Peak Performance

Why organisations work with James Ketchell His credibility is forensically specific: two verified world firsts – completing what media dubbed the “Ultimate Triathlon” and the first FAI-ratified gyroplane circumnavigation of the globe – give his message about incremental progress a factual foundation that generic resilience content cannot match. The “ten steps at a time” approach he developed on Everest and has applied across five major expeditions gives teams a transferable, named model for breaking complex goals into sustained, manageable action – not a metaphor, but a method he has stress-tested at altitude, at sea, and in the air. His backstory runs in the opposite direction to most adventure speakers: teenage depression, no school qualifications, fired from five jobs, and a motorcycle accident that threatened permanent disability. That starting point makes his message about potential accessible to audiences who do not identify with elite athletic backgrounds. He has spoken at Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, PwC, GSK, eBay, and RBS – organisations that set a high bar for relevance and credibility. His ability to adapt the same core content to military leadership, financial services, and pharma audiences is verified across named client feedback. Biography highlights First and only person to complete the “Ultimate Triathlon”: solo Atlantic row (2010), Everest summit (2011), unsupported 18,000-mile global cycle (2013–14) Guinness World Record holder: first person to circumnavigate the globe in an open-cockpit gyroplane, certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (2019) Winner of the Royal Automobile Club’s Segrave Trophy (2020), awarded for outstanding skill, courage and initiative Author of two books: The Ultimate Triathlon (2016, endorsed by Bear Grylls) and It’s All Mental (2021) UK Scouting Ambassador; ambassador for children’s charity Over The Wall Speaking clients include eBay, PwC, GSK, RBS, and Sandhurst Royal Military Academy Biography James Ketchell is the only person to have rowed solo across the Atlantic, summited Everest, and cycled 18,000 miles around the world – a sequence the media named the “Ultimate Triathlon” – and in 2019 became the first person to fly an open-cockpit gyroplane around the globe, a journey of 24,000 nautical miles in 175 days, ratified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale and recognised by Guinness World Records. The Royal Automobile Club awarded him the Segrave Trophy for the achievement in 2020. None of this was a trajectory anyone predicted. Ketchell left school without qualifications, was fired from five jobs, struggled with depression as a teenager, and in 2008 sustained a motorcycle accident that left him with broken legs, a shattered ankle, and a prognosis of permanent disability. His response to that diagnosis became the architecture of everything that followed: break the goal into the smallest possible steps, prioritise ruthlessly, and keep moving. The principle he articulates most precisely came at 8,000 metres on Everest – the last few hundred metres completed ten steps at a time. That isn’t a metaphor he applies to business; it is a documented method he has used to cross oceans, cycle continents, and fly around the world. His second book, It’s All Mental, makes the case that the obstacles to extraordinary performance are almost never physical. His talks draw on five major expeditions, two mid-ocean rescues, and a recovery from near-permanent disability to give organisations something they rarely get from a speaker: a framework for sustained performance that has been tested at the point of actual failure. The organisations that bring him in – PwC, GSK, eBay, Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, RBS – are not looking for inspiration as an emotion. They are looking for something their teams can use. Ketchell delivers that. Key speaking topics Resilience under extreme pressure Incremental goal-setting and performance Leadership mindset and self-discipline Overcoming adversity and setback Mental toughness and sustained focus Expedition planning and risk management Ideal for Leadership teams and senior executives preparing for significant organisational change or uncertainty CHROs and L&D leads designing resilience and performance programmes Sales, commercial, and operational teams where sustained motivation and goal delivery under pressure is a strategic priority Military, emergency services, and high-stakes professional audiences (Ketchell has a verified track record with Sandhurst) Audience outcomes A named, transferable framework for breaking large or daunting goals into sustained, achievable steps A recalibrated view of setback as structural information rather than failure – drawn from Ketchell’s own documented experience of failed expeditions alongside record-breaking ones Practical language for discussing mental resilience and performance that avoids wellness cliché A reference point for goal prioritisation under resource and time constraints, developed across expeditions where those constraints were life-critical Greater confidence that high performance is method-driven, not talent-dependent

Why organisations work with Howard Webb His concept of «anonymously competent», the trained reflex to seek invisibility rather than make the decisive, visible call, names a leadership trap that senior audiences recognise on first hearing as a live problem in their own organisations – not a sports metaphor, but a precise description of how their institutions reward the wrong behaviour. His career after the pitch, spanning Technical Director at PGMOL, General Manager at the Professional Referee Organization in North America, and now Chief Refereeing Officer at PGMOL, is itself a case study in reforming institutional standards under sustained public pressure. Most sports speakers offer a performing career; Webb offers both. He led the rollout of VAR in North American soccer and returned to England to reform how the Premier League applies the same technology, giving him direct cross-jurisdictional experience in managing the gap between contested innovation and stakeholder trust. Named IFFHS World’s Best Referee in 2010 and 2013, his credentials hold in any boardroom that includes serious sports people, which makes the leadership translation sharper and harder to dismiss. His direct experience of a governance model where every decision is publicly logged, graded, and contested translates to regulated, media-facing organisations where the same conditions increasingly apply to senior leaders. Biography highlights The only referee in history to officiate both the UEFA Champions League Final and the FIFA World Cup Final in the same year (2010) Named IFFHS World’s Best Referee in 2010 and 2013; MBE in the 2011 New Year Honours for services to football First-ever Chief Refereeing Officer, PGMOL (2022), responsible for more than 600 match officials across English professional football Former General Manager, Professional Referee Organization (PRO), leading the match official programme across Major League Soccer and North American football, including the introduction of VAR Approximately 296 Premier League matches as a professional referee (2003-2014); FIFA international referee across nine major tournaments including two FIFA World Cups Former sergeant, South Yorkshire Police; broadcast analyst with BT Sport and ITV Biography Howard Webb became a Premier League referee in 2003 and a FIFA international referee two years later. By 2010, he had officiated both the UEFA Champions League Final and the FIFA World Cup Final in the same year. No referee in the sport’s history had achieved that combination before, or has since. His career after the pitch is equally instructive. As Technical Director at PGMOL and then General Manager of the Professional Referee Organization in North America, Webb led the introduction of VAR across Major League Soccer, managing the institutional resistance, stakeholder scepticism, and communication challenges that accompany contested technological change in any professional environment. His appointment in 2022 as the first-ever Chief Refereeing Officer at PGMOL placed him at the head of a reform programme for more than 600 match officials across the English professional game. Named IFFHS World’s Best Referee in 2010 and 2013 and awarded an MBE in the 2011 New Year Honours, his on-field record gives credibility to the broader argument. His concept of «anonymously competent», the trap of seeking invisibility over decisive action, names a tension that senior leadership audiences recognise immediately in their own organisations. Webb has spoken at forums including the HR Directors Business Summit. The direct parallel is between officiating, where every decision is logged, graded, and publicly contested, and leadership in regulated, media-facing organisations where the same conditions increasingly apply. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Leadership under public scrutiny Accountability and governance in professional organisations High-performance team standards Institutional reform and standards development Technology adoption and stakeholder trust Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite forums in regulated industries including financial services, healthcare, and professional services Boards and governance committees addressing public accountability and decision-making under scrutiny HR and L&D leaders building executive development programmes Sports organisations and governing bodies addressing officiating standards, governance, and reform Audience outcomes A concrete framework for understanding the gap between private competence and public accountability Practical perspective on what it means to make decisive calls when decisions are irreversible and publicly visible Insight into building institutional cultures that sustain performance under contested, public scrutiny A transferable case study in introducing contested technology into a resistant professional community The «anonymously competent» concept as a diagnostic for identifying leadership cultures that reward invisibility over action

Why organisations work with Heinz-Harald Frentzen Ten seasons in Formula One across Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows give him a first-hand account of how winning operations differ from losing ones at the same level of talent and budget. He finished second in the 1997 Drivers’ Championship and third in 1999 with Jordan, in both cases against better-resourced rivals. The lesson he carries into a room is about execution, not hierarchy. His HHF hybrid racing project, which completed the first fully electric lap of the Nordschleife at the 2008 Nurburgring 24 Hours, gives him a credible voice on sustainable engineering as a performance problem, not a compliance one. He is comfortable in both motivational and technical registers, which is unusual for an ex-driver. Engineering and R&D audiences get substance; commercial audiences get the human story behind it. Biography highlights Formula One driver from 1994 to 2003 for Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows. Runner-up in the 1997 Formula One World Drivers’ Championship with Williams. Three Grand Prix wins: San Marino 1997, French 1999 and Italian 1999. Finished third in the 1999 Drivers’ Championship with Jordan on 54 points, with two wins and six podiums. Conceived and built the HHF hybrid race car, which recorded the first electric lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife during the 2008 24 Hours race. Winner of the ROC Legends Cup at the 2011 Race of Champions; raced in DTM from 2004 to 2006 and competed at the 2008 24 Hours of Le Mans with Aston Martin Racing. Biography The 1997 San Marino Grand Prix was Frentzen’s first Formula One victory. It came in his debut season at Williams, against a teammate, Jacques Villeneuve, who would take the title that year. He finished the season second in the championship. It is the decision-making that sits underneath a result like that, not the result itself, that organisations bring him in to talk about. Across a decade in Formula One with Sauber, Williams, Jordan, Prost and Arrows, Frentzen operated inside five different team cultures. Some produced wins with fewer resources. Some did not. His vantage point is not the champion’s, which is often misread as pure individual brilliance. It is the vantage point of a driver who watched up close what separates a team that executes from one that does not. His most distinctive post-racing work is the HHF hybrid project. Using a Gumpert Apollo chassis and a battery system he developed himself, he completed the first fully electric lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife at the 2008 24 Hours, co-driving with Dirk Muller. Gearbox failures kept the car out of the classification, but the hybrid powertrain finished the race. It is one of the earlier serious attempts to treat electrification as a performance engineering problem in endurance racing. That combination of cockpit experience and hands-on technical development is what he draws on now. Audiences get a specific account of how sharp teams make sharp decisions under time pressure, and what it takes to keep a programme moving when the technology, the strategy and the people all have to improve at once. Key speaking topics Decision-making under time pressure High-performance team dynamics Leadership lessons from Formula One Sustainable engineering and hybrid technology Resilience and focus in elite performance Risk, trust and communication in high-stakes environments Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and board awaydays focused on performance culture Engineering, R&D and innovation functions in automotive, mobility and advanced manufacturing Sales kick-offs and annual conferences wanting a credible motorsport voice alongside business content After-dinner and gala audiences where racing pedigree adds weight to the evening Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how elite motorsport teams align driver, engineer and strategist in real time A sharper view of what separates teams that execute under pressure from teams that do not Useable lessons on focus, preparation and trust, grounded in named races and named teams A credible perspective on hybrid and electrified engineering as a performance discipline, not a compliance exercise

Why organisations work with Guillaume Nery He has held four constant weight freediving world records and won the AIDA individual world title in 2011, so the performance authority is earned in a discipline where a lapse in attention has physical consequences. His material on breath work is specific and practical, not metaphorical: audiences leave with techniques he uses himself before a dive to -125 metres. He speaks from the full arc of elite performance, including a career-ending accident in 2015 that forced a public reinvention as a filmmaker and storyteller. His underwater films with Julie Gautier, including Free Fall and One Breath Around the World, have reached tens of millions of viewers and give his talks a visual language most sport speakers do not have. He is a TED main-stage speaker, which most corporate audiences recognise as a filter for delivery quality before the first slide. Biography highlights Four-time AIDA constant weight world record holder, with a personal best of -126m set in Cyprus in 2015. AIDA Individual World Champion, Kalamata, 2011, with a -117m dive. AIDA Team World Champion with the French national freediving team. TED main-stage speaker, “The exhilarating peace of freediving”, 2015. Co-director, with Julie Gautier, of Free Fall, Narcose and One Breath Around the World. Profiled by National Geographic, CNN and South China Morning Post Style. Biography A freediver on a single breath has no second chance to reset. The dive is planned on the surface, executed in silence, and any break in focus on the way down or up carries a real physical cost. Guillaume Nery spent more than a decade operating in that environment at world-championship level. He set his first constant weight world record at 19 and went on to break it three more times, reaching a personal best of -126m in Cyprus. In 2011, in Kalamata, he won the AIDA individual world title on a -117m dive. With the French national team, he added a team world championship. The ending was not clean. At the 2015 world championships in Cyprus the dive line was mis-set, sending him to -139m instead of the planned -129m. He blacked out near the surface, suffered a lung barotrauma and retired from competition. That break point is now part of the talk, not a footnote to it. Since retiring he has worked as a filmmaker with Julie Gautier, producing Free Fall at Dean’s Blue Hole, Narcose and One Breath Around the World. His TED talk on freediving has reached a wide corporate audience. The material he brings to a keynote is grounded in what he actually does before a deep dive: breath work, attention control, and the discipline of staying calm when the margin for error is small. Key speaking topics Breath work and physiological self-regulation Performance under extreme pressure Attention and composure in high-stakes moments Recovery and reinvention after a career-defining setback Elite sport psychology applied to business Visual storytelling and ocean exploration Ideal for Leadership offsites focused on composure and decision quality under pressure Wellbeing, resilience and peak-performance programmes for senior teams Sales, trading and operations groups whose work involves sustained concentration in high-stakes windows Conference main-stage slots that need a visually strong, narrative keynote Audience outcomes A working understanding of how breath directly changes physiological and cognitive state. Specific techniques the speaker uses himself to prepare for extreme performance, translated to a meeting-room context. A reframed view of setbacks, drawn from a public career-ending accident and the reinvention that followed. A visual reference point, from the underwater films, that audiences remember and repeat.

Why organisations work with Erik Weihenmayer A first-hand operating model for making decisions without full visibility, drawn from summiting Everest and kayaking 277 miles of Grand Canyon whitewater rather than from theory A tested argument about rope-team leadership: how trust, role clarity, and communication protocols hold a team together when one member’s judgement has to carry the rest A named framework, the No Barriers Life, backed by a published book and a working nonprofit, not a single keynote built around a single mountain Credibility with audiences who have heard every generic resilience talk, because the proof points are specific, verifiable, and unusual: Everest, the Eight Summits, Leadville 100 on a tandem, Colorado River source to sea Biography highlights First blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, May 25, 2001; featured on the cover of Time magazine that June Completed the Seven Summits in 2002 and the Eight Summits in 2008 with Carstensz Pyramid Kayaked the full 277 miles of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River in 2014 Co-founder of No Barriers USA, serving people with disabilities, veterans, youth, and caregivers Author of “Touch the Top of the World,” published in 9 languages, and co-author of “No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon” with Buddy Levy Recipient of an ESPY Award, Nike’s Casey Martin Award, and the Helen Keller Lifetime Achievement Award Biography The path down Everest is more dangerous than the path up. On the descent in May 2001, Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind climber to summit the mountain, was moving on a rope team whose margin for error had effectively closed. The instruction he had been given by expedition leader Pasquale Scaturro on the way home set the next two decades of his work: do not let Everest be the greatest thing you ever do. What followed was not a sequence of stunts. It was the construction of an argument about how teams operate when the environment does not cooperate. The Seven Summits by 2002, Carstensz Pyramid in 2008, the Leadville 100 mountain bike race on a tandem in 2010, and in 2014 the full 277-mile kayak descent of the Grand Canyon with blinded Navy veteran Lonnie Bedwell. Each expedition is a case study in role assignment, communication discipline, and trust allocation under degraded information. The intellectual output sits alongside the physical one. “Touch the Top of the World” was published in twelve countries and nine languages and became the basis of a documentary that won first prize at 21 international film festivals. “No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon,” co-written with Buddy Levy, took an Honorable Mention at the 2017 National Outdoor Book Awards and a 2018 Colorado Book Awards finalist spot. “The Adversity Advantage,” co-written with Paul Stoltz, moves the same material into an explicit business register. In 2005, Weihenmayer co-founded No Barriers USA, a nonprofit that now works with veterans, youth, people with disabilities, and full-time caregivers. It is where the speaking work connects back to a working practice: the No Barriers Life is not a slogan, it is the operating code the organisation teaches and the argument the book defends. Key speaking topics Decision-making under incomplete information Rope-team leadership and trust allocation The No Barriers Life as an organisational operating code Resilience as a team discipline, not an individual trait Innovation and problem-solving under constraint Inclusive leadership and diverse-ability teams Navigating reinvention after a defining achievement Ideal for Executive teams preparing for high-stakes decisions where the data will not be complete in time CHROs and culture leads building resilience and belonging into the organisational operating model, not bolting it on Leadership offsites for transformation, integration, or turnaround programmes Veteran-heavy, disability-community, or inclusion-focused audiences where lived authority matters Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for how to lead a mixed-ability, mixed-experience team through a decision with partial information Named protocols from expedition practice that transfer directly into executive decision rooms A sharper sense of the difference between individual grit and team discipline, and why resilience only compounds when it is built into the team Permission to treat constraint as a design input rather than a deficit A concrete reference point, the No Barriers Life, that leaders can carry back into their own language

Why organisations work with Eddie Jones Thirty years of head-coach experience at the top of international sport, tested against the sharpest public scrutiny three national rugby unions can apply. A working account, set out in his 2021 book “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, of how to raise standards, rebuild confidence, and hold a team accountable when results are not yet on the board. Authored the single most studied upset in modern rugby: Japan’s 34-32 win over South Africa at the 2015 World Cup, the “Brighton Miracle”, built over three years of culture and conditioning work. World Rugby Coach of the Year 2017, after leading England to a Grand Slam and a record run of consecutive Test wins. A rare speaker who has built and rebuilt teams in three different national cultures (Japanese, Australian, English) and can translate between them for executive audiences. Biography highlights Head coach of England 2015 to 2022: first non-British coach, two Six Nations titles, 2016 Grand Slam, 2019 Rugby World Cup final. World Rugby Coach of the Year, 2017. Head coach of Japan 2012 to 2015, re-appointed December 2023. Head coach of Australia 2001 to 2005, leading the Wallabies to the 2003 Rugby World Cup final. Head coach of the ACT Brumbies, Super Rugby champions 2001. Technical adviser to the Springboks’ 2007 Rugby World Cup-winning squad. Author of “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby” (Macmillan, 2021) and “My Life and Rugby: The Autobiography” (Macmillan, 2019). Biography Japan beat South Africa 34-32 in Brighton in September 2015. The squad had been together three years, trained to a schedule their opponents would not recognise, and made the late call to turn down a draw for a winning try. The head coach was Eddie Jones. That match is the cleanest single case study in his career, but not the only one. Jones has held senior head-coach roles with Japan, Australia, and England, reached two Rugby World Cup finals, served as technical adviser to a third World Cup-winning team, and won a Super Rugby title with the Brumbies in 2001. The through line is not a single style. It is a method for taking on teams that are underperforming relative to their resources, setting a higher standard than the group thinks it can meet, and holding it. His 2021 book, “Leadership: Lessons From My Life in Rugby”, makes that method explicit. It draws on the 2015 Japan campaign, the 2016 England turnaround, and the failures in between to argue that elite performance is a daily discipline of selection, feedback, and standard-setting, not a product of talent or motivation. Jones was named World Rugby Coach of the Year in 2017 after leading England to a Grand Slam and a run of consecutive Test wins second only to the All Blacks. For a senior audience, the value is in the translation. Three national cultures, three turnarounds, one argument about how leaders behave when the team is not yet winning. That is what he brings into a room. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure and public scrutiny Building and turning around elite teams Standards, accountability, and high-performance culture Decision-making in compressed time frames Cross-cultural leadership across international organisations Talent development and succession Ideal for Boards and executive committees leading a turnaround or performance reset CEO and C-suite offsites on standards and accountability CHRO and people leaders working on high-performance culture at scale Sales and commercial leadership teams operating in competitive, results-measured environments Audience outcomes A clearer view of what separates elite teams from good ones in day-to-day behaviour Specific examples of how standards are set, reinforced, and recovered when they slip A model for leading through scrutiny without losing the team Practical reference points from three national turnarounds, not one Language for talking to executives about accountability without euphemism

Key speaking topics Extreme exploration and expedition leadership Resilience and mental endurance Survival decision-making in high-risk environments Leadership under pressure Risk management in uncertain conditions Adaptability and problem-solving in remote environments Lessons from exploration and adventure expeditions Ideal for Corporate leadership conferences and strategy events Organisations focused on resilience, risk management, and performance under pressure Teams operating in complex or unpredictable environments Innovation and exploration-themed events Audience outcomes Insights into resilience and endurance in extreme conditions Practical perspectives on decision-making under pressure Lessons on adaptability when facing uncertainty Greater understanding of leadership in remote and high-risk environments Why organisations work with Ed Stafford Brings real-world experience from a world-record expedition and international exploration projects. Connects exploration and survival experiences to leadership, resilience, and performance. Recognised media presenter with experience communicating complex challenges to broad audiences. Offers credible insights drawn from expeditions, television projects, and published work. Biography Ed Stafford is internationally recognised for accomplishing one of the most demanding expeditions ever recorded: becoming the first person recognised by Guinness World Records to walk the entire length of the Amazon River from source to sea. The journey required sustained resilience, complex decision-making, and the ability to operate in extreme uncertainty over a prolonged period in remote jungle terrain. This expedition became the subject of the documentary Walking the Amazon, broadcast internationally, and established Stafford as a prominent figure in modern exploration. His work has been recognised with honours including European Adventurer of the Year and recognition by National Geographic as Adventurer of the Year. Alongside his exploration achievements, Stafford served as an officer in the British Army after training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. The experience developed the leadership, discipline, and operational judgement that underpin his approach to navigating high-risk environments. Stafford has since become a familiar face on international television, presenting a range of adventure and survival series for Discovery including Naked and Marooned, Marooned with Ed Stafford, Into the Unknown, Left for Dead, and First Man Out. He has also appeared on major UK factual programming including the BBC’s Burma’s Secret Jungle War with Joe Simpson and Channel 4’s 60 Days on the Streets. He is the author of several books exploring exploration and survival, including Walking the Amazon, Naked and Marooned: One Man. One Island., and Epic Expeditions: 25 Great Explorations Into the Unknown. Through these projects, Stafford translates lessons from extreme environments into insights on resilience, endurance, and operating effectively when conditions are unpredictable and the stakes are high.

Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after adversity High-performance mindset Leadership under pressure Overcoming life-changing injury Mental and physical rehabilitation journeys Purpose-driven goal setting Teamwork and accountability Ideal for Senior leadership teams Sales and performance-driven organisations Corporate conferences and annual meetings Organisations navigating significant change or disruption Audience outcomes Clear understanding of resilience in high-pressure environments Practical insights into rebuilding confidence after setbacks Perspective on leadership, responsibility and personal accountability Greater appreciation of long-term recovery and sustained effort Motivation grounded in lived experience Why organisations work with Ed Jackson Combines elite sport experience with lived experience of severe injury and recovery Brings credibility across sport, charity leadership and broadcasting Connects resilience and mindset to performance in commercial environments Delivers a message grounded in real-world challenge and sustained rehabilitation Biography Ed Jackson brings a rare combination of elite sport, lived experience of catastrophic injury and charitable leadership to corporate audiences seeking perspective on resilience and performance under pressure. A former professional rugby union No. 8, Ed competed for Bath, Doncaster Knights, London Welsh, Wasps and Newport Gwent Dragons. He captained England at U16 and U18 level and was part of the England U18 Four Nations-winning squad, developing his understanding of high-performance environments, teamwork and accountability from an early stage. His professional career was cut short by a severe spinal cord injury sustained in a diving accident. Initially paralysed, he has since regained significant mobility through sustained rehabilitation, while continuing to live with the long-term effects of an incomplete spinal cord injury. His recovery journey has become central to his work with organisations navigating adversity and change. Ed went on to undertake major mountain expeditions following his rehabilitation, including summiting Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) and participating in further high-altitude challenges. These experiences reinforce his practical understanding of goal setting, risk management and sustained effort in demanding conditions. He co-founded the Millimetres 2 Mountains Foundation with Lois Jackson, supporting people affected by trauma and life-changing circumstances through outdoor experiences and structured support. His work in the charitable sector demonstrates leadership beyond sport, focused on long-term impact and community building. Ed is the author of Lucky, a Sunday Times bestseller, and has worked as a broadcaster with Channel 4 on rugby and Paralympics-related programming. He is also a co-founder of Vapoura Rum. For senior leaders and commercial teams, Ed offers a grounded, credible perspective on resilience, responsibility and performance drawn from professional sport, severe adversity and enterprise.

Why organisations work with Duncan Goodhew His personal story is not simply inspirational. It is instructive. Two named conditions (alopecia universalis from age ten, dyslexia diagnosed at thirteen) that could have ended ambition became the foundation of a specific discipline: redefining success on individual terms rather than defaulting to external expectation. That argument is directly usable by organisations managing performance under pressure. His published thesis, developed in Sink or Swim (co-written with Victoria Hislop), is that success is an entirely individual matter; a claim with direct implications for how organisations set targets, evaluate performance, and retain people who do not fit a standard template. He co-founded the Youth Sport Trust in 1994 with Sir John Beckwith, securing £2 million in initial funding; the organisation now operates across every primary school in England. This is institution-building at scale, not just personal achievement. The corporate organisations that have engaged him; IBM, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express, and Barclays were not buying an Olympic story. They were working on a shared problem: how to maintain consistent human performance under commercial pressure. As President of Swimathon, which has raised more than £34 million for national charities, he brings direct experience of building and sustaining large-scale movements, not simply motivating individuals in a room. Biography highlights Olympic gold medallist, 100m breaststroke, and bronze medallist, 4×100m medley relay, 1980 Moscow Olympics Captain of the Great Britain swimming team, 1978-1980; three silver medals at the 1978 Commonwealth Games, Edmonton MBE awarded 1983 for services to sport Co-founder, Youth Sport Trust (1994), now active across every primary school in England President of Swimathon, which has raised more than £34 million for charity across its history Author of Sink or Swim and Fix Your Life – Now!, both co-written with Victoria Hislop Inducted into the Swim England Hall of Fame, 2019 Biography Duncan Goodhew won Olympic gold in Moscow in 1980, competing as a young man who had been bald since the age of ten and formally diagnosed with dyslexia at thirteen. His published work, developed in Sink or Swim (co-written with Victoria Hislop), makes a specific claim: sustained high performance depends on one insight above all others – success is an individual matter. People who perform consistently under pressure are almost always those who have stopped competing against someone else’s definition of what winning looks like. For organisations managing performance through disruption or change, that has practical implications for how targets are set and how people are evaluated. His record beyond the speaking circuit is equally concrete. He co-founded the Youth Sport Trust in 1994 with Sir John Beckwith, securing £2 million in initial funding; the organisation now operates across every primary school in England. As President of Swimathon, he has overseen an organisation that has raised more than £34 million for national charities. The organisations that have engaged him over the course of his career; IBM, Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, American Express, Barclays were working on a consistent underlying challenge: how to maintain human performance when conditions are difficult, stakes are high, and the outcome is not guaranteed. That is the question his work is designed to answer. Key speaking topics Resilience and performance under pressure Overcoming adversity and personal reinvention Individual definitions of success and goal-setting Mental toughness in high-stakes environments Leadership through uncertainty and change Team motivation and sustained engagement Youth sport, physical activity, and long-term wellbeing Ideal for Senior leadership and C-suite audiences navigating organisational change or sustained commercial pressure HR, talent, and people leaders responsible for employee engagement, resilience, and retention Sales, commercial, and operational teams where consistent performance in demanding conditions is a strategic priority Corporate conferences where a credible, evidence-grounded narrative around resilience and peak performance is the brief Audience outcomes A reframed understanding of what peak performance actually requires, and why individually defined success criteria outperform externally imposed targets Practical insight into how elite athletes manage sustained pressure, maintain motivation, and continue performing through extended adversity A clearer sense of how personal disadvantage or difference can be converted from liability into competitive foundation Reflection on whether their organisation’s definitions of success are genuinely motivating the people they most want to retain A memorable, evidence-backed narrative around resilience that individuals and teams can carry into their own work

Why organisations work with David Weir A track record of winning at the highest level across two decades and seven Paralympic Games. Few speakers can draw on that span of sustained elite output when talking to a leadership team about consistency. Four gold medals in nine days at London 2012, on home ground, under the closest possible scrutiny. The story behind that fortnight is a serious case study in preparing for peak moments. Direct, lived authority on inclusion. The Weir Archer Academy, co-founded with coach Jenny Archer, is an operating organisation that gets young disabled athletes into sport, not a cause he lends a name to. A career that includes quitting the sport after Atlanta 1996 and returning. That arc gives the resilience content real texture rather than the usual highlight reel. Biography highlights Six Paralympic gold medals (two at Beijing 2008, four at London 2012) and ten Paralympic medals in total across Games from Atlanta 1996 to Paris 2024. Eight-time winner of the London Marathon men’s wheelchair race. Appointed CBE in the 2013 New Year Honours, MBE in 2009. Author of “Weirwolf: My Story”, published by Constable and Robinson in 2013 with David Bond. Co-founder of the Weir Archer Academy at Kingsmeadow, Kingston, launched April 2013. Inducted into the Stoke Mandeville Hall of Fame in 2014. Biography Four gold medals in nine days at the London 2012 Paralympics, 800m, 1500m, 5000m and marathon, put Weir at the centre of the most watched disability sport event ever staged. He won on home ground in front of a British crowd that had, by the end of those Games, a different frame of reference for what Paralympic sport was. The arc before that is what gives the story weight. Weir made his Paralympic debut at Atlanta in 1996 at seventeen, came away unimpressed, and quit the sport. He came back, built a partnership with coach Jenny Archer that still runs, and compiled six Paralympic golds and eight London Marathon wins across more than two decades at the top of T54 wheelchair racing. The public work beyond racing is substantive. “Weirwolf: My Story”, written with journalist David Bond and published in 2013, is an unvarnished account of racing, disability, and the training regime behind sustained elite output. The Weir Archer Academy, co-founded the same year at Kingsmeadow in Kingston, exists to get the next generation of disabled athletes into sport rather than to decorate a Paralympian’s post-career CV. Weir retired from Paralympic competition after Paris 2024, closing a run of seven Games. He was appointed CBE in 2013 and inducted into the Stoke Mandeville Hall of Fame in 2014. The corporate audience gets a speaker whose material on performance under pressure, coming back from a year that went wrong, and inclusion inside elite sport is drawn from the record, not constructed around it. Key speaking topics Resilience and comeback after setback Peak performance under pressure Sustained excellence across a long career Disability, inclusion and changing public attitudes Coach and athlete partnerships Goal setting over multi-year cycles Ideal for CHROs and inclusion leads building disability and accessibility into workforce strategy Sales and commercial leadership kick-offs framed around performance under pressure Sports industry, governing body and event organiser conferences Employee network and wellbeing programme events, particularly around mental health and sustained performance Audience outcomes A sharper sense of what consistency at the top actually costs, told through two decades of T54 racing A usable frame for recovering from a setback that does not resolve on its own timetable Specific detail on preparing for a single high-visibility moment, drawn from London 2012 A grounded view of disability inclusion from inside elite sport, rather than from policy language Material on coach and athlete trust that transfers to senior manager and team relationships

Key speaking topics High-performance leadership Decision-making under pressure Teamwork in elite environments Risk management and accountability Performance culture Strategy and execution Media, sport, and business crossover Ideal for Senior leadership teams Corporate conferences and leadership events Organisations operating in high-pressure or high-risk environments Sports, media, and performance-driven businesses Audience outcomes Clear insights into performing under sustained pressure Practical perspectives on leadership accountability Understanding of how elite teams align strategy and execution Lessons on managing risk and decision-making in fast-moving environments Why organisations work with David Coulthard Organisations work with David Coulthard for his direct experience operating at the highest level of global sport, his credibility as a former Formula One winner, and his ability to translate elite performance principles into clear, commercially relevant insights for leadership and business audiences. Biography David Coulthard brings first-hand experience from the highest level of global motorsport, shaped by a Formula One career that delivered 13 Grand Prix victories and consistent top-three championship finishes. Racing for Williams, McLaren, and Red Bull Racing, he operated in environments defined by speed, risk, and relentless performance expectations. At McLaren, Coulthard secured multiple race wins and played a central role in championship campaigns, while later helping to establish Red Bull Racing on the Formula One podium. His career reflects sustained performance within complex teams where decision-making, accountability, and execution are tested under extreme pressure. Beyond the cockpit, Coulthard has remained closely connected to the sport’s strategic and governance landscape. He serves as President of the British Racing Drivers’ Club, the organisation that owns and operates Silverstone Circuit, and is a familiar face in Formula One broadcasting through his work with Channel 4 and on the sport’s global broadcast feed. Coulthard is also active in motorsport and media entrepreneurship. He is co-founder of Whisper, a UK-based sports and entertainment production company, and Velocity Experience, which delivers premium brand and motorsport experiences. He has also co-founded More than Equal, a programme focused on accelerating the development pathway for elite female racing drivers. He is the author of It Is What It Is and The Winning Formula, which explores leadership, strategy, and motivation through the lens of Formula One. Awarded an MBE, Coulthard combines elite sporting credibility with board-level perspective, making his insights highly relevant to organisations focused on performance, leadership, and culture under pressure.

Why organisations work with Sir Clive Woodward Built the same culture system in two radically different contexts. In rugby, England moved from sixth in the world to World Cup winners. Across Team GB’s 26 Olympic sports he contributed to the country’s most successful modern Games at London 2012. The framework travels. His “Teamship” model is a written operational system. England’s Black Book ran to roughly 240 rules across 35 sections, drafted and owned by the players themselves. Audiences work with a documented method they can apply. One of the very few elite sports coaches to have turned his own methodology into an enterprise learning platform. Hive Learning, founded with Blenheim Chalcot in 2012, now works with Sky, Deloitte, Jaguar Land Rover, PepsiCo, Halma and the International Olympic Committee among others. Named tools audiences can use: Teamship, TCUP (thinking correctly under pressure), the DNA of a Champion and critical non-essentials. Each is a specific leadership discipline with a defined practice. Biography highlights Head Coach of the England men’s rugby union team from 1997 to 2004, winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup. England reached world number one during his tenure and remain the only Northern Hemisphere side to have won a World Cup. Director of Sport at the British Olympic Association, supporting Team GB across the Beijing, Vancouver and London Olympic Games. London 2012 produced Britain’s most successful modern Games by medal count. Head Coach of the British & Irish Lions for their 2005 tour to New Zealand. Founder of Hive Learning, a digital learning platform built with Blenheim Chalcot and now working with organisations including Sky, Deloitte and Jaguar Land Rover. Author of Winning! (2004) and How to Win (2019), both setting out the Teamship methodology. Inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame; knighted in the 2004 New Year Honours; member of the IOC Entourage Commission since 2012. Biography England rugby were sixth in the world when Woodward took the head coach’s role in 1997. Six years later the team lifted the Rugby World Cup in Sydney, holding the world number one ranking and an unbeaten home record at Twickenham. England remain the only Northern Hemisphere team to have won the tournament. The underlying framework was what Woodward called Teamship: a written, player-owned set of behavioural standards covering everything from punctuality to media conduct. The Black Book that held these rules ran to roughly 240 entries across 35 sections. Its premise was that values only matter when they translate into specific daily behaviours, and that the team should write those rules itself. He took the same approach into the British Olympic Association from 2006, serving as Team GB’s Director of Sport through the Beijing, Vancouver and London cycles. London 2012 produced Britain’s most successful modern Games by medal count. The task across 26 Olympic sports was closer to running a diversified business than to coaching a single squad. In 2012 he founded Hive Learning with Blenheim Chalcot, codifying the Teamship approach into an enterprise learning platform now used by Sky, Deloitte and Jaguar Land Rover, among others. His books Winning! (2004) and How to Win (2019) document the same method in full. The underlying conviction: culture is a design problem, and the rules that sustain it should be written down. Key speaking topics High-performance culture Leadership under pressure Team performance and behavioural standards Building winning teams Learning cultures Performance in elite environments Culture change across large, federated organisations Ideal for Executive teams and boards treating culture as a measurable performance lever CEOs, CPOs and heads of learning leading organisation-wide behaviour and capability programmes Leadership teams integrating businesses after mergers or major reorganisations Organisations operating in high-stakes environments where team cohesion directly affects outcomes Audience outcomes A working method for writing behavioural standards that teams author and enforce themselves, drawn directly from England’s Black Book Specific language for diagnosing culture problems in behavioural terms A framework for running performance culture change across large, federated organisations where no single leader commands the whole system Perspective on building through setbacks, grounded in the six-year arc between the 1999 and 2003 Rugby World Cup campaigns Named leadership tools including Teamship, TCUP (thinking correctly under pressure), the DNA of a Champion and critical non-essentials