HERO Effect, the framework that anchors his keynotes and his two books, The Hero Effect (2017) and Unleashing Your Hero (HarperCollins Leadership, 2021). The argument is straightforward. Excellence is a personal practice before it is an organisational outcome, and leaders who treat culture as a behavioural discipline, not a values poster, get measurably different results from their frontline teams. His client list reflects who that argument lands with: American Express, Delta Air Lines, PayPal, ExxonMobil, Chick-fil-A, Verizon Connect, Ernst and Young, Booz Allen Hamilton. Global Gurus named him to its Top 30 Motivational Speakers list in 2024. The work is not theory borrowed for a stage. It is a set of operating principles taken back into the room they came from. Key speaking topics Service excellence and customer experience Culture and frontline accountability Leadership at every level Personal performance and ownership Sales-team motivation and consistency Franchise and dealer-network performance Ideal for CHROs, customer-experience leads, and operations leaders running cultural change inside service-led organisations. Sales kick-offs, dealer conferences, and franchisee conventions where the audience is mixed-seniority and outcome-focused. Front-line and customer-facing teams in retail, hospitality, financial services, and field service. Audience outcomes A shared vocabulary for personal accountability that managers can keep using after the keynote. A clearer line between individual behaviour and customer-experience results, made concrete with examples from inside a billion-dollar franchise system. Renewed energy in mixed-audience settings such as sales kick-offs and dealer meetings, where engagement is the usual brief. Practical prompts for managers on how to coach service consistency rather than mandate it.

Why organisations work with Stephanie Decker A first-person account of decision-making under conditions most leaders will never face, told without the polish of a manufactured story arc. A speaker whose post-event work, including testimony before the Kentucky Senate on prosthetic insurance reform and a foundation supporting child amputees, gives the keynote a verifiable second act beyond the survival narrative. National media recognition from ABC World News, Today, USA Today and People Magazine, alongside L’Oreal Paris 2014 Women of Worth honouree status, that travels with the booking. A message tuned to audiences carrying personal weight: cancer advocacy networks, senior management teams in pressured industries, sales teams running long campaigns. Biography highlights Survived an EF4 tornado in Henryville, Indiana on 2 March 2012, shielding her two children from collapsing debris; both legs subsequently amputated. Founder of the Stephanie Decker Foundation, established 2012, supporting child amputees with access to prosthetics and competitive sports. Named one of L’Oreal Paris 2014 Women of Worth honourees, selected from over 4,000 applicants. Awarded Daily Point of Light Award #5433 in March 2015. Testified before the Kentucky Senate in 2013 advocating for state-level prosthetic insurance reform. Featured nationally on ABC World News Tonight as Person of the Week with Diane Sawyer, The Today Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, USA Today, USA Weekend and People Magazine. Biography On 2 March 2012, an EF4 tornado destroyed a house in Henryville, Indiana. Stephanie Decker was inside, holding two children against her body while the structure collapsed. The children walked out without serious injury. Decker did not. Both of her legs were amputated. What followed is the part that matters for an audience. Within months of the event she founded the Stephanie Decker Foundation, focused on two narrow, concrete missions: access to competitive sports for children with prosthetics, and access to current prosthetic technology for those whose insurance does not cover it. In 2013, she testified before the Kentucky Senate in support of state-level reform on prosthetic coverage. In 2014, she was named one of ten L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth honourees, selected from more than four thousand applicants. In 2015, Points of Light recognised her with Daily Point of Light Award #5433. The keynote works because the speaker has done the thing she is talking about, and because she did not stop after the story ended. Audiences hearing the survival account are also hearing from someone who built and ran a national advocacy effort while learning to walk again. That is the substance behind the resilience claim. The relevance to a corporate audience is narrower than her bureau billing sometimes suggests. Decker is not a leadership theorist or a workplace researcher. What she offers is a specific reference point for composure under pressure that personal, that immediate, and that consequential, delivered by someone whose subsequent decade of work supports the message. Key speaking topics Resilience after sudden personal crisis Decision-making under extreme pressure Building advocacy organisations from personal experience Recovery and reinvention after life-altering injury Personal agency and adaptive mindset Family, courage and protective instinct Ideal for Sales conferences and annual kick-offs where audiences need an emotional and credible reset Cancer advocacy networks, healthcare communities, and patient-facing organisations Senior management teams in high-pressure industries looking for a non-business-framework keynote Charitable, women’s leadership and community-impact events Audience outcomes A concrete first-person reference point for composure and decision-making under extreme conditions A model of how a personal event can be translated into sustained advocacy and institutional change Renewed personal perspective on what counts as a meaningful obstacle at work A specific case for the connection between recovery and purpose

Why organisations work with Charlie Rocket A first-person reinvention story with hard credentials behind it: Grammy win as 2 Chainz’s manager at Street Execs, then a public health and athletic transformation rather than a curated brand exercise. The Nike «Dream Crazy» connection gives the keynote a culturally recognisable anchor. The Kaepernick spot won the 2019 Outstanding Commercial Emmy, and audiences place the story instantly. He moves a room emotionally without leaving it there. The Dream Machine Foundation gives the talk a working example of putting ambition into operational practice, not just rhetoric. He pairs naturally with leadership offsites, sales kick-offs, and culture moments where the brief is not analysis but a step-change in energy and self-belief at the top of the organisation. Biography highlights Founder of the Dream Machine Foundation, a non-profit funding individual dreams, small businesses and community recovery projects since 2018. Former CEO of Street Execs, the artist management company behind 2 Chainz, with a Grammy win to his name during that period. Featured in Nike’s «Dream Crazy» campaign with Colin Kaepernick, winner of the 2019 Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. Endurance athlete: marathon finisher and Ironman finisher following a documented health turnaround that included losing approximately 125 lbs. Profiled by CNN in its Turning Points series on his decision to leave the music business to focus on health. Speaks internationally on reinvention, mindset and culture for corporate audiences across sectors. Biography A music executive walks away from a multimillion-dollar artist management business at 31 because his body has stopped cooperating. That is the hinge moment in Charlie Rocket Jabaley’s story, and the reason it lands in corporate rooms. He had built Street Execs into the company behind 2 Chainz, taken home a Grammy, and was, by his own account, 300 lbs and out of road. What he did next is what makes the talk usable for organisations rather than just moving. He treated his own life as a turnaround project. He lost roughly 125 lbs, became a marathon and Ironman finisher, and ended up in Nike’s «Dream Crazy» advertisement with Colin Kaepernick, the spot that won the 2019 Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. CNN profiled the decision in its Turning Points series. The corporate keynote sits on top of that arc. The argument is straightforward: ambition is a renewable practice, and most senior teams have quietly let theirs decay under operational load. He extends the personal frame outward through the Dream Machine Foundation, which has been funding individual dreams and small business launches since 2018, as a working proof that the discipline scales beyond one person. The fit is specific. This is a speaker for moments when a leadership group, a sales force, or a culture programme needs a step-change in energy and self-belief, with credible substance behind the inspiration. It is not a research keynote. It is a reinvention keynote with the receipts. Key speaking topics Personal reinvention and mindset Resilience after health and career shock Culture shift and team ambition Purpose-driven leadership Storytelling and brand-led motivation Philanthropy and impact Ideal for Leadership offsites and CEO summits opening or closing on a culture moment Annual sales kick-offs and revenue team gatherings Employee experience and wellbeing programmes that need a credible voice on resilience Foundation, ESG and corporate responsibility events where the brief calls for substance behind the inspiration Audience outcomes A vivid case for treating personal ambition as a leadership discipline, not a private matter Specific behavioural anchors he has used in his own reinvention, transferable into team practice A reset on what individual leaders are willing to ask of themselves and their teams A working model, the Dream Machine Foundation, of how ambition becomes operational rather than aspirational

Why organisations work with Matt Mayberry He gives leaders a working blueprint for culture, not a values exercise. Culture Is the Way sets out a Five-Step Culture-Building Process that McKinsey named a 2024 top business book. He has been ranked in the world’s Top 30 leadership thought leaders by Global Gurus on the basis of a 25,000-respondent CEO and MBA survey, which means buyers can defend the booking internally on credentials alone. His client list, JP Morgan Chase, Allstate, the FBI, DuPont, Lowe’s and Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, signals that the material survives contact with regulated, high-pressure operating environments. The NFL backstory is not the act. He uses a career ended by injury in a Chicago Bears preseason opener as the opening case in a serious argument about reinvention and team behaviour, then moves to the management content quickly. He writes for the same audience that books him. Bylines in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune and Entrepreneur mean a CHRO can hand the keynote thesis to the executive team in printed form before he walks on stage. Biography highlights Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Culture Is the Way (Wiley, 2023), named a 2024 top business book by McKinsey & Company and featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s Next Big Idea Book Club. USA Today bestselling author of The Transformational Leader (Wiley, 2024). Ranked in the Top 30 global leadership thought leaders by Global Gurus. Former Chicago Bears linebacker, signed 2010; college career at Indiana University, recipient of the 2009 Howard Brown Award. Featured in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur and Chief Executive; broadcast credits with NBC, ABC, Fox Business and ESPN. Client roster includes JP Morgan Chase, Allstate, the FBI, DuPont, Lowe’s, Optum, Fifth Third Bank, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, Phillips 66 and Mack Trucks. Biography Most culture work fails for the same reason. It treats culture as the warm story an organisation tells itself, not the set of repeated behaviours that determine whether the strategy lands. Mayberry’s Culture Is the Way (Wiley, 2023) is built around that distinction, and it is why McKinsey selected it as a 2024 top business book and Malcolm Gladwell’s Next Big Idea Club picked it up. The argument has a structure. The Five-Step Culture-Building Process forces senior teams to define the behaviours they want to see, hold leaders accountable for them in public, and connect those behaviours to commercial outcomes. The Transformational Leader (Wiley, 2024), a USA Today bestseller, extends the work into how senior leaders model what they ask of others. Both books sit in front of an audience that includes JP Morgan Chase, the FBI, DuPont and Lowe’s. The credibility on stage comes partly from how the path began. Mayberry signed with the Chicago Bears in 2010 and lost the career to an ankle fracture in the preseason opener against the San Diego Chargers. He uses that moment briefly, as a way into the operating point about how teams rebuild after a setback, then moves to the management material. Global Gurus has placed him in the world’s Top 30 leadership thought leaders on the strength of that combined work. What organisations get is a senior practitioner who has translated the language of high-performing teams into something a CHRO, COO or transformation lead can put to work on Monday. The bylines in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Fortune and Entrepreneur are the public evidence; the Five-Step Process is the working tool. Key speaking topics Workplace culture as an operating system Transformational leadership Employee engagement and team performance Change and disruption Peak performance and resilience Sales performance Leadership in the age of AI Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers leading culture and engagement programmes COOs and transformation leads accountable for cultural execution of a strategy Sales leadership conferences and revenue kickoffs Senior leadership teams running off-sites on team performance and behavioural alignment Audience outcomes A working definition of culture that connects daily behaviour to commercial outcome, drawn from the Five-Step Culture-Building Process A clearer view of what transformational leadership requires from senior leaders, beyond inspirational language Specific moves for rebuilding engagement when the workforce is fatigued by repeated change A vocabulary for how high-performing teams handle setback and recovery A short list of behaviours to take back to the executive team and operationalise

Why organisations work with Simon Alexander Ong A serious, published thesis on energy management as a leadership and workforce capability, anchored in Energize (Penguin, 2022) and recognised as Business Book of the Year for Wellness and Wellbeing in 2023. Direct credibility with global employers on people and culture briefs, with named keynote work for Microsoft, Salesforce, Unilever, EY, Adobe and Barclays. A coaching practice behind the content, with qualifications from The Coaching Academy and NLP training, so the material survives contact with senior audiences, not just town-hall settings. Endorsements from Simon Sinek, Marie Forleo and Marshall Goldsmith, giving HR and communications leads confident reference points when pitching internally. Biography highlights Bestselling author of Energize: Make the Most of Every Moment (Penguin Life, 2022). Winner, Business Book of the Year, Wellness and Wellbeing, Business Book Awards 2023. Endorsed by Simon Sinek, Marie Forleo and Marshall Goldsmith. Keynote engagements with Microsoft, Salesforce, Unilever, EY, Adobe, Barclays and DocuSign. Featured on Sky News, BBC Radio London and LBC, with written contributions in Forbes, HuffPost, Virgin and The Guardian. BSc Economics, London School of Economics; coaching qualifications from The Coaching Academy. Biography Most organisations now accept that burnout, disengagement and quiet exit are not edge cases. They are showing up across leadership teams, middle management and frontline staff at the same time. The argument in Energize, published by Penguin in 2022 and named Business Book of the Year for Wellness and Wellbeing in 2023, is that this is an energy problem before it is a wellbeing problem. Simon Alexander Ong treats energy as a managed resource. His work asks leaders to look at how attention, recovery, relationships and purpose are organised across a working week, then to redesign the parts that drain people without producing anything. The same lens is then turned on teams and on the wider employee experience. The practitioner side keeps the material grounded. Ong is a qualified coach through The Coaching Academy, trained in NLP, and works one-to-one with senior leaders alongside the speaking work. That is why a keynote at Microsoft, Salesforce, Unilever or EY tends to land as a conversation with the room rather than a motivational set piece. Endorsements from Simon Sinek, Marie Forleo and Marshall Goldsmith have helped place him on the same shelf as the leadership and performance authors that senior HR and culture functions already trust. For boards thinking about engagement, retention and the human cost of permanent change, his content gives a language and a set of moves that staff and leaders can actually use. Key speaking topics Energy management for leaders and teams Sustainable high performance Employee engagement and wellbeing Purposeful leadership Focus and attention in a noisy work environment Mindset and personal growth Coaching cultures inside organisations Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and heads of employee experience designing wellbeing and engagement strategy Leadership development and learning teams running senior offsites and high-potential programmes Internal communications and culture leads planning all-hands and kick-off events Sales and commercial leadership audiences working under sustained pressure and target intensity Audience outcomes A clear language for energy as a managed resource at individual, team and organisational level Specific practices for protecting focus and recovery inside an existing diary, not in addition to it A more honest view of where current wellbeing efforts are working and where they are decorative Renewed sense of purpose and ownership for senior leaders carrying long change agendas Practical prompts a manager can use with a team the following Monday

Why organisations work with James Davies He brings elite sport recovery practice directly into the office: the same posture, mobility and recovery principles used with Team GB track and field athletes at Rio 2016, translated for people sitting at desks. He treats physical wellbeing as measurable behaviour change, not inspiration. Audiences leave with specific stretches, ergonomic fixes and microbreak routines they can run the next morning. His client work with Hugo Lloris, Marcus Smith and performers in music and television gives him a credible way to talk about performance under pressure without drifting into motivational abstraction. As author of the Sunday Times bestseller “Body” (HarperCollins), he has already distilled his method for a general reader, which makes the keynote version land quickly with mixed corporate audiences. His patronage of STAMMA and his own experience of stammering give the session a personal register when the brief calls for resilience or human story, without the profile depending on it. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Rising Health, a London-based osteopathy and performance practice established in 2009. Team therapist for Team GB track and field athletes at the Rio 2016 Olympics. Sunday Times bestselling author of “Body: Simple Techniques and Strategies to Heal, Reset and Restore” (HarperCollins, 2022). Trained as an osteopath at the British School of Osteopathy; earlier study in massage and sports injuries at the London School of Massage. Patron of STAMMA, the British Stammering Association. Clinical base at the South Kensington Club, London; client work spans Premiership football, international rugby, Olympic athletics, music and television. Biography Most corporate wellbeing talks leave people nodding and then returning to the same chair, the same screen, the same tight shoulders by Thursday. Davies works the other way round. His starting point is the body in front of him, and a short list of things that actually change how it feels. That practical bias comes from two decades of hands-on clinical work. He trained as an osteopath at the British School of Osteopathy, founded Rising Health in 2009, and built a client list that runs from Premiership footballers and Olympic track and field athletes to performers who cannot afford to be injured before a tour. In 2016 he was selected as a team therapist for Team GB at the Rio Olympics. The same method is now available to general readers. His book “Body: Simple Techniques and Strategies to Heal, Reset and Restore” was published by HarperCollins in 2022 and reached the Sunday Times bestseller list. It is a recovery manual written for people who do not have a physio on call, which is exactly the audience most organisations are trying to reach when they commission a wellbeing keynote. He is also Patron of STAMMA, the British Stammering Association, and speaks openly about his own stammer when a brief calls for a resilience thread. The clinical substance stays the primary reason buyers bring him in: a clinician who can stand in front of five hundred employees, give them three things to do on Monday, and have them feel the difference by the end of the week. Key speaking topics Workplace physical wellbeing and pain prevention Posture, ergonomics and desk-based health Recovery habits from elite sport Sustainable performance under pressure Sleep, stress and physical resilience Movement and mobility for sedentary workforces Ideal for HR, People and Wellbeing leaders commissioning a credible physical health keynote for a wider wellbeing programme Internal communications and employee experience teams running conferences, offsites or return-to-office events Leadership and high-performance teams in sales, trading, consulting or law where sustained intensity is the job Event organisers looking for a practical clinical voice alongside mental health and nutrition speakers Audience outcomes Specific daily habits for posture, mobility and microbreaks that work in an office or at home A clearer sense of how elite athletes structure recovery, and which parts of it translate to desk work Confidence to spot early warning signs of back, neck and shoulder strain before they become absence A short, memorable set of techniques for sleep, breathing and stress discharge A personal story about stammering that gives resilience content a human anchor when the brief calls for it

Why organisations work with TJ Power He gives wellbeing programmes a scientific spine. The DOSE framework names the specific neurochemistry behind motivation, connection, mood, and recovery, so HR and L&D leaders can move beyond generic mindfulness content. He addresses the dopamine and screen problem head-on, which is the single biggest unmanaged variable in workplace attention right now and the area most wellbeing speakers skirt. His material has been pressure-tested at scale: 650-plus live sessions across organisations including Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Coca-Cola, TikTok, the NHS, and academic institutions including Oxford, Harrow, and Le Rosey. The credibility is real and verifiable: Sunday Times bestseller, Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month, peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Cognition, lecturing record at the University of Exeter. Sessions are designed as gamified, interactive formats rather than lectures, so the habits stick beyond the room. Biography highlights Founder of the DOSE Lab and co-founder of Neurify, a neuroscience education organisation launched in 2022. Author of The DOSE Effect, Sunday Times bestseller and Waterstones Best Non-Fiction Book of the Month. Former lecturer at the University of Exeter, where he developed a third-year module on the neuroscience of mindfulness. Published research in the Journal of Cognition. Delivered 650-plus live neuroscience sessions to clients including Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Coca-Cola, TikTok, the NHS, Oxford University, Harrow School, and Le Rosey. Featured on ITV’s This Morning discussing digital habits and dopamine overload. Biography Modern work is colliding with a brain that was not built for it. Constant notifications, infinite scroll, and the dopamine economics of phones are eroding attention, recovery, and mood faster than most wellbeing programmes can respond. Power’s work starts here, with the neurochemistry that explains why so many people feel wired, distracted, and flat at the same time. His DOSE framework is built around four chemicals that govern how people feel and perform: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Each maps to a specific organisational outcome. Dopamine sits behind motivation and focus; oxytocin behind trust and team connection; serotonin behind mood and confidence; endorphins behind resilience under load. Power names the daily behaviours that raise or drain each one, which gives leaders something concrete to act on. The credentials are substantive. He completed his degrees in psychology and neuroscience at the University of Exeter, lectured there on the neuroscience of mindfulness, and published in the Journal of Cognition. He went on to found the DOSE Lab and co-found Neurify, and his book The DOSE Effect became a Sunday Times bestseller and Waterstones Non-Fiction Book of the Month. The applied work is broad: 650-plus sessions delivered into Amazon, Salesforce, Accenture, Coca-Cola, TikTok, the NHS, Oxford, Harrow, and Le Rosey. What makes him useful in a corporate room is the translation layer. The science is real, but the takeaway is a short list of behaviours a finance team or a sales floor can actually run on Monday morning. Key speaking topics Neuroscience of attention and focus Dopamine overload and screen behaviour The DOSE framework for performance and wellbeing Mental health in the digital age Habit change and behavioural neuroscience Burnout, recovery, and resilience Workplace wellbeing strategy Ideal for CHROs, heads of L&D, and wellbeing leads designing the next phase of mental health programmes Leadership and high-performance teams looking for a scientifically grounded answer to attention loss and digital fatigue Sales, technology, and customer organisations where focus, motivation, and team connection are direct commercial inputs Education and healthcare organisations briefing staff on screen behaviour and youth mental health Audience outcomes A working mental model of the four brain chemicals that drive motivation, connection, mood, and resilience at work Specific daily habits, mapped to each chemical, that people can apply immediately A clear understanding of how phones, notifications, and digital habits are degrading attention and what to change Language and evidence that lets HR and leadership talk about wellbeing without resorting to soft framing A more honest read on the mental health pressures inside the organisation and the levers that actually move them

Why organisations work with Ben Hanlin He has spent twenty years professionally holding the attention of audiences who did not ask to be entertained, a craft most keynote speakers approximate and never master. His engagement and rapport techniques are not theoretical. They are the working methods of a magician adapted for sales teams, client conversations and conference stages, and they were sharp enough to win Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards 2024. He is one of the few speakers who can credibly anchor a full conference day, opening with a keynote, hosting the agenda, and closing with the awards, without changing register. Major brand audiences including Google, PwC, Coca-Cola and Amplifi book him for the same reason: he reliably resets the energy of a room and gives an audience something to remember about it the next morning. The Speaker Awards 2024 triple, Speaker of the Year, Best Newcomer and Best TEDx Speaker, was judged by industry bookers on content, delivery and bookability. That combination of recognitions in a single year is rare. Biography highlights Creator, writer and star of ITV2’s hidden-camera magic series Tricked, three series broadcast 2013 to 2016. Presenter of Breaking Magic on the Discovery Channel. Series 12 finalist on ITV’s Dancing on Ice (2020), finishing fourth. Speaker of the Year, Best Newcomer and Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards 2024. TEDx London speaker, “How to Create INSTANT Engagement and Connection” (2024). Combined online following of two million plus across YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. Biography Most keynote speakers learn to hold a room by stepping onto a corporate stage. Ben Hanlin learned it on the street, in pubs and on prime-time television, where the audience has not agreed in advance to pay attention and the speaker has roughly four seconds to earn it. Twenty years of working as a professional magician is, among other things, twenty years of solving that problem. That craft moved onto television with Tricked, the ITV2 hidden-camera magic series he created, wrote and presented across three series between 2013 and 2016, followed by Breaking Magic on the Discovery Channel and a fourth-place finish on series 12 of Dancing on Ice. The work travels: his combined audience across YouTube, Instagram and Facebook now sits above two million. The keynote work is a translation of the same discipline. Hanlin teaches the working methods a magician uses to create rapport, hold attention and make a message stick, applied to sales conversations, client meetings, leadership presence and the inside of a conference room. In 2024 his TEDx London talk “How to Create INSTANT Engagement and Connection” was named Best TEDx Speaker at The Speaker Awards. At the same ceremony he was also named Speaker of the Year and Best Newcomer, judged by industry bookers on content, delivery and bookability. Organisations including Google, PwC, Coca-Cola and Amplifi book him in three modes: keynote on engagement and human connection, full-day conference facilitation, and high-energy awards hosting. The common thread is the same craft applied at different scales, the ability to walk into a room of distracted people and leave it as a connected audience. Key speaking topics Engagement and human connection Instant rapport and audience attention Communication under pressure Innovation and creative confidence Resilience and dealing with failure Conference hosting and awards facilitation Ideal for Sales conferences, kick-offs and national sales meetings Awards nights and gala dinners requiring a host who can also deliver content Leadership and client-facing teams working on rapport, presence and communication Full-day conferences needing a single anchor across keynote, facilitation and after-dinner roles Audience outcomes A working set of rapport and attention techniques drawn from twenty years of professional magic, usable the next morning in client meetings. Sharper instincts for reading a room and recovering it when energy drops. A clearer sense of how to make a message land and be remembered. A shared, high-energy moment that resets the tone of the conference or sales event.