Peak Performance speakers

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.

Why organisations work with Álvaro Vizcaíno His central argument is specific and counterintuitive: fear is not an obstacle to performance but navigational data – a claim developed through post-event academic training in transpersonal psychology and Gestalt, which separates it from generic adversity narratives. The survival event underpinning his work is independently documented – recorded on IMDB, covered on Wikipedia, and dramatised in a Netflix feature film directed by Hugo Stuven – giving his framework an evidential base that most speakers on resilience cannot offer. El miedo es tu maestro, published by Ediciones Urano, translates the methodology into ten concrete keys, giving organisations a structured reference that outlasts the event itself. His live sessions include a participative, practical phase in which attendees apply the framework to their own context in the room – not a retrospective reflection exercise, but a live rehearsal of the method. He operates bilingually in Spanish and English, with verified client engagements including Vodafone Spain, Danone, and Mercedes Benz – directly relevant for multinational organisations running leadership events across European and Latin American markets. Biography highlights Real-life subject of Solo (2018), a Spanish drama film directed by Hugo Stuven, distributed by Filmax and available on Netflix, based on his 2014 survival ordeal in Fuerteventura Author of El miedo es tu maestro (Fear Is Your Master: 10 Keys to Convert Your Worries into Strengths), published by Ediciones Urano Formal academic training in transpersonal psychology, Gestalt, and coaching – undertaken following the 2014 accident Background in psychology and business administration; founded an e-commerce agency and operated hotels in the Canary Islands Client engagements include Vodafone Spain, Danone, Mercedes Benz, and BNI Bilingual speaker in Spanish and English Biography Fear is the emotion organisations are least equipped to use well. Leaders who freeze during a restructuring, teams that stall at the first sign of strategic collapse – these are not failures of training. They are failures of framework: nobody has shown them that fear, handled correctly, is information. Álvaro Vizcaíno came to this argument through necessity. In September 2014, a cliff fall on the Fuerteventura coast left him immobilised and alone – fractured hip, no food or water, no certainty of rescue. He survived approximately 48 hours before being found. The experience did not simply give him a story. It prompted a formal investigation: he subsequently trained in transpersonal psychology, Gestalt, and coaching to understand what had actually happened in his mind during those two days. That research produced a methodology and a book. El miedo es tu maestro (Fear Is Your Master), published by Ediciones Urano, sets out ten keys for converting fear from a paralysing force into a practical decision-making tool. The survival story behind it is independently documented in Solo (2018), a Spanish feature film directed by Hugo Stuven and available on Netflix – giving his framework a cultural reference point that most speakers in this space cannot claim. He has applied this methodology with organisations including Vodafone Spain, Danone, and Mercedes Benz. Working bilingually in Spanish and English, he is particularly effective for leadership teams navigating significant change across European and Latin American markets. Key speaking topics Fear as a decision-making tool Resilience under extreme pressure Adaptability and change management Personal and collective responsibility Leadership performance in crisis Mindset and psychological discipline under uncertainty Entrepreneurship and overcoming adversity Ideal for Leadership teams preparing for or navigating significant organisational change CHROs and people directors focused on workforce resilience and performance under pressure Sales, commercial, and operational teams in high-stakes, high-uncertainty environments Spanish-language or bilingual corporate events across European and Latin American markets Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of fear as a source of navigational information, not a signal to retreat or suppress A practical three-step method for maintaining direction and making decisions when certainty disappears Clearer insight into the relationship between personal responsibility and collective performance under pressure Greater awareness of the specific mental habits that distinguish functional from dysfunctional responses to organisational crisis A shared, memorable reference point – drawn from an independently documented survival event – that teams can apply and return to beyond the event itself

Why organisations work with Amanda Hamilton A clinical nutrition practitioner who can hold a corporate audience. The combination of qualified therapist credentials and 25 years of mainstream BBC presenting is what allows her to land technical content on gut health, fasting and longevity without losing the room. Genuine subject authority on women’s mid-life health, an area most wellbeing programmes underserve. The Women’s Reset programme is built specifically around women aged 40+, the cohort employers are most often losing. A bestselling thesis on the gut-health-and-weight relationship, The G Plan Diet, that pre-dated the mainstream gut microbiome conversation and is still in print. Practical, non-dogmatic translation of biohacking, fasting and longevity science. Audiences leave with things they can actually do on Monday, not a manifesto. Biography highlights Nutritional therapist with 25+ years’ practice; member of the British Association of Nutritional Therapists and associate member of the Royal Society of Medicine. Co-host of the BBC’s Something for the Weekend with Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer, and presenter on How to Live Longer, The Truth About… and The Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses. Author of The G Plan Diet (2017, with Hannah Ebelthite), Eat, Fast, Slim (Watkins, 2013), Life-Changing Weight Loss (Piatkus, 2008) and LifeDetox (Piatkus, 2007). Founder of The Women’s Reset, an app-based programme on nutrition, exercise, mindset and healthcare for women aged 40+. Currently pursuing an MSc in Obesity Science at Robert Gordon University. Past corporate and consulting work spans Marbella Club, MyFitnessPal, Nairns and OakNorth, alongside Harley Street longevity practice. Biography Most corporate wellness content fails the credibility test the moment a clinically literate employee asks a follow-up question. Amanda Hamilton has built a 25-year career on the opposite premise: that workforce audiences will engage seriously with nutrition, longevity and gut health, but only when the speaker can hold the science as well as the room. Her clinical grounding sits with the British Association of Nutritional Therapists and the Royal Society of Medicine, and she is currently pursuing an MSc in Obesity Science at Robert Gordon University. Her broadcast career, including years co-hosting the BBC’s Something for the Weekend and presenting How to Live Longer, taught her how to make that science conversational without watering it down. The G Plan Diet, published in 2017 with Hannah Ebelthite, brought the gut-weight relationship into the mainstream conversation before the microbiome became a wellness category in its own right. Earlier books with Piatkus and Watkins covered fasting, weight loss and detox protocols, work she has since extended through retreats, the Women’s Reset programme for women aged 40+, and Harley Street longevity practice. For corporate audiences this resolves a familiar problem. Wellbeing programmes lose authority when they over-promise; they lose engagement when they under-deliver. She works in the narrow band between clinical caution and practical usefulness, which is why she lands well with mid-life cohorts that have heard the generic version too many times. Key speaking topics Nutrition and gut health Longevity and healthspan Women’s mid-life health and menopause Corporate wellbeing and workforce vitality Fasting and metabolic health Biohacking and human optimisation Ideal for Heads of HR, reward and benefits, and wellbeing leads designing or refreshing employee health programmes Companies focused on retaining and supporting women aged 40+, including senior female talent Health, hospitality and wellness brands seeking a clinically credible voice on consumer-facing nutrition Audience outcomes A clearer view of which workplace health interventions are evidence-backed and which are not A practical understanding of how nutrition, sleep and fasting protocols affect energy and performance A more informed conversation about women’s mid-life health that goes beyond menopause headlines Specific, lifestyle-level changes employees can apply without needing a clinical referral

Why organisations work with Amna Al Qubaisi A first-of-kind credential that is current, not historical. Active seat in F1 Academy with MP Motorsport, Red Bull Academy Programme driver representing Visa Cash App RB, and the first Arab female driver inside the Porsche AG Talent Pool Asia. A concrete Gulf-region story for DEI programmes that usually default to Western examples. Useful for EMEA, Asia-Pacific and global HQs with Middle East operations. Insider experience of two manufacturer-backed talent systems, Red Bull and Porsche, which gives her specific material on how elite performance cultures identify, develop and retain outliers. Works in English and Arabic, which makes her directly usable for Gulf corporate, public-sector and sponsor-activation programming around regional race weekends. Biography highlights First Emirati woman to compete in international single-seater racing. Italian F4 Championship with Prema Powerteam, 2018. First Arab woman to win a Formula 4 race. F4 UAE Trophy Round, Yas Marina Circuit, 2019. Two seasons in F1 Academy with MP Motorsport. Sixth overall in 2023 with race wins at Spielberg and Barcelona. Red Bull Academy Programme driver from 2024, representing Visa Cash App RB. First Arab and first Arab female driver in the Porsche AG Talent Pool Asia. Pro class seat with Team Jebsen, Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, 2026. Rookie test with Envision Virgin Racing in Formula E at Diriyah. Biography Single-seater racing is one of the most closed performance cultures in professional sport. Entry depends on manufacturer backing, sponsor networks and a family record, and the pathway has historically routed through a small set of European karting circuits. The Italian F4 grid at Prema Powerteam in 2018 included the first Emirati woman ever to compete internationally in the format, Amna Al Qubaisi. What followed has not been a career of ceremonial firsts. Two seasons in F1 Academy with MP Motorsport. Sixth overall in the inaugural 2023 season with wins at Spielberg and Barcelona. Selection in 2024 by the Red Bull Academy Programme, representing Visa Cash App RB, with access to the team’s UK simulator and performance staff. A Formula E rookie test at Diriyah with Envision Virgin Racing. The 2026 seat in the Pro class of Porsche Carrera Cup Asia with Team Jebsen, as the first Arab female driver inside the Porsche AG Talent Pool Asia, puts her inside a factory development structure with defined routes into GT and prototype racing. That is the point worth noticing for a corporate audience. Her record is a sequence of places earned inside working manufacturer systems, on the criteria applied to every other driver in the pool. For organisations working on representation in performance-led functions, trading, engineering, surgery, investment, the useful content is not that she made it. It is what the system around her did, and did not do, to let her compete on equal terms. Key speaking topics Women in elite motorsport Representation inside closed performance cultures High-pressure execution and race-weekend preparation Manufacturer and team development pathways Gulf-region leadership and role-model narratives Careers for young women in STEM and engineering Ideal for DEI, talent and employee resource group programmes looking for a non-Western role-model case study Leadership offsites in performance-led functions: trading, engineering, medicine, investment Corporate partner and sponsor events in automotive, sports and luxury brand portfolios Women-in-STEM summits and graduate programmes across EMEA and Asia-Pacific Audience outcomes A direct account of how a closed talent system admits an outsider, and what the outsider has to do to stay admitted A Gulf-region reference point for representation conversations that usually default to Europe or North America An inside view of how Red Bull and Porsche identify and develop young performers A sense of what role-modelling looks like when the person doing it is still competing, not looking back

Why organisations work with Amy Purdy She offers a first-hand account of performance under permanent constraint that senior leaders recognise as substantive, not motivational filler. She has changed the rules of her own sport: co-founded Adaptive Action Sports in 2005 and was central to adding Para snowboarding to the 2014 Paralympic programme, a concrete example of building a category where none existed. Her book “On My Own Two Feet” (William Morrow, 2014) sits on New York Times bestseller shelves and gives her argument a durable reference point buyers can hand to executives before or after a session. She holds audiences that include mainstream corporate, healthcare, and sport: Dancing with the Stars finalist, TED speaker, Toyota Super Bowl commercial subject, which means she is legible to wide leadership groups. Her content translates directly to questions boards are actually asking: how to keep teams performing through sustained uncertainty, and how to lead when the original plan is no longer available. Biography highlights Three-time Paralympic medallist in Para snowboarding: bronze, Sochi 2014; silver and bronze, PyeongChang 2018. Co-founder, Adaptive Action Sports (2005), a 501(c)(3) based at Copper Mountain, Colorado. Author, “On My Own Two Feet: From Losing My Legs to Learning the Dance of Life” (William Morrow, 2014), New York Times bestseller. TED speaker, “Living Beyond Limits” (TEDxOrangeCoast, published on TED.com). Finalist, ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, Season 18 (2014); contestant, CBS’s The Amazing Race (2012). Featured in a Toyota Super Bowl commercial and on Oprah Winfrey’s The Life You Want Tour. Biography At nineteen, a case of bacterial meningitis took Amy Purdy’s legs below the knee, her spleen, and the function of both kidneys. A transplanted kidney from her father kept her alive. Within two years she was back on a snowboard. Within a decade she was on the Paralympic podium. The athletic record is specific. Three Paralympic medals across two Games: bronze at Sochi in 2014 and silver and bronze at PyeongChang in 2018, all in snowboard disciplines she helped argue into existence. In 2005, with Daniel Gale, she co-founded Adaptive Action Sports, the organisation that did much of the quiet work to get Para snowboarding onto the 2014 Paralympic programme. Changing the rules of a sport is a rarer credential than winning inside them. The communication record sits alongside the athletic one. “On My Own Two Feet,” published by William Morrow in 2014 and co-written with Michelle Burford, became a New York Times bestseller and remains her primary reference text. The TEDxOrangeCoast talk “Living Beyond Limits” travelled from conference room to the main TED library. A finalist run on Dancing with the Stars, a Toyota Super Bowl commercial and a place on Oprah Winfrey’s The Life You Want Tour followed, each adding a different audience to her reach. What she offers a corporate room is narrower and more useful than the biography suggests. Her argument is about operating when the original plan has been cancelled: recovering quickly, finding the next move, keeping a team moving while the ground is still shifting. It is a working account of constraint. For leaders building organisations that have to hold together through uncertainty, that is a reference worth hearing directly. Key speaking topics Resilience as a working practice Leading through setback and reinvention Performance under constraint Purpose and reinvention after disruption Category creation and changing the rules of a system High performance in endurance and sport Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and CEO forums focused on resilience, reinvention, and leading through sustained uncertainty. Healthcare, life sciences and patient-facing organisations where the lived-experience dimension carries commercial and cultural weight. Sales kick-offs and all-hands moments that need a serious anchor point rather than generic motivation. Diversity, inclusion and talent events where disability, advocacy, and category creation are part of the conversation. Audience outcomes A sharper working definition of resilience that leaders can apply to their own teams, not just admire in others. A concrete model for operating when the original plan has been removed and a new one has to be built under time pressure. A reference example of building a category (a sport, a product, a business line) where none previously existed. Renewed clarity about the relationship between personal setback and professional performance, useful for high-stakes leadership transitions. Language and framing senior leaders can reuse with their own people after the session ends.

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 Andre Agassi He has a documented, named comeback, world No. 141 in 1997 to world No. 1 in 1999, which gives leadership audiences a specific case study in rebuilding after public failure rather than a generic resilience message. He is one of nine men in history to complete a career Grand Slam, a credential that carries instant authority with sales, sports, and executive audiences without requiring any further framing. His second act is operational, not ceremonial. The Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund has developed more than 120 school buildings, which gives him genuine standing on scaling mission-led ventures, not just philanthropy as biography. Open, his memoir written with J.R. Moehringer, is a No. 1 New York Times bestseller treated seriously by literary critics, which signals the reflective honesty leadership audiences expect from a keynote on reinvention. He is one of very few speakers who can hold a corporate leadership room, a sales conference, and an education forum with equal credibility, because each credential is independently verifiable. Biography highlights Eight Grand Slam singles titles across the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open, and a career Grand Slam completed in 1999. Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and member of three winning United States Davis Cup teams. 60 ATP singles titles, 101 weeks at world No. 1, and year-end No. 1 in 1999. Inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2011. Founder of the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education, which has raised over $180 million, and the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in West Las Vegas. Co-founder with Bobby Turner of the Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund, a real estate vehicle that has financed more than 120 charter school facilities. Author of Open: An Autobiography, a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Biography In 1997, the player who had won Wimbledon five years earlier was ranked No. 141 in the world. Two years later he won the French Open, completed the career Grand Slam, and finished the season as world No. 1. That arc is the reason serious leadership audiences listen to Andre Agassi. The eight Grand Slam titles, the 1996 Olympic gold, the 101 weeks at No. 1, and the 2011 induction into the International Tennis Hall of Fame are the headline credentials. What makes them useful in a boardroom is the honesty about what the comeback cost. Open, written with Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer and a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, is the public record of that reckoning, treated by reviewers as a serious memoir rather than a sports book. His operating work has held up to the same scrutiny. The Andre Agassi Foundation for Education, founded in 1994, has raised over $180 million and anchors the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in West Las Vegas. With investor Bobby Turner, he built the Turner-Agassi Charter School Facilities Fund, a real estate platform that has developed more than 120 charter school buildings serving tens of thousands of students. He is also a board member and investor in Square Panda, an early-literacy education technology company. For a senior audience, the value is the combination. Elite performance credentialed at the highest level, a comeback story that is specific rather than mythologised, and a post-career record built through institutional vehicles that other operators take seriously. A leader preparing for a period of pressure, transition, or public reinvention gets a case study, not a speech. Key speaking topics Performance under sustained public pressure Reinvention after a public setback Leadership through career transition Legacy and second-act ventures Scaling mission-led organisations Education reform and philanthropy at institutional scale Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and CEO forums working through a public reinvention or strategic reset Sales kickoffs and top-performer conferences where the brief is sustained performance under scrutiny Board and philanthropy events focused on legacy, second-act ventures, and mission-driven capital Education sector gatherings on charter school scaling, early literacy, and philanthropic models Audience outcomes A specific, named case study of rebuilding elite performance after public failure, drawn from the 1997 to 1999 comeback. A clear view of what separates a mythologised comeback story from a real operational reset, and what leaders can borrow from each. A working model for how a high-profile career transitions into institutional operating work, using the Agassi Foundation and Turner-Agassi fund as reference points. Renewed clarity on how personal authenticity, honestly examined in Open, functions as a leadership asset rather than a liability.

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

Why organisations work with Andreas Kuffner He has lived the precise problem most leadership teams describe in abstract terms: eight people, one boat, no room for individual heroics, sixteen years of preparation collapsing or holding in a six-minute window. That is the case he draws on, not a metaphor for it. He pairs that experience with a formal systemic coaching practice (ECA-certified) and a master’s in business engineering, so the language he uses with executives is operational, not inspirational. He works inside corporate change programmes at Allianz, Bayer, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, Nestle and PwC, advising on team coherence and resilience rather than delivering one-off motivational sets. His framing of resilience is specific: coherence between meaning, self-efficacy and belonging, sustained when results stop confirming the strategy. That is a working model leaders can act on, not a slogan. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, men’s eight, London 2012, ending a 24-year German drought in the event Olympic silver medallist, men’s eight, Rio 2016 World champion, men’s eight, Bled 2011; European champion 2014 Recipient of the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt, Germany’s highest sporting honour, awarded twice Certified systemic personal and business coach (European Coaching Association) Master’s degree in business engineering, completed while competing at elite level Advises corporate clients including Allianz, Bayer, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, Nestle and PwC Biography The German eight had not won Olympic gold for 24 years before the crew Kuffner rowed in took the title in London in 2012. Four years later, the same boat took silver in Rio. The interesting fact is not the medal count. It is what an eight-person crew has to do, technically and psychologically, to put six minutes of synchronised output on the water when one micro-deviation ends the race. That problem is closer to what senior leadership teams face than the usual sports-keynote framing suggests. Coherence under pressure is a measurable thing, not a mood. It can be designed, rehearsed and rebuilt when it breaks. Kuffner spent 16 years inside that discipline at the highest level, and he now works with corporate teams on the same mechanics. His credentials outside the boat matter for that reason. A master’s degree in business engineering, completed alongside Olympic training. Certification as a systemic personal and business coach through the European Coaching Association. Active consulting work with Allianz, Bayer, Daimler, Deutsche Bank, Lufthansa, Nestle and PwC on team development, change and resilience. The vocabulary is operational, and the engagements run beyond the stage. What he offers a leadership team is a working language for performance that does not collapse the first time results turn against the strategy. Resilience as a structural property of how a team is held together, not a personal virtue. That is the conversation a boardroom needs when the next quarter looks harder than the last. Key speaking topics Resilience and team coherence under sustained pressure High-performance team development Leadership through change and setback Composure and decision-making in elite environments Building trust and collective discipline in senior teams Corporate culture and value creation Ideal for Executive committees and senior leadership teams navigating restructure or sustained performance pressure CHROs and people leaders rebuilding team trust after acquisition, reorganisation or repeated change cycles Boards and operating committees seeking a working model of team coherence rather than a motivational input Audience outcomes A specific working model of team coherence drawn from elite rowing and applied to corporate operating teams A clearer view of resilience as a structural condition of the team, not a personality trait of its members Concrete language for how meaning, self-efficacy and belonging hold performance together when results turn A frame for distinguishing motivation from discipline in how leaders respond to setbacks

Why organisations work with Andrew Bannon The Self-Developer philosophy is structurally unavailable elsewhere in English: Bannon holds sole authorisation from its creator, Jens Corssen, making this engagement genuinely exclusive rather than merely differentiated from comparable self-leadership speakers. He addresses the specific failure point that most leadership development misses – the gap between insight and habitual behaviour – using a named, four-tool framework that leaders can apply immediately and return to independently. His delivery in both English and German makes him one of very few speakers able to bring rigorous self-leadership content consistently to DACH and internationally operating European organisations without dilution across language boundaries. His position on the CAS Senior Management Programme at the University of St. Gallen signals that the methodology meets the expectations of senior executive audiences – not a motivation seminar, but a substantive leadership development intervention. Engagements leave teams with a shared internal language – the four Self-Developer tools – which makes individual behavioural development operational at team and leadership cohort level. Biography highlights Sole globally authorised trainer to teach Jens Corssen’s Self-Developer philosophy; holds personal certification from Corssen active since 2013 Lecturer on the CAS Senior Management Programme, University of St. Gallen (Institute of Business Administration, IFB-HSG) MSc in Coaching for Behavioural Change, Henley Business School / University of Reading BA in Economics, University of Surrey Corporate delivery for Siemens, Bosch, Hilti, Lufthansa, Roche, and Lilly Adapted and performed the English-language audiobook The Way of the Self-Developer (co-credited with Jens Corssen, ISBN 9783000435706) Delivers in English and German; Munich-based for over two decades Biography Leadership performance rarely breaks down because leaders lack knowledge. Under sustained pressure – restructuring, fast-paced change, complex stakeholder demands – it breaks down because default behaviour takes over. Reactive patterns replace intentional ones. Avoidance displaces accountability. The Self-Developer philosophy, developed by German psychologist Jens Corssen, was built to address exactly this: a structured four-tool framework for interrupting automatic behaviour and restoring conscious choice. Andrew Bannon is the only trainer globally authorised by Corssen to teach this methodology in English. Since 2013, he has delivered the Self-Developer philosophy to management teams and executive cohorts across Europe – at organisations including Siemens, Bosch, Hilti, Lufthansa, Roche, and Lilly – and as a module lecturer on the CAS Senior Management Programme at the University of St. Gallen. His academic grounding combines economics at the University of Surrey with an MSc in Coaching for Behavioural Change from Henley Business School. The four tools – Self-Awareness, Self-Responsibility, Self-Confidence, and Self-Conquest – give leaders a repeatable internal framework rather than a motivational prompt. Bannon’s specific contribution is making this framework operational for international audiences: he delivers in English and German, brings two decades of experience embedded in German-speaking corporate culture, and adapted the methodology for English-speaking audiences in the audiobook The Way of the Self-Developer, co-credited with Corssen. The methodology has been tested across both open executive education at the University of St. Gallen and deep corporate programmes with global organisations – evidence that it holds across seniority, sector, and language. For leadership cohorts navigating high-pressure periods of change, the Self-Developer tools give behavioural development real operational traction. Key speaking topics Self-leadership and behavioural change The Self-Developer philosophy and four-tool framework Personal accountability in leadership Mindset and inner dialogue under pressure Resilience and self-management Intercultural leadership in European and DACH contexts Growth mindset in organisations Ideal for Senior leaders and C-suite executives navigating organisational change or cultural transformation Leadership development programme participants at upper-management and executive level CHROs and L&D leads seeking behavioural change frameworks that operate across language and cultural contexts Executive education audiences in DACH-region and internationally operating European organisations Audience outcomes A shared language for self-leadership: the four Self-Developer tools (Self-Awareness, Self-Responsibility, Self-Confidence, Self-Conquest) Practical ability to distinguish between objective circumstance and subjective interpretation when under pressure Methods for interrupting reactive behavioural patterns and replacing them with conscious, intentional choice Clearer understanding of how avoidance and procrastination erode leadership confidence over time A repeatable inner framework that supports sustained performance during periods of change and uncertainty

Why organisations work with Sir Andrew Strauss He led England to the world Test No. 1 ranking in 2011, a position the team had not held for three decades, and can speak specifically to what it takes to move a group from mid-table to the top of its field. He has sat on both sides of the performance question: as the captain inside the team, and later as Director of Cricket at the ECB responsible for the system that selects, develops and accounts for that team. His 2022 ECB High Performance Review, convened with Sir Dave Brailsford and Rob Key after the 4-0 Ashes defeat, is a named case study in structural reform of an underperforming elite system. He founded the Ruth Strauss Foundation in 2019 and can speak from experience to leading people and commitments through personal crisis without collapsing the standards he asks of others. Biography highlights 100 Test matches for England, 7,037 runs at an average above 40, 21 Test centuries. England captain in 50 Tests; Ashes winner in 2009 and 2010-11, and architect of England’s rise to world No. 1 in 2011. Director of Cricket, England and Wales Cricket Board, 2015-2018. Chair of the ECB High Performance Review, 2022, with Sir Dave Brailsford and Rob Key on the panel. Knight Bachelor, 2019 Resignation Honours, for services to sport and charity. OBE, 2011. Founder and chair of the Ruth Strauss Foundation, established 2019. Author of Driving Ambition: My Autobiography (Hodder). Biography England were ranked the best Test side in the world in August 2011, for the first time in thirty years. The captain who took them there, over a four-year rebuild, had replaced an injured Michael Vaughan on debut seven years earlier and opened with a century at Lord’s. The gap between those two facts is where the substance of Strauss’s leadership argument sits. The captaincy is the obvious credential: 50 Tests in charge, the 2009 Ashes at home, the 4-0 series win in Australia in 2010-11, the first there in twenty-four years. The less-told part is what happened after the playing career ended. Strauss returned to the England and Wales Cricket Board in 2015 as Director of Cricket, where he was responsible not for one dressing room but for the pipeline, culture and selection architecture behind the national side. That dual perspective, captain inside the system and later the executive above it, sharpened after the 2021-22 Ashes collapse. Strauss chaired the ECB’s High Performance Review, working with Sir Dave Brailsford and Rob Key, and produced recommendations for the structure of domestic cricket intended to reset England’s standing across all three formats. It is a recent, named piece of work on the harder problem leaders actually face: reforming an institution that is failing on its most public measure. The private context matters too. Strauss founded the Ruth Strauss Foundation in 2019 in memory of his wife, who died of a non-smoking lung cancer, and has built it into a significant charity for bereavement support and rare-cancer research. It is the part of the story that gives the leadership material its weight in the room. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Building and rebuilding high-performance team culture Captaincy, accountability and honest feedback Reforming underperforming institutions Decision-making in elite sport Resilience through personal crisis The transition from practitioner to system leader Ideal for CEOs and executive committees managing a performance turnaround or a credibility rebuild Senior leadership offsites focused on team culture, selection and accountability Sales and commercial leadership audiences that operate under repeated public scorecards Boards and HR directors working on succession, captaincy, and leadership development Audience outcomes A working model for how a captain or senior leader holds standards when results are against them. Specific examples from the 2009 and 2010-11 Ashes rebuilds of how team culture was reset. A view from inside the ECB High Performance Review on what reforming an elite system actually requires. Language for talking honestly about pressure, scrutiny and personal loss in a leadership context. A sharper question set for their own team: who owns standards, who gives honest feedback, and who decides when the group is failing.

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