Peak Performance

Why organisations work with Farah Nanji A working framework for high-pressure performance built from a decade inside Formula 1 culture and a decade as the touring artist NINJA, two domains where small lapses are publicly visible. A founder’s view of building a private leadership community, Regents Racing, that uses motorsport psychology as a development tool for executives and members. A rare first-person account of rewiring cognitive function around dyspraxia, delivered as a TEDx keynote at the Luxembourg Philharmonie and translated into practical lessons on neurodivergence at work. A reference network drawn from Mission Makers, the podcast she founded at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which has hosted leaders across music, motorsport and business. Biography highlights Founder and CEO of Regents Racing, a private leadership community using motorsport psychology, with roots at Regent’s University London. CEO of The Formula Mind, Regents Racing’s executive-facing subsidiary exploring Formula 1 as a lens for leadership and peak performance. TEDx speaker at TEDxLuxembourgCity, 2019, delivered at the Luxembourg Philharmonie. Producer and host of Mission Makers, a podcast launched at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Lecturer at Regent’s University London and Point Blank Music School. Performing artist as NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, Goodwood Festival of Speed, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Biography Formula 1 teams treat composure as an engineered system. Sleep, nutrition, debrief routines and pre-race protocols are sequenced so that the driver can make sound decisions when the cost of a wrong one is highest. Regents Racing was built to translate that discipline into a leadership setting, taking senior executives and members through experiences that pressure-test how they prepare, recover and decide. The organisation began in 2011 at Regent’s University London as a community of competitive drivers and has grown into a private network with programming around Formula 1 weekends in Monaco, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, the Goodwood Festival of Speed and factory tours. Its executive-facing subsidiary, The Formula Mind, sits closer to senior leadership development. A second strand of the work comes from a personal record. Diagnosed with dyspraxia at 15, Nanji built a parallel career as the touring artist NINJA, with sets at Pacha Ibiza, Buddha Bar, the United Nations in London and the World Economic Forum. Her TEDx talk at the Luxembourg Philharmonie in 2019 set out how she rewired cognitive function around the condition, and that account is now a core part of her keynote work on neurodivergence and resilience. The third strand is Mission Makers, the podcast she launched during the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020. The show has interviewed leaders across music, motorsport and business, and it doubles as her research engine: the conversations feed the frameworks she brings into the room when she speaks. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under pressure Formula 1 psychology and peak performance Resilience and self-leadership Neurodivergence and dyspraxia at work High-performance teams Entrepreneurship and founding a community-based business Music, creativity and performance discipline Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes focused on composure and decision-making under pressure Boards and ExCo audiences exploring high-performance culture DEI, talent and HR audiences working on neurodivergence and inclusive performance Conferences seeking a hybrid keynote and live performance from a single artist Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what high-performance preparation, recovery and debrief actually look like in Formula 1, and where the parallels to executive work hold A first-person account of building cognitive routines around dyspraxia, with direct application for neurodivergent talent in the workforce A clearer sense of how leaders sustain composure when the margin for error is thin A founder’s perspective on building a private community business that crosses motorsport, music and leadership

Why organisations work with Dame Evelyn Glennie A first-hand demonstration of how attention works when sound is felt rather than heard, drawn from a 40-year career as the first full-time solo percussionist in musical history. A leadership argument grounded in lived practice: composure, recovery and attention as trainable behaviours, not personality traits. Author of “Listen World!” and Founder of The Evelyn Glennie Foundation, whose mission is to teach the world to listen across business, education, healthcare and the arts. Three GRAMMY recognitions, the Polar Music Prize (2015), the Leonie Sonning Music Prize (2023), Companion of Honour (2017) and DBE; credentials that earn the room before she opens it. Workshop and keynote formats road-tested with corporate teams on internal communication, customer responsiveness and team cohesion. Biography highlights First person in history to build and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. Three-time GRAMMY recipient, including the 1989 award with Sir Georg Solti and Murray Perahia and a 2002 win with Bela Fleck. Companion of Honour (2017), DBE (2007), OBE (1993). First percussionist to receive a DBE. Polar Music Prize laureate, 2015. First percussionist to receive the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, 2023. Chancellor of Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen; President of Help Musicians. TED speaker (“How to truly listen”), author of “Listen World!”, and Founder of The Evelyn Glennie Foundation. Biography Most leaders treat listening as a courtesy. For Glennie it is a working method, developed across four decades of performing music she could not hear in the conventional sense. Profoundly deaf from childhood, she trained herself to read vibration through her hands, feet and body, and built a career as the first full-time solo percussionist in musical history. That practice is what corporate audiences engage with. The Royal Academy of Music graduate has performed in more than 60 countries, commissioned over 200 new works, and led 1,000 drummers in the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony directed by Danny Boyle. The technical achievement is unusual. The transferable insight is the discipline behind it: attention as a whole-body act, repeatable under pressure. Her authority on the subject is institutionally backed. Three GRAMMY recognitions, the Polar Music Prize, the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, a Damehood and the Companion of Honour sit alongside the Chancellorship of Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen and the Presidency of Help Musicians. The book “Listen World!” and The Evelyn Glennie Foundation, established in 2023, take the same argument into schools, hospitals, sport and business. In a leadership keynote she translates this directly. How a team senses what is happening before it can be measured. How a leader steadies a room. How sustained attention, not louder communication, is what shifts behaviour at scale. Key speaking topics Listening as a leadership discipline Attention and presence under pressure Resilience and reinvention after personal shock Communication and team cohesion Inclusive leadership and difference as capability Creativity, craft and sustained excellence Ideal for Boards and executive committees defining their own communication standards CHROs and culture leaders rebuilding internal listening practices Senior leadership offsites focused on composure, attention and decision-making Customer experience and frontline leadership audiences working on responsiveness Audience outcomes A working definition of listening as an active leadership behaviour, not a soft skill A more honest read of how attention is spent in their own meetings and decisions Specific cues from a non-verbal craft they can apply to communication with teams and customers A reframing of personal adversity and reinvention as repeatable practice A clearer view of how presence and composure shape what a team will follow

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

Key speaking topics High-performance sport Resilience and mental strength Disability and inclusion Goal setting and motivation Managing pressure and expectations Personal development through sport Teamwork and commitment Ideal for Corporate conferences and leadership events Diversity, equity and inclusion programmes Employee engagement and wellbeing initiatives Education and youth-focused audiences Audience outcomes Clear insight into high-performance habits from elite sport. Practical understanding of resilience under sustained pressure. Greater awareness of disability, inclusion and adaptability. Perspective on motivation, discipline and long-term goal pursuit. Why organisations work with Ellie Simmonds Brings credible, first-hand experience from elite international sport. Connects performance, mindset and inclusion in a practical context. Communicates with clarity grounded in lived experience rather than theory. Offers relevant lessons on resilience, commitment and adapting to challenge. Biography Ellie Simmonds OBE is one of Britain’s most accomplished Paralympic athletes, with a career defined by sustained excellence at the highest level of international sport. Competing in the S6 classifications, she won eight Paralympic medals across three Games, including five golds, and set world records in multiple events. Her achievements place her among the most successful figures in British para swimming. Her Paralympic success spans multiple disciplines, including freestyle and individual medley, demonstrating versatility, consistency and performance under pressure. She became a Paralympic champion at a young age and continued to deliver medal-winning performances across successive Games, combining technical skill with resilience and long-term focus. Beyond competition, Simmonds has been formally recognised for her contribution to Paralympic sport, receiving national honours for her services. She was also named BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year, reflecting her impact beyond the pool and her visibility as a role model within British sport. Simmonds’ journey includes relocating to train at elite level and balancing high-performance sport with academic study, later completing a degree in Psychology. This background informs her perspective on mindset, motivation and personal development within demanding environments. Following her retirement from competitive swimming, she brings first-hand insight into elite performance, inclusion and adaptability. Her experience resonates strongly with organisations seeking practical lessons on resilience, commitment and achieving sustained results under pressure.

Why organisations work with Dame Denise Lewis A first-hand account of winning at the highest level in the hardest conditions: Olympic gold at Sydney 2000, secured while competing through an Achilles injury that threatened every event. Governance perspective from the top of a national sport, currently leading UK Athletics through a period of public financial difficulty and reform. Fifteen years of live broadcast analysis at BBC Sport, reading performance in real time across four Olympic Games and four Commonwealth Games. A view of high performance that moves between the individual and the system: what athletes owe their coaches, what leaders owe their teams, and where accountability actually sits. Credibility with audiences who have heard every sports keynote; the current presidencies (UK Athletics, Commonwealth Games England) put her in a different category from retired-athlete speakers. Biography highlights Olympic heptathlon gold medallist, Sydney 2000; Olympic bronze medallist, Atlanta 1996. Commonwealth Games heptathlon champion in 1994 and 2002; European champion 1998; World Championships silver 1997 and 1999. Appointed DBE in the 2023 New Year Honours; previously OBE (2001) and MBE (1999). President of UK Athletics, elected 2024. President of Commonwealth Games England, extended to Victoria 2026. BBC Sport athletics pundit from 2009 to Paris 2024, covering four Olympic cycles and four Commonwealth Games. Author, “Personal Best: The Autobiography” (2001). President of Sparks children’s medical research charity. Biography The Sydney 2000 heptathlon came down to the final 800 metres, with an Achilles injury that had threatened every event before it. Denise Lewis finished third in that race, hobbled across the line, and scored 6,584 points to become the first European Olympic heptathlon champion. The day was often described as character; closer up, it was preparation meeting a refusal to stop. That composure has defined the career since. Between 2009 and Paris 2024, Lewis was the analytical voice of BBC athletics coverage, reading elite performance in real time across four Olympic Games and four Commonwealth Games. The work demanded a different discipline from competing: quick judgement, live to camera, about people whose careers she understood from the inside. In 2024 she was elected President of UK Athletics, a governance role that began in the middle of a declared financial crisis at the national body. The remit is reform, public accountability and the long-term health of the sport. She also serves as President of Commonwealth Games England, extended through Victoria 2026, and as President of Sparks, the children’s medical research charity. For senior audiences, the value is the composite view: the competitor who held her nerve on the biggest stage, the analyst who has watched hundreds of others succeed and fail under the same pressure, and the administrator now answerable for a system rather than a single performance. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure High-performance culture and standards Resilience and competitive mindset Governance and accountability in elite sport Team performance and coaching relationships Transition from elite competition to leadership Women in leadership and sport Ideal for Boards and executive committees setting performance standards for the wider organisation. Senior leadership offsites focused on pressure, judgement and decision-making. CHROs and talent leaders shaping high-performance culture programmes. Sport, media and national-body audiences looking at governance and reform. Audience outcomes A concrete sense of what holding standards looks like when the conditions are against you, not in theory. Language for the coach-athlete-administrator triangle that transfers directly to leader-team-board dynamics. A clearer read on the difference between motivation and preparation at the top of a competitive field. A first-hand perspective on governance responsibility: what a president actually answers for when a system is under strain.

Why organisations work with Dee Caffari The westabout solo circumnavigation of 2006, 178 days against prevailing winds and currents and completed by only six men in history, gives Caffari a standing in the territory of sustained solo leadership under real pressure that no training environment can replicate and no other speaker in this space can match. As skipper of Turn the Tide on Plastic in the Volvo Ocean Race 2017/18, she led the first mixed-gender, youth-focused international crew formed in partnership with the UN Environment Programme, delivering competitive performance and a global environmental mandate simultaneously. She has direct, tested experience of building high-performance diverse teams when the stakes are visible and the scrutiny is real. Her autobiography “Against the Flow” (Adlard Coles Nautical), published in 2007 and translated into French, Italian, and German, documents the mental framework she developed across her record-setting voyages, evidence that the leadership disciplines she draws from offshore sailing translate across cultural and organisational contexts. As Vice Chair of World Sailing’s Oceanic and Offshore Committee, and previously inaugural Chair of the World Sailing Trust and a decade-long member of the RNLI Operations Committee, she connects frontline leadership experience in extreme environments to the governance and institutional accountability that senior audiences recognise. She has spoken to executive audiences at organisations including Sky, London Business School, Aviva, Citywire, Oracle, and Barry Callebaut, with client evaluation scores consistently at 9/10 and above across independent post-event surveys. Biography highlights Only woman to sail solo, non-stop around the world westabout, against prevailing winds and currents, completing the voyage in 178 days in 2006 and setting a world record Only woman to complete solo, non-stop circumnavigations in both directions; finished 6th from 30 starters in the Vendée Globe 2008/09, known in sailing as the Everest of the seas Only woman to have sailed non-stop around the world four times; seven circumnavigations in total, most recently as co-skipper of The Famous Project, the first all-female crew to complete a non-stop circumnavigation, in January 2026 Skipper, Turn the Tide on Plastic, Volvo Ocean Race 2017/18, mixed-gender, youth-focused international crew formed in partnership with the UN Environment Programme’s Clean Seas campaign MBE, 2007 Birthday Honours, for services to sailing; Honorary Commander RNR (Royal Naval Reserve), appointed September 2011; inaugural Chair, World Sailing Trust (2018 to 2024); ten-year member of the RNLI Operations Committee; Vice Chair, Oceanic and Offshore Committee, World Sailing Autobiography “Against the Flow” (Adlard Coles Nautical, 2007), translated into French, Italian, and German; shortlisted, World Sailing Rolex World Sailor of the Year, 2006 and 2011 Biography Solo decision-making in genuinely hostile conditions, without consultation and without the option to pause, is the environment in which Dee Caffari MBE built her leadership record. She has circumnavigated the globe seven times, including four solo or co-skippered non-stop voyages. No other woman has done this. Few people in history have. The westabout circumnavigation of 2006, completed in 178 days against prevailing winds and currents, set a world record and earned her an MBE. She returned to solo racing in the Vendée Globe (2008/09), finishing 6th from 30 starters in a race the sailing world calls the Everest of the seas. That finish confirmed that the judgment and resilience she had built were not situational; they held across different modes of pressure, different time horizons, and different conditions. The team dimension of her leadership is equally tested. As skipper of Turn the Tide on Plastic in the Volvo Ocean Race 2017/18, she led a mixed-gender, youth-focused international crew in partnership with the UN Environment Programme. Managing competitive performance alongside a global environmental mandate, under sustained media and competitive scrutiny, required the same disciplines she had practised in isolation: clear decision-making, built trust, and accountability that did not depend on favourable conditions. In January 2026, as co-skipper of The Famous Project, she completed the first all-female non-stop circumnavigation of the globe aboard IDEC Sport. Her autobiography “Against the Flow” (Adlard Coles Nautical), translated into French, Italian, and German, captures the mental framework developed across these voyages. She served as inaugural Chair of the World Sailing Trust from 2018 to 2024 and now sits as Vice Chair of World Sailing’s Oceanic and Offshore Committee. Combined with a decade on the RNLI Operations Committee, those roles extend her experience of leadership from the individual to the institutional. She has addressed senior audiences at Sky, London Business School, Aviva, Citywire, and Barry Callebaut, drawing on experience that executive development programmes rarely put under conditions close to the real thing. Key speaking topics Leadership under extreme and sustained pressure High-performance team-building in hostile environments Resilience and mental endurance Risk assessment and decision-making under uncertainty Diversity, inclusion, and mixed-team performance Ocean sustainability and purpose-driven leadership Goal-setting and long-horizon execution Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite audiences preparing for high-stakes or high-change environments CHROs and people directors focused on resilience, team accountability, and diversity in performance Boards and executive committees where sustainability, governance, and leadership credibility intersect Transformation leads and global teams navigating extended pressure or organisational uncertainty Audience outcomes A concrete framework for maintaining clarity and decision-making quality when conditions deteriorate and information is incomplete Practical understanding of how trust and accountability function in diverse, high-pressure teams – and what breaks them Perspective on the relationship between preparation, mental endurance, and sustained performance over long time horizons Insight into leading teams whose purpose extends beyond competitive performance to a broader organisational or environmental mission A personally compelling reference point for resilience that bypasses generic advice and is grounded in verifiable, extreme-condition experience

Why organisations work with Clare Balding Three decades of unrehearsed live broadcasting – seven Olympic Games, five Paralympic Games, royal ceremonies, national events – provide a practitioner’s account of composure under pressure that few corporate speakers can match from direct professional experience. As a former Champion Lady Rider who competed at elite amateur level before entering broadcasting, she brings dual insider authority to performance psychology: participant and narrator, not observer alone. The framework she offers is drawn from experience inside elite performance, not commentary on it. Her personal navigation of a historically male industry as an openly gay woman in an era when both were unusual means her arguments on inclusion carry the weight of direct professional experience rather than secondhand advocacy. Her National Book Award-winning memoir My Animals and Other Family (Penguin, 2012) signals a narrative intelligence that distinguishes her from broadcast-only speakers – she holds credibility across literary, corporate and sporting contexts simultaneously. Corporate clients visible on her official website include BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Amazon and the Football Association – indicating an established track record well beyond the sport-and-hospitality circuit. Biography highlights MA (Cantab) in English, Newnham College, Cambridge; Honorary Fellow of Newnham (2014) Former amateur flat jockey; Champion Lady Rider (1990); lead BBC horse-racing presenter from 1998 Broadcaster across seven Olympic Games, five Paralympic Games and five Winter Olympics for BBC and Channel 4 BAFTA Special Award (2013); OBE (2013) for services to broadcasting and journalism; CBE (2022) for services to sport and charity RTS Sports Presenter of the Year (2003 and 2012); National Book Award for Biography/Autobiography of the Year for My Animals and Other Family (2012) President of the Rugby Football League (2020-2022) Biography Most professional communication is rehearsed. The moments that test leadership credibility – a live crisis statement, an all-hands that goes off-script, a board announcement under external scrutiny – are not. Clare Balding has spent three decades developing the specific discipline that bridges that gap, across seven Olympic Games, five Paralympic Games and major national ceremonies for the BBC. Her route into broadcasting began not in a media training room but on a racetrack. Between 1988 and 1993, she competed as an amateur flat jockey, winning the Champion Lady Rider title in 1990, before reading English at Newnham College, Cambridge. That background as a trained athlete who understands performance pressure from the inside gives her account of preparation and composure a direct authority that separates her from presenters who have only observed elite performance. The recognition of her contribution spans multiple domains: BAFTA Special Award for factual television, RTS Sports Presenter of the Year twice, National Book Award for My Animals and Other Family (Penguin, 2012). She was appointed OBE in 2013 for services to broadcasting and journalism, and CBE in 2022 for services to sport and charity. Newnham College, Cambridge, made her an Honorary Fellow in 2014. In corporate settings she speaks on the mental disciplines that produce performance under genuine pressure, on gender equality and inclusion drawn from direct experience in a traditionally male industry, and on career adaptability when professional identities shift. Clients including Goldman Sachs, Amazon and the Football Association engage her both as a host of major events and as a substantive contributor to leadership conversations. Key speaking topics Performance under live pressure Elite sports psychology and mental preparation Executive communication and presence Resilience and career adaptability Women in sport and gender equality Inclusion and diversity leadership Storytelling and narrative communication Ideal for Senior leadership and executive teams focused on communication, presence and performance under pressure Organisations running gender equality, women’s leadership or inclusion programmes Sports industry bodies, governing organisations and national sporting federations Corporate hospitality and client entertainment events tied to major sporting occasions Audience outcomes A practitioner’s framework for the specific preparation habits that produce composure under live, uncontrolled conditions First-hand insight into the mental disciplines used at elite sporting and broadcast level, applied directly to leadership and professional performance Practical perspective on communicating with authority across different audiences and formats A grounded understanding of what inclusion requires in practice, drawn from personal experience navigating exclusion at the highest professional level Renewed perspective on career adaptability, illustrated through Balding’s own transitions from competitive sport to journalism, television presenting and authorship

Why organisations work with Cathy O’Dowd Her central argument that internal team dynamics, not the external environment, are the primary source of failure in high-performing groups, is drawn from specific, documented expeditions and maps directly onto the decisions senior leadership teams are already wrestling with. The 1996 South African Everest expedition provides one of the most detailed public case studies of a high-performing team collapsing through ego and power-play, then recovering to reach the summit. That arc of breakdown, diagnosis and recommitment is the substance of the work. Her participation in the 2012 Mazeno Ridge expedition on Nanga Parbat (a first ascent of a 10-kilometre ridgeline that had defeated ten previous international expeditions) provides a tested model for executing ambitious objectives when the plan meets an unpredictable environment and must adapt in real time. She makes a specific, counterintuitive claim: that most failures in extreme environments are self-created. This challenges how many organisations locate and manage risk, and gives leaders a different set of questions to ask of their own teams. As a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland and recipient of its highest honour, the Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, she brings the structural rigour of a career speaker to content that has been tested in front of senior corporate audiences across 46+ countries. Biography highlights First woman to summit Everest from both its south (1996) and north (1999) sides – an unmatched record in mountaineering history First South African to summit Everest; member of the First South African Everest Expedition (1996) Fourth woman to climb Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain (2000) Participant in the 2012 Mazeno Ridge expedition on Nanga Parbat – a first ascent of one of the last major unclimbed lines on an 8,000-metre peak; the summit pair were awarded the 2013 Piolet d’Or Author of Just for the Love of It; co-author of Everest: Free to Decide Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland; recipient of the Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, the PSA’s highest honour Master’s degree in Journalism, Rhodes University; former university lecturer Professional speaker for 27+ years; presented to organisations in 46+ countries on six continents Biography Most teams of ambitious, capable people contain the seeds of their own failure. Not because the external environment defeats them, but because the competition between high-performers: the very drive that brought them to the room, erodes the collaboration they need to succeed. Cathy O’Dowd watched this happen in real time, at altitude, with lives in the balance. O’Dowd became the first woman to summit Everest from both its south and north sides, completing the south-side ascent in 1996 and returning for the north in 1999. What formed her thinking was not the summits but the crisis that preceded the first: the in-fighting, power-plays, and near-disintegration of a team that had every credential to succeed. Her analysis of that expedition: what broke, what was rebuilt, and how the team reached the top despite itself, is the foundation of her corporate work. Her second major case study is the 2012 Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat, a 10-kilometre Himalayan ridgeline that had repelled ten previous international expeditions. The six-person team committed to a first ascent with no existing blueprint and had to adapt in real time as the plan met a complex, unforgiving environment. Two teammates completed the ascent and were awarded the 2013 Piolet d’Or, mountaineering’s most prestigious prize. O’Dowd uses this expedition as a model for executing ambitious objectives when certainty is unavailable and the original plan cannot hold. A Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland and recipient of its Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, she has presented in 46+ countries over 27 years. She holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from Rhodes University, where she also lectured. Her presentations are built not on inspiration but on diagnosis: specific, transferable analysis of why high-performing groups succeed and fail under pressure. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme pressure High-performance team dynamics Leadership in high-stakes environments Executing ambitious plans under uncertainty Resilience, failure, and recovery Risk, responsibility, and the limits of control Adapting strategy when execution meets reality Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating high-stakes decisions under uncertainty Organisations running ambitious transformation, innovation, or change programmes Leadership conferences centred on team performance and organisational resilience Boards and executive committees examining risk, accountability, and decision-making frameworks Audience outcomes A specific diagnostic framework for understanding why high-performing teams fail from within, not from outside Practical analysis of how ego, competition, and communication breakdown manifest under pressure, and how to interrupt those patterns A case-study model for adapting ambitious plans when execution meets an unpredictable environment A reframed understanding of organisational risk: internal dynamics as a primary variable, not just external conditions Greater clarity on what leadership under genuine uncertainty looks and feels like, drawn from real decisions with irreversible consequences

Why organisations work with Barbara Oakley Her “focused mode/diffuse mode” framework gives L&D teams a named, neuroscience-backed model for redesigning how training is structured, not just what it covers. It establishes that structured recovery and retrieval practice matter as much as instruction time, a claim with direct implications for how organisations budget and sequence learning investment. “Learning How to Learn,” co-created with Salk Institute neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski, has been taken by over 4 million people on Coursera. That scale of real-world adoption gives her frameworks empirical grounding that no controlled study can fully replicate. Her personal trajectory from U.S. Army linguist to engineering professor, achieved through deliberate adult retraining, is the primary evidence for her central argument that capability can be built at any career stage. For organisations running reskilling programmes, that is more persuasive than theory from a researcher who has never made the journey themselves. “A Mind for Numbers” (Penguin, 2014), a New York Times bestseller translated into 13 languages with over 1 million copies sold, means her frameworks already have traction well beyond corporate learning circles. Audiences often arrive familiar with her work, reducing the credibility gap that typically slows training adoption. The 2023 Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education, administered through the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education and widely considered the field’s most prestigious award, recognised Oakley as the inaugural winner in a new Lifelong Learning category – independent confirmation that her contribution to continuous capability development is field-defining. Biography highlights Distinguished Professor of Engineering, Oakland University; Ramón y Cajal Distinguished Scholar of Global Digital Learning, McMaster University Inaugural winner of the 2023 Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education (Lifelong Learning category), administered through the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education Co-creator (with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski, Salk Institute) of “Learning How to Learn” on Coursera – over 4 million enrolled, one of the most widely taken courses in the history of online education Author of “A Mind for Numbers” (Penguin, 2014), a New York Times bestselling science book translated into 13 languages with over 1 million copies sold; subsequent titles include “Mindshift” (2017), “Uncommon Sense Teaching” (2021), and “Learn Like a Pro” (2021) Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal; Michigan Distinguished Professor of the Year (2018) Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering; Coursera’s inaugural “Innovation Instructor” Former U.S. Army Captain; recognised as Distinguished Military Scholar Biography In 2014, a Coursera course called “Learning How to Learn” attracted over 300,000 students in its first three runs. It now has over 4 million enrolled, making it one of the most widely taken courses in the history of online education. That appetite reflects a gap most organisational training does not close: a practical understanding of how capability is actually built. Barbara Oakley created that course with neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute. She came to the research through direct experience: a former U.S. Army Captain trained as a linguist, she retaught herself mathematics and engineering entirely as an adult. Her own career transition is the most direct demonstration of her central argument – that capability is genuinely malleable, and that the brain can acquire new domains of expertise at any career stage. Her “focused mode/diffuse mode” framework, named in “A Mind for Numbers” (Penguin, 2014), gives organisations a practical model for how concentration, structured recovery, and retrieval interact in the learning process. The book reached New York Times bestseller status and has been translated into 13 languages. Subsequent titles including “Mindshift,” “Uncommon Sense Teaching,” and “Learn Like a Pro” extend the framework into career reinvention, teaching design, and AI-era learning. In 2023, she received the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Prize in Education, the most prestigious award in the field, as inaugural winner in a newly created Lifelong Learning category. She is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Oakland University and holds a concurrent appointment as Ramón y Cajal Distinguished Scholar of Global Digital Learning at McMaster University. Key speaking topics The neuroscience of effective learning and skill retention Workforce reskilling and adult capability development Learning frameworks for the age of AI Building organisational learning culture Career reinvention and professional mindset The science of effective training design Cognitive performance and focus at work Ideal for CHROs and L&D directors designing or auditing workforce capability programmes CEOs and executive teams navigating AI-driven workforce transition and reskilling investment Corporate universities and internal learning academies benchmarking training effectiveness Boards and transformation leads sponsoring large-scale reskilling or career transition initiatives Audience outcomes A named neuroscience framework (focused vs. diffuse mode) for understanding how attention, structured recovery, and retrieval interact in the learning process Evidence-based techniques (retrieval practice, spaced repetition, the Pomodoro method) that individuals and teams can apply immediately to improve learning retention A reframe of learning ability from fixed trait to trainable skill, with direct implications for how organisations identify, develop, and retain talent Clarity on why conventional training approaches consistently underdeliver, and what research-supported alternatives look like in practice A grounded argument for why adult capability development is achievable at any career stage, drawn from both neuroscience and the speaker’s own documented transition

Why organisations work with Anna Watkins Her credentials are rare in combination: Olympic gold in the double sculls with Katherine Grainger, a PhD in applied mathematics, and a consulting role at McKinsey. Senior audiences take the performance argument seriously because she can defend it with data. The double sculls is a two-person boat where partnership quality determines the outcome, which gives her a first-hand perspective on the specific dynamics of co-leadership, founder pairs, CEO-CFO partnerships and any two-person high-stakes team. As a Cambridge Natural Sciences graduate who came late to her sport, fast-tracked through the World Class Start programme, her story speaks directly to the experience of people being asked to operate at a level they were not originally trained for. Her post-sport work as a data scientist and consultant means she speaks to corporate audiences in their own vocabulary rather than asking them to translate sporting metaphors into a business context. She has earned her platform on DEI topics through substantive work, as a Founding Patron of the Women’s Sport Trust and a former director of the British Athletes Commission, rather than from an athletic profile alone. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, women’s double sculls, London 2012, with Katherine Grainger; Olympic record in the semi-final Olympic bronze medallist, double sculls, Beijing 2008; World Champion 2010 and 2011 Appointed MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to rowing PhD in Applied Mathematics, University of Reading; Natural Sciences at Newnham College, Cambridge Data scientist and consultant at McKinsey, advising engineering firms and sports teams on analytics Founding Patron of the Women’s Sport Trust; former director of the British Athletes Commission Biography Two people in a boat, three years unbeaten, one Olympic record set in the semi-final of the London 2012 women’s double sculls. Anna Watkins won gold in that final with Katherine Grainger, having also taken bronze in Beijing four years earlier. The sport is the headline, but the reason she works as a speaker is that the performance story is backed by academic and commercial credentials that sport-to-business speakers rarely carry. She came to rowing late, picking it up recreationally in 2001 as a Natural Sciences undergraduate at Newnham College, Cambridge, and was fast-tracked into the national team through the World Class Start programme. A decade of international rowing produced two Olympic medals, two world titles, and two World Rowing Crew of the Year awards with Grainger. The MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours followed for services to the sport. Her second career is quantitative. A PhD in Applied Mathematics at the University of Reading led into a role at McKinsey as a data scientist and consultant, working with engineering firms and sports teams on analytics strategy. That work informs how she speaks to corporate audiences. The sessions are structured around the mechanics of how elite performance is actually produced, including selection, training load, partnership dynamics and the role of data in decision-making, rather than the metaphor-heavy stories most sporting speakers rely on. The DEI and governance work sits alongside. She is a Founding Patron of the Women’s Sport Trust, a former director of the British Athletes Commission, and holds honorary doctorates from Keele and Staffordshire and an honorary fellowship from Reading. For leadership teams looking at high-stakes partnerships, sustained performance or the credible use of data, Watkins brings the unusual combination of a room that believes her medal and a speaker who can also defend the maths. Key speaking topics Peak performance and sustaining excellence over time Partnership dynamics in two- and three-person high-stakes teams Data, analytics and judgment under pressure Coming back from injury, setback and loss of form Women in elite sport and leadership Translating elite-sport disciplines into corporate performance Ideal for CEOs, executive teams and senior leadership groups focused on sustained performance rather than first-time breakthroughs Founder and co-CEO pairs and other two-person leadership partnerships under commercial pressure Leadership programmes, off-sites and all-hands where an evidence-based peak performance voice is required DEI, women-in-leadership and sport-business audiences looking for a speaker with governance credentials as well as a medal Audience outcomes A concrete view of what actually produces elite performance, from selection through training to partnership design Specific lessons on the mechanics of a high-performing two-person team and how they apply to CEO-CFO, founder and co-leader partnerships A more rigorous framing of how analytics inform rather than replace judgment under pressure Reference points from elite rowing, McKinsey client work and named corporate audiences including Visa, Nationwide, Siemens and the NHS

Why organisations work with Amy Williams She won Britain’s only medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics by 0.56 seconds, in a sport she had taken up eight years earlier, which gives her a concrete account of building elite performance from a standing start that boards and sales leaders respond to. Her book “Talent to Triumph” draws on Dame Sarah Storey, Helen Glover, Colin Jackson, Ellie Simmonds, Rebecca Adlington and Professor Greg Whyte, so the material she brings into corporate rooms is a composite view of how performance is actually built, not a single medal story. She works fluently across BBC commentary, “Ski Sunday” presenting and Channel 5’s “The Gadget Show”, which makes her a reliable booking for events that need a keynote and a host in the same person. The subject she owns is preparation and composure in short execution windows, which translates directly into board, sales kick-off and transformation settings where the moment to perform is finite. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, women’s skeleton, Vancouver 2010, winning margin 0.56 seconds. MBE, 2010 Queen’s Birthday Honours; first female Honorary Freeman of the City of Bath. Author of “Talent to Triumph: How Athletes Turn Potential into High Performance”, Sequoia Books, 2021. BBC skeleton and bobsleigh commentator; co-presenter of BBC Two’s “Ski Sunday” since 2013. Presenter of Channel 5’s “The Gadget Show” since 2014. Honorary Doctorate of Laws, University of Bath, 2017; first Ambassador of the Dame Kelly Holmes Trust, 2019. Biography The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics produced a single British medal. Amy Williams took it, winning women’s skeleton by 0.56 seconds and becoming the first British solo Winter Olympic champion for three decades. She had switched from 400-metre running to skeleton at the University of Bath only eight years earlier, after shin splints ended her track career. Williams retired in 2012 with a ruptured knee and a slipped disc from the ice at Altenberg. What followed was a deliberate second career. She moved into BBC commentary on skeleton and bobsleigh, joined “Ski Sunday” as co-presenter in 2013 and took over as a presenter on Channel 5’s “The Gadget Show” in 2014. That record matters to conference organisers, because it means she is comfortable holding a room and an autocue, not only telling a medal story. In 2021 she published “Talent to Triumph” with Sequoia Books, a working manual on how elite performers turn ability into results. The book pulls in Dame Sarah Storey, Helen Glover, Colin Jackson, Ellie Simmonds, Rebecca Adlington, Jade Jones and Professor Greg Whyte, which is why the material she brings to corporate audiences sounds less like a sporting autobiography and more like a composite view of what high performance requires. The through line for leadership audiences is specific. Skeleton is a sport where preparation runs for years, the run lasts around a minute, and the result is public. That is the shape of most executive moments that matter, and it is the frame Williams uses when she walks a board or a sales team through how composure, marginal gains and trained resilience hold up when the window to execute is short. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery from setback Preparation and discipline under pressure Marginal gains and incremental performance Mindset and confidence in high-stakes moments Team dynamics behind individual performance Olympic-standard goal setting After-dinner speaking and event hosting Ideal for Sales kick-offs and annual conferences that need a performance narrative alongside a keynote host. CHROs and talent leaders running leadership development or high-potential programmes built around resilience. Transformation and change teams about to enter a short, visible execution window. Boards and executive committees looking for an outside voice on composure under public scrutiny. Audience outcomes A concrete account of how elite performers build composure into training, not only into mindset. Specific language for marginal gains drawn from Olympic skeleton preparation, not from cliche. A sharper read on the difference between motivation, which fluctuates, and trained discipline, which holds. Stories drawn from named athletes and coaches in “Talent to Triumph” that leaders can repurpose inside their own teams.

Why organisations work with Dr Alison Edgar MBE The intrapreneurship methodology addresses a specific organisational failure: talent hired to think and then trained to execute. It gives teams ownership inside the existing structure without asking for a reorg. Operator before author. She built her career inside Yell during the Yellow Pages collapse, founded her own training business in 2011, and advises UK government on small business policy. The frameworks on stage were built for a business she was running at the time. The work sits in the mechanics of accountability. The Intrapreneur Mindset and her Big Balls® prioritisation framework give managers a shared language for ownership and follow-through that outlasts the keynote. Designed to land in mixed rooms. Leaders, managers, and front-line teams leave a session with the same vocabulary and the same expectations, which matters when a change programme needs to move through every layer of the business. The back-story does work that a CV can’t. Clydebank council flat, undiagnosed dyslexia, no school qualifications, MBE in 2020, honorary doctorate in education from Bournemouth University in 2024. Senior leaders and front-line staff end up listening to the same talk for different reasons. Biography highlights Founder and Managing Director of SMASH IT!® Training. Appointed MBE in 2020 for services to small business. Awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Education by Bournemouth University, 2024. Author of Secrets of Successful Sales (WHSmith Top Ten business book; named by The Independent in 2019 among the top business books written by a woman) and SMASH IT! The Art of Getting What YOU Want. Named one of the UK’s Top 10 Business Advisers by Enterprise Nation; TEDx speaker; business expert on The Apprentice: Unfinished Business; regular contributor to BBC Breakfast and BBC Radio. Clients include Sky, Discovery Channel, EasyJet, the NHS, the European Commission, Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy, CBRE, Specsavers, Currys, St James’s Place, Porsche and Renault. Biography Most change programmes are written to land in the boardroom. The work of making them stick sits three layers below, in the everyday decisions that keep standards consistent when the strategy slides have been filed away. That gap is where Alison Edgar does her work. SMASH IT!® Training was founded after twenty-five years in corporate sales at BT and Yell. The Yell years were the formative ones. She watched Yellow Pages, once a fixture in almost every UK home, lose its market because the leadership chose not to react to Google. Before that came an earlier career managing hotels in Cape Town and Sydney. The training business grew into something broader than sales. At the centre of the work today is the Intrapreneur Mindset: Edgar’s term for what it looks like when employees think and decide like owners inside a large organisation. The Big Balls® framework sits alongside it, giving managers a prioritisation language for work that all feels equally urgent. Clients include Sky, Discovery Channel, EasyJet, the NHS, the European Commission and Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy. The credibility behind the frameworks is unusually well-documented. She was named one of the UK’s Top 10 Business Advisers by Enterprise Nation, appointed MBE in 2020 for services to small business, and awarded an honorary doctorate in education by Bournemouth University in 2024. Two books sit on the record: Secrets of Successful Sales, named by The Independent in 2019 among the top business books written by a woman, and SMASH IT! The Art of Getting What YOU Want. She is a regular BBC contributor, including as a business expert on The Apprentice: Unfinished Business, and is quoted across The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Sunday Times. The practical test of any speaker for a serious organisation is what survives the following Monday. Alison Edgar is booked repeatedly by Sky, the NHS and the European Commission because the language she gives a room keeps showing up in meetings weeks later. Key speaking topics Leadership accountability Leading change and change fatigue Intrapreneurship and ownership culture Standards and everyday execution Customer experience and service culture High-performance teams Sales leadership and commercial behaviour Ideal for Senior leaders accountable for consistent performance across transformation programmes. CHROs and CPOs building accountability and standards in hybrid or multi-site organisations. Commercial and sales leaders looking to raise conversion through team behaviour without expanding headcount. Organisations running large all-hands or leadership off-sites where the same message needs to reach the C-suite and the front line. Audience outcomes A working definition of accountability that lives in everyday behaviour and survives the next restructure. The Big Balls® prioritisation framework applied to real work, so teams stop treating every task as equally urgent. A shared language across leaders, managers and front-line staff for ownership and consistent standards. Intrapreneurship tools that let employees act like owners inside the existing structure. Language and tools for handling change fatigue, including what to do when a team has already checked out of the next transformation.