Peak Performance

Why organisations work with Lance Armstrong A first-person account of an integrity collapse at the top of elite sport, told without the usual euphemism. Few public figures will sit in that conversation on a corporate stage. Almost none will take unscripted questions on it. A working argument that “winning at all costs” is a leadership failure mode, drawn from the inside of the system that produced the most-litigated example of it in modern sport. Direct relevance to leaders thinking about culture risk, whistleblower dynamics, and the gap between stated values and operating norms in high-performance environments. A separate, substantive track on cancer survivorship and the building of LIVESTRONG, a foundation that has raised more than $500 million and continues operating independently of his sporting reputation. An investor’s lens on sport, fitness, health and human performance categories through Next Ventures, useful for briefs that touch consumer health, wellness, or the commercial side of endurance sport. Biography highlights Won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005, titles subsequently stripped by USADA in 2012 and not reallocated by the UCI. Diagnosed with stage-three testicular cancer in 1996, with metastases to lung and brain; returned to professional cycling after treatment. Founder of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, now LIVESTRONG, which has raised more than $500 million in support of people affected by cancer. Confessed publicly to long-term doping in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013, having previously denied the allegations under oath and in litigation. Founder and managing partner of Next Ventures, a venture firm focused on sport, fitness, nutrition and human performance, with earlier personal investments in Uber and DocuSign. Host of THEMOVE and THE FORWARD podcasts on the WEDU platform; the network reports roughly 10 million annual listeners. Biography The 2012 USADA reasoned decision did not just end a cycling career. It documented, in unusual detail, how a high-performance culture had been built around systemic dishonesty, and how that culture had survived a decade of scrutiny by enrolling teammates, doctors, sponsors and the press in its maintenance. Lance Armstrong was the centre of that system. The fall, when it arrived, was institutional as well as personal. That story sits awkwardly on a corporate stage, which is part of why it is useful on one. Most failure-and-recovery talks describe a setback the speaker did not cause. This one does not. Armstrong’s argument, when he is on the right brief, is that a “win at all costs” operating norm is a leadership failure mode rather than a leadership style, and that the costs are paid by people other than the person at the top long before they are paid by the leader. The other side of the public record is also real. The Lance Armstrong Foundation, founded after his 1996 cancer diagnosis and now LIVESTRONG, has raised more than $500 million for survivorship work and continues to operate independently of his sporting reputation. As an investor, he was an early backer of Uber and DocuSign and now runs Next Ventures, a fund focused on sport, fitness and human performance. WEDU, his media platform, hosts THEMOVE and THE FORWARD, two of the more durable podcasts in endurance sport. For audiences willing to engage with the uncomfortable parts, Armstrong is one of the few speakers who can hold a serious adult conversation about reputational collapse, accountability, and what is and is not possible to rebuild after it. The right brief is honest, the right format is fireside or moderated Q&A, and the right room is one that wants substance rather than redemption theatre. Key speaking topics Win-at-all-costs cultures and the leadership cost of them Accountability after public failure Self-leadership under sustained pressure Cancer survivorship and the LIVESTRONG story High-performance teams and the dynamics of dissent Reputation, recovery and the long arc after a public shock Investing in sport, fitness and human performance categories Ideal for CEOs, boards and senior leadership teams interested in culture risk and the gap between stated values and operating norms Executive offsites and leadership development programmes addressing decision-making under pressure Health, wellness, sport and consumer-brand audiences with a survivorship or human performance angle Conferences willing to host an unscripted, on-the-record conversation about institutional failure rather than a polished keynote Audience outcomes A first-person view of how high-performance cultures normalise compromise long before any single decision goes wrong A frank account of what changed, and what did not, after public confession and the loss of a sporting career A clearer sense of what genuine accountability sounds like in practice, distinct from public-relations recovery language An honest portrait of survivorship work through the LIVESTRONG story, separated from the sporting record

Why organisations work with Ben Saunders He holds the record for the longest human-powered polar journey in history, a 108-day, 1,795-mile round trip to the South Pole that gives every lesson he draws a specific factual anchor. His three TED main-stage talks have been viewed more than five million times, and TED describes him as a master storyteller; senior audiences leave with arguments they can repeat, not motivational impressions. His material on composure, energy management and team honesty comes from completing expeditions that defeated Scott and Shackleton, not from secondary reading or coaching frameworks. He pairs the expedition record with a working life in climate-tech investment, including Sequoia Scout status and the founding of Kintanna Ventures, so the parallels he draws to business are not theoretical. Biography highlights Led The Scott Expedition (2013 to 2014), the longest human-powered polar journey on record at 1,795 miles, completing the route that defeated both Captain Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton. Youngest person to ski solo to the geographic North Pole, spending 72 days alone on the Arctic Ocean (2004). Three TED main-stage talks (2005, 2012, 2014) with over five million combined views. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society; Honorary Fellow, University of Northampton; Patron of British Exploring; Ambassador for the Scouts and The Prince’s Trust. Author of Shackleton in the Ladybird Expert series (Penguin Random House, 2017); contributor to TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking by Chris Anderson. Founder of Kintanna Ventures, a climate-technology investment vehicle, and a Sequoia Scout angel investor. Biography The Scott Expedition set out from Ross Island on 26 October 2013 and finished 108 days later, on 7 February 2014, after 1,795 miles on foot to the South Pole and back. It is the longest human-powered polar journey on record, and the first completion of the route attempted by Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton more than a century earlier. Ben Saunders led it. Saunders skied solo to the geographic North Pole in 2004 at the age of 26, the youngest person ever to do so, spending 72 days alone on the Arctic Ocean. Across two decades he has led 14 expeditions in the polar regions and covered more than 4,500 miles on foot in conditions that strip away every soft variable in performance. The material he brings to senior audiences is built from that record, not from theory. His three TED main-stage talks have been viewed over five million times and earned the unusual designation of master storyteller from TED itself. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Honorary Fellow of the University of Northampton, Patron of British Exploring and an Ambassador for the Scouts and The Prince’s Trust. His Ladybird Expert volume on Shackleton was published by Penguin Random House in 2017. The commercial life sits alongside the expedition record. Saunders raised more than $10m in sponsorship across his career, brokering multi-year partnerships with Intel, Land Rover, Canada Goose and Bremont, and now founds and runs Kintanna Ventures, a climate-technology investment vehicle, alongside angel investing as a Sequoia Scout. That working knowledge of capital allocation and venture-stage operations is what stops the polar material reading as parable when he places it in front of a board. Key speaking topics Decision-making under sustained physical and psychological pressure Composure and energy management at the limits of human capacity Team honesty and trust in small, high-stakes groups Adaptation to volatile and unforgiving operating environments Recovery and persistence after setback Climate-technology investment and the commercial reality of decarbonisation Ideal for Boards and executive committees facing prolonged operational stress or restructure CEOs, COOs and transformation leads commissioning leadership offsites on resilience and decision quality Senior teams in regulated, safety-critical or capital-intensive industries Sales kick-offs and partner conferences where the brief calls for substance over spectacle Audience outcomes A specific account of what composure looks like as a working discipline, not a personality trait A frame for separating controllable inputs from external noise when conditions deteriorate Practical examples of how small teams maintain honesty and trust through extended pressure A more credible vocabulary for talking about failure, recovery and the gap between plan and execution A fresh reference point for board-level conversations on risk, endurance and the limits of preparation

Why organisations work with John Volanthen He has operated at the point where a wrong call costs lives, and can describe the actual mechanics of how a small team made decisions inside Tham Luang when the engineered solutions had run out. George Medal recipient and one of National Geographic’s 2019 Adventurers of the Year: the credentials behind his keynote are not anecdotal, they are state-recognised and internationally documented. His thinking is engineered, not motivational. A working IT consultant who designs his own rebreathers and mapping kit, he treats risk, redundancy and failure modes the way a serious technologist does. Author of “Thirteen Lessons that Saved Thirteen Lives,” a structured account of the rescue built around principles that map directly onto leadership, risk and team performance. Useful in rooms where the leadership question is concrete: how a team builds trust fast across strangers, agencies and disciplines, and keeps making rational decisions when the cost of error is no longer abstract. Biography highlights George Medal, 2019 New Year Honours, for the Tham Luang cave rescue. Named, with the rescue dive team, as one of National Geographic’s 2019 Adventurers of the Year. Royal Humane Society Bronze, Silver and Stanhope Gold medals; Scout Association Bronze Cross; Pride of Britain award. Honorary degree from the University of Bristol, awarded jointly with Rick Stanton in July 2022. World record holder for longest cave penetration dive at 8,800m in the Pozo Azul system, Spain. Author of “Thirteen Lessons that Saved Thirteen Lives: The Thai Cave Rescue” (Aurum Press, 2021). Biography On 2 July 2018, two British cave divers reached an air pocket nine days into a search inside the flooded Tham Luang cave system in northern Thailand. The voice on the now well-known footage, asking “How many of you?”, is John Volanthen’s. Twelve boys and their coach were alive. What happened next is taught in business schools as a case study in cross-agency coordination under extreme constraint. The rescue involved Thai Navy SEALs, foreign militaries, technical cave divers and medical specialists, working through a problem nobody had previously solved. Volanthen and his long-time partner Rick Stanton were the divers who carried children out, one at a time, through kilometres of submerged passage. The technical depth behind that decision-making is not accidental. Volanthen runs an IT consultancy in Bristol, has built and sold two technology businesses, and designs his own rebreathers, underwater mapping devices and communications systems. He approaches survival the way an engineer approaches a system: identify the failure modes, reduce them, accept the residual risk consciously. His book “Thirteen Lessons that Saved Thirteen Lives,” published by Aurum Press in 2021, frames the rescue as a sequence of decisions rather than a feat of nerve. He holds the George Medal, the highest civilian bravery award outside human conflict, alongside Royal Humane Society Bronze, Silver and Stanhope Gold medals. He was named one of National Geographic’s 2019 Adventurers of the Year, and received an honorary degree from the University of Bristol in 2022. He still cave-dives. He still does rescues, as a volunteer. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme constraint Risk, redundancy and failure modes Team trust across strangers and disciplines Crisis leadership in real conditions Performance under pressure Cross-agency coordination Ideal for Boards and executive teams preparing for genuinely high-stakes scenarios where preparation, not improvisation, is the deciding factor. CROs, heads of safety, and operational leaders who own consequences when systems fail. Senior leadership offsites focused on trust, judgement and decision quality under pressure. Audience outcomes A concrete account of how a small team made rational decisions inside Tham Luang when standard protocols had run out. A working model for thinking about risk, redundancy and acceptable failure modes that leaders can apply to their own operations. A clearer view of what builds trust quickly between people who have not worked together before. A reset on the difference between motivational courage and engineered preparation.

Why organisations work with Frederika Roberts An applied positive psychology MSc and doctoral research base, rather than the wellness-industry credentialling that dominates this space. Author or co-author of five published works on character education and whole-school wellbeing, including titles with Jessica Kingsley Publishers and Sage. European Representative for IPPAed, giving access to current global research on positive education before it filters into mainstream practice. Working content for both education sectors and workplaces, covering character strengths, psychological safety, and Appreciative Inquiry as a change method. Operates in English, Italian, French, and German, which matters for European multi-site organisations and international school groups. Biography highlights MSc in Applied Positive Psychology; doctoral researcher in Education focused on whole-school wellbeing. European Representative for IPPAed, the International Positive Psychology Association’s Positive Education division. Founder of Educate to Flourish CIC, a social enterprise embedding wellbeing into school communities. Co-author, “Character Toolkit for Teachers” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018) and “Character Toolkit Strength Cards” (2020). Co-editor, “The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing” (2021); author, “For Flourishing’s Sake” (2020) and “Recipe for Happiness” (2013). Member of the Professional Speaking Association and the Global Speakers Federation; iPPL Expert Member. Biography Wellbeing has become one of the most over-claimed and under-delivered categories in organisational life. Initiatives proliferate; engagement and mental health indicators rarely move with them. The gap is methodological. Most wellbeing work is built on motivational content rather than on the published research that the field of positive psychology has produced over the last two decades. Roberts works inside that research base. She holds an MSc in Applied Positive Psychology and is completing doctoral research on whole-school wellbeing using Appreciative Inquiry, a change methodology that focuses organisational attention on what is already working and how to build from it. As European Representative for IPPAed, the International Positive Psychology Association’s Positive Education division, she connects practitioners with current academic findings before they reach the trade press. Her published output gives organisations a clear sense of how she translates evidence into practice. “Character Toolkit for Teachers” (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018) and the “Character Toolkit Strength Cards” (2020) provide working tools rather than abstract frameworks. “The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing” (2021), which she co-edited, sits across the major contributors in the field. “For Flourishing’s Sake” sets out how policy and practice can be redesigned to put flourishing at the centre. She founded Educate to Flourish CIC to take this work into schools as a social enterprise, and extends the same practice into workplaces, drawing on character strengths, psychological safety, and strengths-based approaches. The work is unusual in the wellbeing market for being explicitly research-grounded and equally credible in front of educators, HR leaders, and policy audiences. Key speaking topics Positive psychology in organisational and educational settings Whole-school and whole-organisation wellbeing Character education and character strengths Appreciative Inquiry as a change method Psychological safety and strengths-based culture Mental health and flourishing at work Ideal for HR and people leaders responsible for wellbeing strategy beyond surface-level programmes School leaders, MAT executives, and university leadership teams Conference audiences in education, public sector, and not-for-profit Boards or executives in family-owned and values-led organisations rethinking culture Audience outcomes A working understanding of what positive psychology research has actually shown about wellbeing and performance. Specific tools from character strengths, Appreciative Inquiry, and strengths-based practice that can be applied immediately. A sharper distinction between wellbeing programmes that produce change and those that do not. Language and a model for connecting individual flourishing to organisational outcomes.

Why organisations work with Sophie Carrigill Her sports psychology credentials (first-class degree from the University of Worcester and an MSc from Sheffield Hallam) mean she can explain what high-performance teams actually do under pressure, not just illustrate it with personal stories. That distinction matters when leaders are making structural decisions, not looking for inspiration. She captained the GB women’s wheelchair basketball squad for four consecutive years, and was the first captain to lead the team through a centralised programme and a full relocation. The leadership challenge she navigated is directly analogous to what organisations face in transformation: maintaining accountability, cohesion and performance through structural disruption. Forbes named her on its 30 Under 30 Europe list for Sports and Games in 2021 specifically for her sporting achievements alongside her work advancing inclusion; a recognition that positions her as a practitioner of inclusion, not a spokesperson for it. Her ten-year international career – across six European Championships, three World Championships, and three Paralympic Games – gives her a perspective on sustained performance that is qualitatively different from speakers whose credibility rests on a single defining event. She does not separate the inclusion argument from the performance argument. Organisations that have struggled to make either case benefit from an approach where both are argued from the same evidence base. Biography highlights Three-time Paralympian, representing Great Britain at Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 World Championship silver medallist (2018, Hamburg) and six-time European Championship competitor, with bronze medals (2013, 2015, 2017) and silver medals (2019, 2021, 2023) U25 World Championship gold medallist (2015, Beijing) Named on Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list, Sports and Games category (2021), recognising sporting achievement and inclusion work First-class honours degree in Sports Psychology, University of Worcester; MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology, Sheffield Hallam University Captain of the GB women’s wheelchair basketball squad for four consecutive years; first captain to lead the team through a centralised programme and squad relocation Women’s Sport Trust Unlocked programme contributor (2021–2023) Biography High-performance culture and genuine inclusion are managed as separate agendas in most organisations. Resolving that tension – rather than attempting to manage it – is what separates leadership teams that perform under genuine pressure from those that perform only when conditions are stable. Sophie Carrigill has been at the heart of the GB women’s wheelchair basketball programme for over a decade. A three-time Paralympian across Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, she captained the squad for four consecutive years, becoming the first captain to lead the team through a centralised programme and a full relocation to Sheffield. The 2018 World Championship silver medal, three European bronzes, three European silvers, and a U25 World gold came from a team built under conditions of continuous structural change. The leadership test was not exceptional circumstances; it was the job. Her academic formation distinguishes her from speakers with comparable competitive records. A first-class honours degree in Sports Psychology from the University of Worcester, followed by an MSc in Sport and Exercise Psychology at Sheffield Hallam, equips her to explain the mechanisms behind elite performance, rather than to simply describe what it felt like. Forbes recognised that combination in 2021, placing her on its 30 Under 30 Europe list for Sports and Games for her record on court and her work advancing inclusion in sport. Off the court, she has contributed to the Women’s Sport Trust Unlocked programme and worked at Whisper, a sports and entertainment media production company. In a board or leadership team conversation about resilience, inclusion, or sustained performance under pressure, she does not present three separate cases. She presents one. Key speaking topics Resilience and performance under pressure Leadership through structural change Disability inclusion as competitive advantage High-performance team culture Sports psychology and elite mindset Sustained performance across long competitive cycles Identity, adversity and recovery Ideal for Senior leadership and executive teams examining the relationship between culture, inclusion and performance CHROs and people leaders building inclusion strategies that are anchored in performance outcomes, not compliance frameworks Organisations in transformation or restructuring, where team cohesion and leadership accountability are under active pressure DEI conference audiences seeking a performance-led argument for inclusion rather than a values-led one Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of resilience, as a practised, structural discipline rather than an individual personality trait Concrete examples of how inclusion decisions affect team performance at elite level, drawn from a decade of Paralympic competition A direct challenge to the assumption that high performance and genuine diversity are competing priorities Practical insight into how accountability operates in teams under structural change, including relocation, new systems and shifting leadership A model for sustaining performance across long cycles, not just optimising for peak moments

Why organisations work with Steven Laureys He brings the working brain into board-level conversations on performance and wellbeing, grounded in clinical neurology rather than wellness orthodoxy. He runs one of the few research groups in the world studying consciousness across coma, anaesthesia, sleep, hypnosis, and meditation, which gives audiences a single coherent framework for thinking about attention and recovery. His Francqui Prize and Canada Excellence Research Chair give a buyer hard evidence of scientific standing in a field crowded with popularisers. He has translated his research into a bestselling popular book on meditation, so audiences get a scientist who can talk to non-scientists without losing accuracy. He works in English, French, and Dutch, which makes him directly usable across European leadership audiences without an interpreter. Biography highlights Founder and head of the Coma Science Group, GIGA Consciousness, University of Liège. Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neuroplasticity, Laval University and CERVO Brain Research Centre. Research Director at the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS). Winner of the Francqui Prize 2017 and the Generet Prize 2019. Author of The No-Nonsense Meditation Book, an international bestseller published by Bloomsbury and translated into multiple languages. TEDx speaker at TEDxBrussels and TEDxLiège, with research featured across major international media. Biography Most of what is sold to organisations as “wellbeing” is built on intuition. The brain that is meant to be helping is the most expensive and least understood asset on the payroll. Steven Laureys studies the brain for a living, and his work has spent two decades pushing the boundary of what can be measured in coma, sleep, anaesthesia, hypnosis, and meditation. He founded the Coma Science Group within GIGA Consciousness at the University of Liège in 2014, and now also holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Neuroplasticity at Laval University, based at the CERVO Brain Research Centre. He is a Research Director at Belgium’s FNRS and a clinical professor of neurology, board-certified in neurology and in palliative medicine. The Francqui Prize, Belgium’s highest scientific honour, was awarded to him in 2017 for his work on disorders of consciousness. His public reach is unusual for a clinician of this seniority. The No-Nonsense Meditation Book, published by Bloomsbury, became an international bestseller and made the case for meditation in the language of neuroimaging rather than spirituality. He has spoken at TEDxBrussels and TEDxLiège, and his research has been picked up across mainstream international media. For corporate audiences, he turns the same instruments he uses on coma patients and Buddhist monks toward the working brain: attention, stress, sleep, cognitive recovery, and the conditions under which people make good decisions. The argument he brings is simple. The science is now specific enough to act on, and most organisations are not yet using it. Key speaking topics Neuroscience of attention and focus Stress and cognitive recovery Sleep and performance Meditation and the brain Mental wellbeing in the workplace Human intelligence and artificial intelligence Consciousness, anaesthesia, and altered states Neuroplasticity and lifestyle interventions Ideal for CHROs and chief wellbeing officers are building credible mental health and performance programmes. Executive teams and boards are considering attention, sleep, and stress as performance variables. Leadership development audiences in healthcare, professional services, and high-stakes operating environments. Innovation and R&D leaders interested in the brain science behind creativity and cognitive load. Audience outcomes A clinician’s view of what neuroscience can and cannot yet say about attention, stress, sleep, and meditation. Specific, evidence-based practices that senior people can use on themselves and inside their teams. A clearer line between credible neuroscience and the wellness industry’s claims. Confidence to challenge wellbeing programmes that rest on intuition rather than evidence. A working mental model of the brain under load that maps onto real organisational decisions.

Why organisations work with Lord Sebastian Coe He has led, end to end, one of the largest peacetime delivery programmes a UK organisation has ever attempted: the London 2012 bid, build, and Games. Few speakers can talk about institutional execution at that scale from inside the room. As President of World Athletics since 2015, he has run a global federation through doping scandals, Russian sanctions, prize-money reform, and gender-eligibility policy. The case material is contemporary, contested, and useful to any board navigating reputational risk. He moves credibly between elite performance, political office, and institutional governance. That breadth lets him address both the human side of leadership and the structural side without flattening either. He brings a working operator’s view of stakeholder management: IOC, host governments, sponsors, broadcasters, athletes, media. Buyers wrestling with multi-principal accountability get a practitioner, not a commentator. Biography highlights President of World Athletics since 2015; member of the International Olympic Committee since 2020. Chair of the London 2012 bid and of LOCOG, the organising committee that delivered the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Chairman of the British Olympic Association, 2012 to 2016. Conservative MP for Falmouth and Camborne, 1992 to 1997; Chief of Staff to William Hague as Leader of the Opposition; created Baron Coe of Ranmore in 2000. Two-time Olympic 1500m gold medallist (Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984); set twelve world records across middle-distance events. KBE (2006), Companion of Honour (2013); author of Running My Life: The Autobiography (Hodder & Stoughton, 2012). Biography The London 2012 bid was three points behind Paris in the final IOC stretch. The committee changed chairs, brought in a new presentation, and won the host vote in Singapore on 6 July 2005. The work that followed, seven years of build, contracts, security, transport, and ceremony, finished on time and inside its public envelope. That is the institutional record buyers come to hear about. What sits behind it is unusual. Coe was an Olympic 1500m champion in 1980 and 1984 and held twelve world records before he left the track. He then served as a Conservative MP for Falmouth and Camborne, became Chief of Staff to William Hague, and was created a life peer in 2000. By the time he chaired LOCOG he had already worked at close range on how political institutions actually function under stress. Since 2015 he has been President of World Athletics. The federation he inherited was in the middle of the Russian doping crisis and faced an open question about whether its own governance was credible. The decade since has involved sanctions, reform of integrity systems, the introduction of prize money at the Olympic Games, and contested decisions on transgender and DSD eligibility in elite competition. None of those calls were uncontested; all of them were made. He brings to a corporate audience a working knowledge of leadership where the stakeholders are not aligned, the deadline does not move, and the public verdict arrives the same week as the decision. That is the part of the experience that translates. Key speaking topics Leadership of complex institutions under public scrutiny Delivering large-scale programmes against fixed deadlines Governance reform and integrity in international organisations Stakeholder management across political, commercial, and civic principals Building and sustaining high-performance cultures Legacy, reputation, and long-horizon decision-making Transitioning from individual performance to institutional leadership Ideal for Boards and executive teams running multi-stakeholder organisations where regulators, governments, and the public are all in the room CEOs and transformation leads delivering large programmes against fixed external deadlines Public-sector and federated bodies facing reform under reputational pressure Senior leadership audiences in sport, broadcasting, infrastructure, and major-event delivery Audience outcomes A working frame for setting and holding direction when stakeholders do not share interests Specific case material from London 2012 and a decade at World Athletics on integrity, reform, and crisis response Sharper sense of how to manage the gap between elite performance and institutional leadership Perspective on legacy, reputation, and the trade-offs that surface late in long programmes A direct read on what high-stakes accountability looks like from the inside of the room

Why organisations work with Suzi Perry She has hosted live, high-stakes broadcast for more than two decades, including BBC Formula 1, MotoGP for BBC and BT Sport, Wimbledon and the London Olympics. Few hosts on the corporate circuit carry that volume of unscripted live experience. She is the first woman to have held the permanent main-anchor role on BBC Formula 1, which makes her credible in front of motorsport, automotive and engineering audiences in a way most generalist hosts are not. She has eight years on Channel 5’s The Gadget Show and a long run with Mobile World Congress and Global Mobile Awards, giving her fluency with technology, telecoms and consumer electronics audiences without needing a brief. Repeat corporate clients include BT, Mercedes, Honda, HSBC, Suzuki, DELL, EE, Nikon and Royal Mail, with hosting work spanning awards nights, conference moderation and product launches. Biography highlights First permanent female anchor of BBC One’s Formula 1 coverage, 2013 to 2015. Lead MotoGP presenter for BT Sport, now TNT Sports, since 2016. Thirteen seasons covering MotoGP for BBC Sport before joining Formula 1. Co-presenter of Channel 5’s The Gadget Show for eight years across 17 series. Conference and awards host for BT, Mercedes, Honda, HSBC, Mobile World Congress and Global Mobile Awards. Honorary degree from the University of Wolverhampton. Biography Live broadcast is the part of the modern executive job that gets the least practice and the most scrutiny. Suzi Perry has spent more than twenty years working in exactly that environment, first as the BBC’s MotoGP presenter for thirteen seasons, then as the first woman to hold the permanent main-anchor role on BBC One’s Formula 1 coverage from 2013, and since 2016 as the lead MotoGP presenter for BT Sport and TNT Sports. That work is the basis of how she shows up for corporate audiences. She has hosted at Mobile World Congress, Global Mobile Awards, the Boat Show and conferences for BT, Mercedes, Honda, HSBC, Suzuki, DELL, EE, Nikon and Royal Mail, alongside awards-night work for technology, automotive and consumer brands. Eight years co-presenting Channel 5’s The Gadget Show, and a long association with Gadget Show Live, gave her a separate base of fluency with technology and consumer-tech audiences. Her speaking content draws on the same source material. Two decades of live broadcast at the front of a Formula 1 paddock or a MotoGP grid produce a specific working knowledge: how to prepare, how to recover when a feed drops or a guest goes off-script, how to read a room when the schedule slips. For senior leaders increasingly asked to be the face of their organisation on stage and on camera, that experience is the relevant credential. She holds an honorary degree from the University of Wolverhampton, where she originally studied business and finance, and serves as a patron or ambassador for Promise Dreams, UK Youth, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Special Olympics. Key speaking topics Live broadcast and presenting craft Awards hosting and conference moderation Motorsport and Formula 1 MotoGP and motorcycle racing Technology and consumer electronics Women in motorsport and broadcasting Ideal for Boards and executive teams preparing for high-visibility live moments: investor days, town halls, AGMs. Automotive, motorsport and engineering audiences looking for a host with technical fluency, not a generalist. Technology and telecoms organisations running keynote stages, awards nights or product launches. CMOs and brand teams briefing for sponsorship-driven hospitality at major sporting events. Audience outcomes A working sense of how experienced broadcasters prepare for live moments where the script can fail. A clearer view of what composure on camera actually looks like in practice. Specific examples from inside Formula 1 and MotoGP that translate to high-pressure corporate stages. A sharper read on how to recover when a live moment goes off plan.

Why organisations work with Dan Clark He is one of fewer than 250 speakers ever inducted into the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame, a peer-voted recognition that signals craft at the level of Zig Ziglar, Colin Powell, and Earl Nightingale. His Art of Significance framework gives leadership teams a language for the difference between hitting targets and building something people want to stay inside. It travels well in family business, sales, and military leadership settings. He was a primary contributing author to the first twelve volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul, including the number two New York Times bestseller Chicken Soup for the College Soul. His stories are already in the bloodstream of audiences who did not know his name. He works at the top end of storytelling as a business discipline, teaching sales leaders and executives to construct narrative arcs that land without veering into motivational cliche. He has a long track record with U.S. military leadership audiences and with Fortune 500 sales organisations, which gives him a wider room to work than most motivational keynoters. Biography highlights Inducted into the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame, 2005. Earned the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association in 1987. Primary contributing author to the first twelve volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul; author of Chicken Soup for the College Soul, a number two New York Times bestseller. Author of The Art of Significance: Achieving the Level Beyond Success, and further titles including Influential Impact, Making of a Champion, and Transference of Trust. His short story Puppies for Sale was adapted into a 1998 Paramount short film starring Jack Lemmon, directed by Ron Krauss, with a score by Elmer Bernstein. International Board of Governors member, Operation Smile; National Advisory Board member, Operation Kids. Biography Most leadership keynotes run on frameworks. Clark runs on stories, and that choice is the argument. The Art of Significance separates successful people, who get what they think they want, from significant people, who want what they get. Clark treats that distinction as the working problem of senior leadership, not as motivational dressing. The credential stack sits behind the craft. He was inducted into the National Speakers Association Speakers Hall of Fame in 2005, a peer-voted designation held by fewer than 250 speakers in the association’s history. He earned the Certified Speaking Professional mark in 1987. Before that, he was a scholarship athlete at the University of Utah whose football career ended with a spinal injury in a tackling drill, which is where the speaking work began. Clark’s reach into general audiences predates the keynote career by a decade. He was a primary contributing author to the first twelve volumes of Chicken Soup for the Soul, and author of Chicken Soup for the College Soul, which reached number two on the New York Times bestseller list. His short story Puppies for Sale was produced as a 1998 Paramount short film starring Jack Lemmon. The stories travel on their own, which is why the keynote lands inside corporate, military, and family business audiences that would otherwise resist the form. The work for serious organisations is not the motivation. It is the transfer. Clark teaches sales and leadership teams to build narrative arcs their own people can retell without losing the point. For organisations trying to tie culture, performance, and purpose together in front of a leadership audience, that is a specific craft, and there are very few speakers at this level still actively working the room. Key speaking topics The Art of Significance and leadership character Storytelling as a sales and leadership discipline Resilience after setback Team building and high performance culture Executive communication and platform skills Purpose-driven leadership Ideal for CEO and senior leadership offsites where the goal is shared conviction, not a content download Sales leadership kickoffs and top-performer incentive events Family business and family office leadership gatherings Military, public sector, and values-led organisations looking for a Hall of Fame keynote headliner Audience outcomes A working distinction between success and significance that leadership teams can apply to their own decisions. A repeatable approach to building and telling a business story so that it lands with a customer, a team, or a board. A renewed sense of standard inside senior teams that have drifted into transactional mode. Specific, retellable stories that give a leadership event a centre of gravity long after the session ends.

Why organisations work with Urs Meier He has made the kind of decision most executives describe in hypothetical terms: a single judgement call, contested by 50 million viewers, with no replay, no committee, and no time. The Euro 2004 England vs Portugal aftermath is the case study. He refereed 883 matches, including the 2002 Champions League final and a 2002 World Cup semi-final, and can show how the discipline of decision-making is rehearsed long before the moment arrives. His book Du bist die Entscheidung sets out a working method for acting quickly under uncertainty, drawing on a body of practice rather than borrowed management theory. Two decades as ZDF’s senior football analyst have given him a second skill leaders rarely train: explaining a contested decision clearly, in public, while it is still being argued about. He works in German and English, with a delivery style Süddeutsche Zeitung described as humorous and self-deprecating, useful when the topic is high-stakes mistakes and how to recover from them. Biography highlights FIFA international referee, 1994 to 2004, with 883 senior matches officiated. Referee, 2002 UEFA Champions League final, Real Madrid vs Bayer Leverkusen. Referee, 2002 FIFA World Cup semi-final, Germany vs South Korea. Referee, Euro 2004 quarter-final, England vs Portugal. Author, Du bist die Entscheidung. Schnell und entschlossen handeln, S. Fischer Verlag, 2008. Lead football analyst, ZDF German television, 2005 to 2021. Biography The decision a referee makes in the 90th minute is judged by people who have replays, slow motion, and time. The referee had none of those. That asymmetry, between how a call is made and how it is judged, is the territory Urs Meier has worked in for forty years, first on the pitch and then in front of a camera explaining other referees’ decisions to a national audience. He spent 27 years in active officiating, retiring in December 2004 after 883 matches. The career carried him through a 1998 World Cup, the 2002 Champions League final between Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen, and the 2002 World Cup semi-final between Germany and South Korea. Each of those games turned on calls made in seconds, defended for years. His Euro 2004 quarter-final between England and Portugal is the moment that makes the talk land in a corporate room. He disallowed a late Sol Campbell header. The next morning he had roughly 16,000 abusive emails, most from England, and was placed under police protection. He later said he had not seen the foul, but had trusted twenty years of pattern recognition to know one had occurred. That gap, between the visible reasoning and the deeper basis for a call, is exactly what senior leaders wrestle with when they are asked to justify a judgement after the fact. The 2008 book Du bist die Entscheidung sets the practice down on paper: the role of evidence, intuition, and self-trust in fast decisions, and how to convince others once the call is made. He has since worked as ZDF’s senior football pundit through World Cups and European Championships, runs his own Swiss business, and advises on the professionalisation of officiating. The throughline is unusual: a working method for making and explaining hard calls, tested under conditions most leadership case studies have to invent. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Self-leadership and composure Resilience after public criticism Leadership of high-performing teams Fair play and ethics in business Motivation and personal performance Ideal for Executive teams and boards facing high-stakes, time-pressured calls Senior leaders preparing for visible scrutiny, regulator engagement, or media exposure Sales and client-facing leadership groups operating in adversarial environments Annual conferences seeking a substantive keynote on judgement and resilience Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for separating the act of deciding from the act of being right Concrete examples of how trained intuition complements analysis under time pressure A method for defending a contested decision in public without rewriting it Recognition of how to recover composure and authority after a publicly criticised call Renewed confidence to commit when the information will never be complete

Why organisations work with Rich Diviney He brings a published, named framework, the 25 Attributes, drawn from designing and running selection for one of the most demanding assessment processes in the world. Senior teams leave with a vocabulary for talent decisions that does not collapse under pressure. He separates skills from attributes in a way that changes how boards and executive teams think about hiring, succession, and team composition. Skills tell you what someone has done; attributes tell you how they will behave when the script breaks. He has translated SEAL selection science into operating practice for Google, McKinsey, American Airlines, the San Francisco 49ers, McLaren, Adobe, Ernst & Young, Zoom, Bank of America, Lexus, and Deloitte. The frameworks have been stress-tested in commercial environments, not just military ones. His second book, Masters of Uncertainty (Amplify, 2025), gives leaders a method for performing through chaos rather than recovering from it. The argument moves the conversation from resilience as recovery to composure as a deliberate, trainable capability. Biography highlights Retired Navy SEAL commander with more than 20 years of service and 13+ overseas deployments, 11 to Iraq and Afghanistan. Officer in charge of selection, assessment, and training for a specialized SEAL command. Led the creation of the SEALs’ “Mind Gym” for cognitive performance training in high-stress environments. Author of The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance (Random House, 2021), a bestselling book. Author of Masters of Uncertainty: The Navy SEAL Way to Turn Stress into Success for You and Your Team (Amplify Publishing, 2025). Featured in McKinsey’s “Author Talks” series; founder and CEO of The Attributes Inc. Biography Selection is where most organisations get talent decisions wrong. The candidates with the cleanest resumes wash out under stress; the ones who looked unremarkable on paper hold the team together when the plan falls apart. Rich Diviney spent the back half of his Navy career running the selection, assessment, and training pipeline for a specialized SEAL command, watching that pattern repeat at the top of one of the most demanding evaluation systems in the world. The framework he built from that work is now in two books and a consulting practice. The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance (Random House, 2021) names the innate traits, things like adaptability, cunning, narcissism, courage, that predict performance when skills run out. Masters of Uncertainty (Amplify, 2025) extends the argument into a method for staying composed and decisive when conditions are chaotic. Both treat performance as something you can engineer in advance through how you select and develop people, not something you hope shows up on the day. The substance has translated. Since leaving the Navy in 2017, Diviney has worked with Google, McKinsey, American Airlines, the San Francisco 49ers, McLaren, Adobe, Ernst & Young, Zoom, Bank of America, Lexus, and Deloitte. He was featured in McKinsey’s “Author Talks” series on the thesis that attributes, not skills, decide whether someone makes the cut. The pattern across his clients is consistent: they are organisations whose top teams operate at the edge of their capacity and need a sharper way to choose, build, and lead the people who get sent in first. What makes him useful in a boardroom is not the SEAL biography. It is that he has a tested vocabulary for the part of leadership most frameworks gloss over: how human beings actually behave when certainty disappears. Key speaking topics The Attributes framework for individual and team performance Selection, assessment, and team composition Performing under uncertainty and stress High-performing team dynamics Trust as an operating discipline Leadership in elite and high-pressure environments Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and executive teams responsible for performance through volatile conditions. CHROs and talent leaders rethinking selection, succession, and team composition. Boards and senior leadership offsites focused on resilience, composure, and decision-making under pressure. High-stakes operating teams in financial services, professional services, sport, aviation, and defence-adjacent industries. Audience outcomes A working distinction between skills and attributes that changes how leaders evaluate talent. A vocabulary of 25 named attributes leaders can use immediately in selection, succession, and team-building conversations. A method for staying composed and decisive in conditions where the plan has stopped working. A clearer view of what trust actually consists of inside a high-performing team, and how to build it deliberately. A reframe of resilience: from recovery after shock to performance through it.

Why organisations work with Kevin Keegan He is one of only four players to win European Footballer of the Year twice, alongside Di Stefano, Beckenbauer, and Cruyff, which gives any leadership message he delivers immediate authority with a senior audience. He has carried the captaincy of a national team and the weight of managing it, so his account of pressure is operational rather than theoretical. As a manager he is the first person in the Premier League era to win the Football League title with two different clubs, Newcastle United and Manchester City, evidence of repeatable team-building rather than a single peak. His after-dinner style is warm, self-aware, and quotable, which makes him a reliable fit for awards nights, gala dinners, and senior client hospitality where the brief is engagement rather than instruction. Biography highlights Two-time Ballon d’Or winner (European Footballer of the Year), 1978 and 1979, at SV Hamburg 63 England caps, 21 international goals, captained England 31 times including UEFA Euro 1980 Won three First Division titles, two UEFA Cups, an FA Cup, and the European Cup with Liverpool under Shankly and Paisley Awarded the OBE in 1982; PFA Players’ Player of the Year, 1982; FWA Footballer of the Year, 1976 Managed Newcastle United, Fulham, England, and Manchester City; only manager in the Premier League era to win the Football League title with two different clubs Inducted into the inaugural English Football Hall of Fame in 2002; author of the Sunday Times bestselling autobiography “My Life in Football” (Pan Macmillan, 2018) Biography Hamburg signed Keegan from Liverpool in 1977, and within two seasons he had been named European Footballer of the Year twice. Before him, only Di Stefano, Beckenbauer, and Cruyff had managed that. The move was the first by a leading British player to a major continental club at his peak, and it reset what an English footballer’s career could look like. Liverpool was where the platform was built. Six seasons under Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley produced three league titles, two UEFA Cups, an FA Cup, and a European Cup. England rewarded the form with the captaincy. He led the side 31 times, including at Euro 1980, and finished with 63 caps and 21 goals. Management followed playing. Keegan returned to Newcastle United as manager in 1992, took the club out of the second tier, and pushed it to two Premier League runner-up finishes. He went on to manage Fulham, England, and Manchester City, and remains the only manager in the Premier League era to have won the Football League title with two different clubs. On stage he works the same material his career produced: the tactics rooms at Liverpool and Hamburg, the dressing rooms he ran as a manager, and the moments the public watched live, from the 1996 title race with Manchester United to managing England at Wembley. The 2018 autobiography “My Life in Football”, co-written with Daniel Taylor, set the version of those stories he now tells from the floor. Key speaking topics Leadership under public pressure Team building and squad management Motivation and high performance Lessons from elite sport for business Handling setbacks and reinvention After-dinner storytelling Ideal for Sales kick-offs, awards dinners, and gala evenings where senior clients are the audience Leadership and management offsites looking for a credible outsider voice on team performance Hospitality and entertainment programmes around major sporting fixtures Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how elite teams are built, recover from losing form, and hold their nerve in title races Concrete stories about taking the captaincy and the manager’s seat for England, and what that exposure teaches about leadership in public A view of the manager-player relationship that translates to senior leaders managing senior talent An evening of warm, self-deprecating storytelling that reliably lands with mixed corporate audiences