Peak Performance speakers

Why organisations work with Martine Wright A first-hand account of recovery from catastrophic injury that gives leaders concrete language for talking about adversity, mental health, and return to work without slipping into platitudes. Paralympic-level perspective on marginal gains, team performance, and selection, drawn from competing for Great Britain in sitting volleyball at London 2012 rather than from a textbook. Credibility on inclusion and belonging that comes from being inside the disability sport system, not commenting on it. Useful for ERG launches, accessibility programmes, and culture work where lived authority matters. An MBE, the BBC Helen Rollason Award, and a Sports Book Award-winning memoir give buyers external validation that holds up in front of senior audiences. Consistent broadcast presence with the BBC and Channel 4, including Rio 2016 and Invictus Games, which translates into stage presence and timing that work in front of 10,000-seat audiences and intimate leadership rooms alike. Biography highlights Survivor of the 7 July 2005 London bombings; was the last person extracted alive from the Aldgate carriage and lost both legs above the knee. Member of Great Britain’s women’s sitting volleyball team at the London 2012 Paralympic Games and later team captain. Appointed MBE in the 2016 Birthday Honours for services to sport. Recipient of the BBC Helen Rollason Award at the 2012 BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Author of Unbroken: My Story of Survival from 7/7 Bombings to Paralympic Success (Simon and Schuster, 2017), winner of Autobiography of the Year at the 2018 Sports Book Awards. Broadcaster for the BBC and Channel 4, including roving reporter at the Rio 2016 Paralympics and Invictus Games coverage. Biography The Aldgate bomb on 7 July 2005 killed seven people in a single Circle Line carriage. Martine Wright was the last person brought out alive. She lost roughly eighty percent of her blood, spent a week in a coma, and underwent ten months of surgery and double above-knee amputation. The detail that matters for a corporate audience is what came after: a deliberate decision, sustained over years, to treat recovery as work rather than a wait. That work led to elite sport. Wright took up sitting volleyball during rehabilitation, made the British squad, and was selected for the home Paralympic Games at London 2012, where Team GB fielded a women’s sitting volleyball side for the first time. She later captained the team and earned forty international caps. The 2012 BBC Helen Rollason Award and a 2016 MBE for services to sport followed. Her memoir Unbroken (Simon and Schuster, 2017) won Autobiography of the Year at the 2018 Sports Book Awards and remains the primary text behind her speaking. Alongside the book, she has built a steady broadcast career with the BBC and Channel 4, covering the Rio 2016 Paralympics and Invictus Games, which gives her a level of stage craft most lived-experience speakers do not have. What organisations actually book her for is the translation. Wright takes the language of marginal gains, team selection, mental health, and belonging out of the abstract and grounds it in specific decisions she made and watched others make. NatWest, the NHS, John Lewis, Deloitte, Salesforce, Pfizer, and Aon are among the named clients on her own record. The room leaves with usable vocabulary for the conversations leadership teams already know they need to have. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery from adversity Mental health and return to work Inclusion, disability, and belonging in the workplace Marginal gains and high-performance teams Change and uncertainty Paralympic sport and elite competition Leadership through crisis Ideal for CHROs and people leaders rolling out wellbeing, mental health, or return-to-work programmes DEI leads and ERG sponsors building disability inclusion and belonging work Leadership teams briefing staff through restructures, crises, or major change programmes All-staff conferences and town halls where the brief calls for an authentic, high-impact keynote rather than a research talk Audience outcomes A vocabulary for talking about adversity, mental health, and recovery that does not feel scripted. Specific examples of how marginal gains and team selection work inside an elite sport environment, drawn from London 2012. A sharper sense of what disability inclusion looks like from inside the experience, useful for shaping ERG and accessibility work. A reset on what is actually possible after a catastrophic setback, anchored in a verifiable personal story rather than abstract motivation.

Why organisations work with Matt Dawson A direct, first-person account of the 2003 Rugby World Cup final, including the pass that set up Wilkinson’s drop goal, used as material for what shared accountability looks like in a single moment. Twenty years inside one of the most-watched sports panel shows on British television, which translates into a presenter and host who can carry a corporate room without scripting. Lessons on team culture grounded in named clubs and named coaches: Northampton Saints, London Wasps, Sir Clive Woodward’s England squad, not generic sports analogy. A second career arc as a broadcaster and Lyme disease advocate, giving him credible material on resilience, identity after performance, and leading a public conversation on health. Biography highlights Member of the England squad that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup; assist for Jonny Wilkinson’s winning drop goal. 77 England caps, nine as captain; three British and Irish Lions tours. MBE for services to rugby. Team captain on BBC’s “A Question of Sport” for two decades. Winner of BBC Celebrity MasterChef; finalist on Strictly Come Dancing. Author of “Nine Lives” (HarperCollins, 2004). Biography The 2003 Rugby World Cup final in Sydney came down to a single phase of play with seconds left. The scrum-half made an unscripted break, took the ruck deep into Australian territory, then fed the ball to the fly-half for the winning drop goal. That scrum-half was Matt Dawson, and the moment is taught in coaching rooms as a study in shared accountability under pressure. Across 77 caps for England and three British and Irish Lions tours, Dawson played at the centre of a generation of English rugby that professionalised the sport’s performance culture. He played for Northampton Saints and London Wasps, won a Premiership title in his first season at Wasps, and was awarded an MBE for services to the game. His autobiography “Nine Lives”, published by HarperCollins in 2004, gives an unusually candid first-hand account of the dressing-room dynamics that produced the World Cup result. Since retiring he has held one of the most consistent presences in British broadcasting, as a team captain on BBC’s “A Question of Sport” since 2004 and as a rugby pundit and presenter on BBC Radio 5 Live. He won Celebrity MasterChef in 2006 and reached the final of Strictly Come Dancing, work that gave him the on-camera range that distinguishes him from most former-athlete speakers. In 2016, after a tick bite in a London park, Dawson was diagnosed with Lyme disease and underwent two heart surgeries. He has since become one of the most visible UK voices on tick-borne disease awareness, partnering with The Big Tick Project and using national platforms to push the issue into public health conversation. Key speaking topics Teamwork and team culture Leadership under pressure Winning mentality Performance in elite environments Resilience and recovery Broadcast hosting and event facilitation Ideal for Sales kick-offs and annual conferences seeking a credible team-performance keynote Awards ceremonies, gala dinners and client hospitality requiring an experienced host or after-dinner speaker Leadership offsites that want a sport-to-business translation grounded in a named, verifiable team result Health, insurance and public-sector audiences engaging with patient advocacy and tick-borne disease awareness Audience outcomes A specific, lived account of how an elite team prepares for a single decisive moment. A clear sense of what shared accountability looks like in practice, anchored in named teammates and a named result. Concrete language for talking about culture, standards and trust without resorting to abstraction. A change in register: humour and warmth from a broadcaster who has hosted live television for two decades.

Why organisations work with Matt Le Tissier He spent his entire 16-year professional career at Southampton, scoring 209 goals in 540 appearances, which gives any session on loyalty and culture a rare lived foundation rather than a borrowed example. He was the first midfielder to reach 100 Premier League goals and converted 47 of 48 career penalties, both records that travel well in front of audiences who recognise top-flight football. He was voted greatest Premier League player ever in a 2020 Eurosport poll, which gives him the sort of standing in the UK market that makes him a draw for hospitality, client events, and after-dinner bookings. He spent close to two decades as a Sky Sports Soccer Saturday panellist, so the broadcasting craft, anecdote pacing, and ease in front of a room are already there. His autobiography Taking Le Tiss, published by HarperSport, gives the personal narrative a clear public form to draw on for keynote and Q&A material. Biography highlights One-club career at Southampton, 1986 to 2002: 209 goals in 540 appearances. First midfielder to score 100 Premier League goals; 100 goals and 64 assists in 270 Premier League appearances. PFA Young Player of the Year, 1989-90. Eight England caps, 1994 to 1997. Career penalty record of 47 from 48. Voted greatest Premier League player ever in a 2020 Eurosport poll. Long-running Sky Sports Soccer Saturday panellist until August 2020; subject of Sky Sports’ Le God: The Matt Le Tissier Story. Author of Taking Le Tiss, HarperSport, 2009. Biography Southampton signed Matt Le Tissier in 1986 and never let him go. He spent sixteen years at the club, scored 209 goals in 540 appearances, and finished his career as their second-highest scorer in history. In an era when most top players moved for bigger clubs and bigger contracts, that career stands out on its own. The Premier League records do most of the talking. Le Tissier was the first midfielder to reach 100 Premier League goals, with 64 assists alongside them, and his career penalty record of 47 from 48 is still cited as the strongest in English top-flight football. The PFA Young Player of the Year award in 1989-90 marked him out early, and the 2020 Eurosport poll naming him greatest Premier League player ever gave a generation of fans a chance to make the case again, two decades after he retired. For corporate audiences, the value is in what one career at one club teaches about sticking with an institution through change, relegation fights, and quieter seasons. He played under multiple managers, refused several moves, and stayed visible in the public eye long after retirement. After his playing career he spent close to two decades as a Sky Sports Soccer Saturday panellist, which sharpened the storytelling and the timing that an after-dinner audience or a moderated panel needs. His autobiography Taking Le Tiss, published by HarperSport in 2009, set out the career in his own voice. Sky Sports’ Le God: The Matt Le Tissier Story, made about a player who never left, gives any room he speaks in an immediate point of reference: a one-club Premier League career, on his own terms, in a southern English town that adopted him as its own. Key speaking topics Loyalty and the one-club career Pressure and composure in front of goal Sustained performance across a long sporting career Premier League history and analysis Life as a broadcaster after elite sport After-dinner storytelling Ideal for Hospitality, client entertainment, and brand activation events in the UK where a recognisable Premier League figure is a draw. After-dinner and awards bookings for sales teams, partner events, and incentive nights. Panel guest or moderated Q&A formats at sports business, fan engagement, and football industry events. Senior leadership off-sites and sales conferences where loyalty and long-career discipline are part of the agenda. Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what it takes to commit to one organisation across sixteen years of changing leadership. A grounded view of pressure moments, including penalty taking and high-stakes decisions, from someone with the records to back it up. Stories from the Premier League’s first decade told by a player who lived it and then spent two decades broadcasting it. A sharper sense of what life looks like for an elite performer when the playing career ends and the public role continues.

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

Why organisations work with Matthew Pinsent One of only three rowers ever to win gold at four consecutive Olympic Games, giving leadership audiences a rare first-person account of how a team holds form across more than a decade. Direct experience of rebuilding a winning crew after the retirement of Sir Steve Redgrave, a credible parallel for any executive team facing the loss of a defining figure. Two decades inside Olympic broadcasting for the BBC, covering eight Games as reporter and commentator, which gives him a wider view of high performance than his own career alone. Speaks from a discipline measured in fractions: the Athens 2004 final was decided by ten centimetres after a three-minute review, and he uses that margin as the spine of his argument about preparation and discipline. Honoured with the Thomas Keller Medal, rowing’s highest individual recognition, alongside a knighthood, providing audiences with credentials a buyer can name without hedging. Biography highlights Four Olympic gold medals: Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004 Ten World Championship gold medals across his international career Knight Bachelor (2004) and CBE; Thomas Keller Medal recipient (2005) Elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission in 2001 BBC sports broadcaster covering Olympic Games from Beijing 2008 to Paris 2024 Author of “A Lifetime in a Race”, a Sunday Times Bestseller published by Ebury Biography Athens 2004 came down to ten centimetres. The British and Canadian coxless fours crossed the line together, and three minutes of officials’ review separated the gold from the silver. That final was Pinsent’s fourth Olympic title in a row, the closing chapter of a partnership with Sir Steve Redgrave that had defined British rowing for more than a decade. The thread through his career is repetition under pressure. Pinsent and Redgrave won at Barcelona, Atlanta, and Sydney before Pinsent built a new crew with James Cracknell, Ed Coode, and Steve Williams for Athens. The team changed; the standard did not. He retired with four Olympic golds and ten World Championship titles, and was knighted in the New Year’s Honours of 2004. Since 2004 he has worked as a BBC sports broadcaster, reporting from the Olympic Games in Beijing, Vancouver, London, Sochi, Rio, Tokyo, Beijing again, and Paris. He fronted the BBC’s “World Olympic Dreams” series ahead of London 2012, following twenty-five athletes across multiple sports, and directed “Unbelievable: The Chad Le Clos Story” in 2016. That second career has given him a working knowledge of elite performance well beyond his own discipline. For corporate audiences he draws on the specifics. How a crew is selected, how trust is built across a boat where one weak stroke loses a race, what changes when the senior figure retires and the unit has to find a new centre of gravity. His memoir “A Lifetime in a Race” set out the same material in long form and reached the Sunday Times Bestseller list. Key speaking topics Sustained high performance Team leadership under pressure Building a crew after a defining figure leaves Preparation and marginal gains Olympic broadcasting and elite sport Resilience across long competitive cycles Ideal for Executive teams and boards working through leadership transition or succession Sales, partnership, and customer-facing leadership conferences focused on sustained output rather than one-off wins Awards dinners and recognition events where a credible Olympic voice frames the evening Leadership development cohorts studying high-performing teams Audience outcomes A sharper sense of what separates one-time success from repeated success across cycles A clearer picture of how senior teams absorb the loss of a defining figure Concrete language for talking about preparation, selection, and trust inside a small unit A first-person account of competing and winning by margins measured in centimetres

Why organisations work with Matthew Syed He has named two of the most widely adopted ideas in modern leadership vocabulary, Black Box Thinking and Rebel Ideas, and uses them to give leadership teams a shared language for failure and dissent. He brings the rare triangulation of two-time Olympian, Times columnist since 1999 and Sunday Times number one bestselling author, which lets him hold the room with executives, boards and entire workforces. His arguments are built from primary case material across aviation, healthcare, intelligence, sport and government, not from generic management literature, so leaders leave with examples they can use in their own decision forums. Through Matthew Syed Consulting he has converted the books into psychometrics and culture programmes deployed in named organisations, which makes the keynote a credible entry point to longer-term work rather than a one-off appearance. Biography highlights Two-time Olympic table tennis player for Great Britain (Barcelona 1992, Sydney 2000) and three-time Commonwealth singles champion. First-class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Balliol College, Oxford. Columnist for The Times and The Sunday Times since 1999, with two British Press Awards Sports Journalist of the Year wins. Author of Bounce, Black Box Thinking, Rebel Ideas, The Greatest, plus the You Are Awesome series for younger readers, with over two million copies sold and translations into more than thirty languages. Presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Sideways since 2021, examining the ideas that shape behaviour and decision-making. Co-founder of Matthew Syed Consulting and trustee of Greenhouse Sports. Biography Most organisations are not structured to learn from failure. They are structured to defend against it. The aviation industry, by contrast, treats every incident as data and rewrites procedure accordingly. That contrast is the spine of Black Box Thinking, the Sunday Times number one bestseller that turned a clinical engineering practice into a leadership argument. Syed builds his case from primary material, not from the management canon. Aviation, healthcare, intelligence agencies, elite sport and government feature as case studies in his work because each shows how culture either invites or suppresses honest information. Rebel Ideas extends the argument to cognitive diversity, making the case that homogenous teams fail at complex problems even when each member is individually brilliant. The credibility behind the argument is unusual. Two Olympic Games for Great Britain, nearly a decade as England’s number one in table tennis, three Commonwealth singles titles, and a first-class PPE degree from Balliol College, Oxford. Since 1999 he has written for The Times and The Sunday Times, winning Sports Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards twice and multiple awards from the Sports Journalists’ Association. The work continues across formats. He presents BBC Radio 4’s Sideways, now in multiple series, and through Matthew Syed Consulting has turned Black Box Thinking and Rebel Ideas into diagnostic tools and culture programmes used inside organisations. The keynote is the most condensed expression of that body of work, and the route many leadership teams use to start a longer conversation about how their own institution treats failure and dissent. Key speaking topics Learning from failure and the Black Box Thinking model Cognitive diversity and the Rebel Ideas thesis High-performance culture and growth mindset Decision-making under uncertainty Innovation and creative problem-solving Leadership and team learning Ideal for CEOs and executive committees redesigning how the organisation handles error, post-mortems and accountability. Boards and senior leadership teams concerned that groupthink is shaping major decisions. Heads of innovation, R&D and transformation looking to build cognitive range into team composition. CHROs and learning leaders embedding growth-mindset and high-performance culture at scale. Audience outcomes A working definition of Black Box Thinking that leaders can apply to their own incident reviews. A clear test for cognitive diversity inside their teams, separate from demographic diversity. Specific case examples from aviation, medicine and elite sport that translate into their own decision forums. A sharper view of where their organisation currently rewards consensus over dissent. Language and frameworks that travel from the keynote into ongoing leadership conversations.

Why organisations work with Matthias Schmitt He has scaled and exited the companies his audience is still inside. wealthpilot reached over 100,000 European customers under his co-founding, and Skigaudi became Germany’s leading student winter festival brand. His Expansion State Method is a named, proprietary coaching framework, not a borrowed model. It is designed specifically for founders navigating the gap between commercial success and personal meaning. He addresses burnout from inside the experience, having walked out of his own companies after hitting it. The credibility with senior operators is earned, not theoretical. He works in the territory most leadership programmes avoid: nervous system regulation, identity after exit, and the practical mechanics of sustaining decision quality under sustained pressure. Entrepreneur Asia Pacific named him to its Top Five Life Coaches to Watch in 2024, which gives the work external editorial validation in a category usually short of it. Biography highlights Co-founder of wealthpilot, a Munich-based FinTech SaaS serving over 100,000 European customers Co-founder of Skigaudi, Germany’s leading winter festival brand for students Founder of the Expansion State Method, a proprietary coaching framework for post-exit founders Named to Entrepreneur Asia Pacific’s Top Five Life Coaches to Watch in 2024 Trained in NLP, behavioural science, nervous system regulation, and meditation as applied to executive performance Works publicly under the title “Chief Fulfillment Officer,” focused on post-exit founders and conscious leaders Biography The exit is supposed to be the win. For many founders, it is also the moment the architecture they built their identity on disappears. The high-performance habits that scaled the company keep firing into an empty room. Matthias Schmitt co-founded wealthpilot, a Munich FinTech that scaled past 100,000 European customers, and Skigaudi, the leading German winter festival brand for students. He exited and hit burnout. The recovery became the work. Today he coaches post-exit entrepreneurs and senior leaders through that transition, using a proprietary framework he calls the Expansion State Method. The practical content draws on NLP, behavioural science, nervous system regulation, and meditation, applied to the specific problem of how senior operators sustain decision quality and meaning after the pressure that organised their lives lifts. Entrepreneur Asia Pacific named him to its Top Five Life Coaches to Watch in 2024. The recognition matters because the category he works in, founder coaching, is crowded with generalists. The differentiator here is operational time served at the level his clients are leaving. Key speaking topics Burnout recovery for founders and senior operators Post-exit identity and purpose Peak performance without collapse Nervous system regulation for high-pressure leadership Sales leadership and revenue performance Purpose-led business building Ideal for Founder communities, scale-up CEO peer groups, and post-exit networks Sales leadership offsites where revenue performance and team wellbeing are both on the table Private wealth and family office audiences working with HNW and UHNW founders Executive development programmes addressing sustained performance and burnout risk at senior levels Audience outcomes A clearer read on where current performance habits are producing diminishing returns Specific practices for nervous system regulation under sustained executive pressure A language for the post-exit transition that senior operators rarely have available Permission to treat fulfilment as a performance variable, not a soft topic

Why organisations work with Max Biaggi A first-hand account of what it takes to win at world-championship level across three different categories of motorcycle racing, from 250cc Grand Prix to MotoGP to Superbike. Lived experience of comeback under the hardest possible conditions: returning to competition after a near-fatal training crash and winning a second world title at 41, the oldest champion in WorldSBK history. A studied perspective on rivalry, public scrutiny, and team management, drawn from two decades at the front of a sport where margins are measured in tenths of a second. Credential weight that opens conversations with audiences who respect achievement: MotoGP Legend, FIM Road Racing Legend, joint record-holder for 250cc world titles. Biography highlights Four-time 250cc World Champion (1994, 1995, 1996, 1997), joint record with Phil Read. Two-time Superbike World Champion (2010, 2012) with Aprilia. Inducted as a MotoGP Legend at Mugello in 2022; named FIM Road Racing Legend in 2020. Won on his 500cc premier-class debut, a result no rider has repeated. 42 Grand Prix victories, 111 GP podiums, 56 pole positions; 21 WorldSBK wins and 71 podiums. Oldest rider to win the Superbike World Championship, at age 41 in 2012. Biography Winning a world title once is luck stacked on talent. Winning across three different categories of motorcycle racing, separated by more than fifteen years, is something else. Biaggi took four consecutive 250cc world championships between 1994 and 1997, three with Aprilia and one with Honda, equalling Phil Read’s all-time record. He then moved to the premier class and won on debut, a feat still unrepeated. The MotoGP years were unfinished. Three runner-up seasons (1998, 2001, 2002), 13 premier-class wins, persistent rivalries with Rossi and the press. By the time he left Grand Prix racing he had accumulated 42 victories, 111 podiums and 56 pole positions, putting him among the most accomplished riders never to take the premier-class title. He moved to World Superbikes in 2007 and rebuilt. Champion in 2010, again in 2012, at 41 years old. No older rider has won the Superbike crown. A near-fatal training crash in 2015 took him out of competition; he returned to selected races afterward, then to coaching and mentoring. In 2020 the FIM named him a Road Racing Legend, and in 2022 he was inducted as a MotoGP Legend at Mugello. For senior audiences the value sits in the texture of how an elite competitor manages the parts of performance that are not talent: recovery from physical and reputational damage, the discipline of preparation when the field is closing on you, the management of rivalry without losing focus. It is a specific perspective, told by someone who lived it across three decades at the front of the sport. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Recovery from setback Competitive focus and discipline Team dynamics in high-stakes environments Long-career reinvention Decision-making at speed Ideal for Senior leadership teams and board offsites focused on composure and resilience Sales and commercial leadership conferences where competitive intensity is the theme Programmes for newly promoted executives stepping into high-visibility roles Audiences who respond to athlete-led narratives anchored in named achievement Audience outcomes A concrete view of how elite competitors prepare, recover, and re-enter after failure Language for talking about composure as a trained capability, not a personality trait A reference point for the discipline behind sustained high performance over decades Perspective on managing rivalry, scrutiny and public criticism without losing focus

Why organisations work with Max Garcia A rare first-hand account of command at scale: responsibility for more than 1,500 Marines in an operational battalion, drawn on directly when speaking to leaders running large frontline workforces. Combat-tested perspective on decision-making under pressure, including involvement in the 2012 Benghazi consulate response and combat tours in Iraq, used to make composure a teachable skill rather than a personality trait. A practical sales and influence framework grounded in body language, credibility-building and referral generation, distinct from the leadership keynote and useful for commercial teams. Recognised by named senior figures, including the Medal for Valor presented by General James Mattis, giving the leadership material a verifiable institutional anchor. Written work as Amazon #1 best-selling co-author with Joe Vitale gives organisations a published reference point alongside the keynote. Biography highlights Sergeant Major, US Marine Corps (selected 2014), retired 2019 after 25 years of service. Combat Action Ribbon, Iraq 2003 and 2004; Medal for Valor presented by General James Mattis. Served with Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST) Company Europe; coordinated response activity during the 2012 Benghazi consulate attack. Officer Candidate instructor, University of South Florida, 2006 to 2009. Amazon #1 best-selling co-author with Joe Vitale, contributor to The Secret. Speaking client base spans Members of Parliament, NRL clubs including The Wests Tigers, professional golfers, corporate audiences and universities across the US and Australia. Biography A Marine sergeant major spends a career making the kind of decisions most organisations only model in tabletop exercises. Max Garcia spent 25 years doing it, including two tours in Iraq, deployments to Afghanistan and Europe, and command of an operational battalion of more than 1,500 personnel. His material is built from those decisions, not adapted from them. He enlisted in 1994, served as a drill instructor and Officer Candidate instructor at the University of South Florida, and joined Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team Company Europe, where he was involved in coordinating the response during the 2012 Benghazi consulate attack. In 2014 he was selected to Sergeant Major, the top enlisted rank in the Corps. General James Mattis presented him with the Medal for Valor. For senior leaders, the value is the translation. Composure under pressure, loyalty inside a unit, and the ability to keep a large team functioning when conditions deteriorate are usually discussed as personality traits. Garcia treats them as practices that can be taught, and he draws directly on named operational moments to teach them. He is also Amazon #1 best-selling co-author with Joe Vitale, contributor to The Secret. He speaks across the US and Australia to Members of Parliament, NRL teams, professional golfers, universities and corporate audiences, having travelled to all 50 US states and more than 70 countries. Key speaking topics Leadership under operational pressure Resilience and personal performance Loyalty and team cohesion Confidence and self-belief Sales, influence and credibility Goal achievement and execution Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership offsites in high-stakes industries Frontline operational leaders running large workforces Sales leadership teams looking for a credibility and influence framework Conferences seeking a keynote on resilience grounded in named military command, not generic motivation Audience outcomes A practical view of composure as a learnable command skill, not a fixed personality trait Concrete language for building loyalty inside a team during periods of strain A repeatable approach to confidence, drawn from Garcia’s own progression from adopted child to Sergeant Major A 30-point sales and influence framework covering body language, subconscious cues, credibility and referrals Decision-making cues calibrated to high-consequence environments

Why organisations work with Mayara Magri A first-hand account of operating at the top of one of the most ranked, publicly scrutinised performance institutions in the world, where every promotion is earned in front of an audience and a critical press. A decade-plus inside a single company, from corps to Principal, gives her unusual authority on what sustained high performance actually requires of an individual inside a team that does not change around them. Career story carries credentials that buyers recognise without explanation: Youth America Grand Prix Senior Gold, Prix de Lausanne, Principal at The Royal Ballet. The proof points do the work of the bio for her. Brings the Brazilian-trained, London-based performer perspective on adapting to a different culture, language, and working method without losing identity, useful for global mobility, integration, and inclusion conversations. Biography highlights Principal Dancer, The Royal Ballet, since 2021 Trained at The Royal Ballet School after early scholarship training in Rio de Janeiro Senior Age Division Gold Medal, Youth America Grand Prix Prix de Lausanne Scholarship and Audience Prize, 2011 Created the role of Rosaura in Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate Ambassador for The Fonteyn 2025 Brazil, Royal Academy of Dance Biography The Royal Ballet promotes from inside its own ranks. A dancer who joins the Company at seventeen and reaches Principal a decade later has done so while performing publicly several nights a week, in front of the same critics, alongside the same colleagues, with no role hidden from view. Mayara Magri made that journey between 2012 and 2021. She arrived in London from Rio de Janeiro on the back of two of the strongest results in the international ballet competition circuit: the Senior Age Division at the Youth America Grand Prix and the Prix de Lausanne Scholarship and Audience Prize in 2011. The Royal Ballet School then a Company contract followed. Promotions to First Artist, Soloist, First Soloist and Principal came in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2021. Her repertoire covers most of the senior classical canon, from Odette/Odile and Juliet to Aurora, Kitri and Cinderella, with created roles including Rosaura in Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate. Outside the company she has taken on ambassador work, including for the Royal Academy of Dance’s Fonteyn 2025 Brazil. For organisations, the relevant material is the working life behind the credits. Sustained performance inside a ranked institution, the discipline of preparing roles that will be judged the same night they are danced, and the long arc of building a career inside a single company rather than across many. Key speaking topics Sustained performance inside elite institutions Composure and preparation under public scrutiny Long-career discipline and reinvention Cross-cultural adaptation in global organisations Inclusion and representation in high-performance environments Resilience as a working practice Ideal for Leadership offsites and senior team gatherings looking for a credible high-performance voice outside the standard sport-speaker pool HR, talent and L&D programmes on resilience, sustained performance and career-long development Diversity and inclusion programmes seeking authentic perspectives on representation inside elite, traditional institutions Brand, marketing and CSR audiences working with arts, culture or sustainability narratives Audience outcomes A working performer’s view of what sustained high performance asks of an individual over a decade, not a single peak moment A concrete picture of how elite institutions absorb new talent, and what that demands of the person joining A reference point for resilience that is grounded in a working career, not a recovery story A perspective on representation and adaptation drawn from a Brazilian dancer’s path into one of Britain’s oldest cultural institutions

Why organisations work with Michael Johnson He has a defensible body of work on what it actually takes to perform on the single day that matters, drawn from a career where seven undefeated years in the 400m were earned through training design, not talent alone. He is the only male sprinter to hold the 200m and 400m world records simultaneously and the only man to defend an Olympic 400m title, which gives him standing in any room where the topic is sustained excellence rather than a single peak moment. Through Michael Johnson Performance, he has spent more than two decades translating elite training methodology into corporate and athletic settings, so the content is structured rather than anecdotal. As founder and Commissioner of Grand Slam Track, he is currently operating inside the commercial reality of building a new institution under public scrutiny, which gives him relevant material on launch decisions, capital, and pressure that is fresher than most retired-athlete keynotes. He has a long broadcast track record with the BBC, which means he is comfortable with live audiences, panel formats, and sharper interview-style sessions, not only set-piece keynotes. Biography highlights Four Olympic gold medals: 200m and 400m at Atlanta 1996, 400m at Sydney 2000, 4x400m relay at Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996. Eight individual World Championship gold medals and a 400m world record (43.18s, Seville 1999) that stood for 17 years. Author of “Slaying the Dragon” (HarperCollins, 1996), co-written with Jess Walter. Founder of Michael Johnson Performance, a human performance and athlete development business. Founder and Commissioner of Grand Slam Track, the professional sprint league launched in April 2025. Member of the Laureus World Sports Academy and longtime BBC Sport athletics analyst. Biography The 400m at the 1999 World Championships in Seville was won by 43.18 seconds, a world record that stood for 17 years. The runner had been undefeated at the distance for seven years by that point. That kind of sustained dominance is not produced by talent. It is produced by a system: training design, race modelling, recovery discipline, and an unusually clear view of what to do in the final 50 metres when the body is asking permission to slow down. That system is the substance of Michael Johnson’s work outside the track. Across Olympic Games in Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney, he won four gold medals, including a 200m and 400m double in Atlanta that no other male sprinter has matched. He held world records at both distances at the same time. He wrote about the underlying method in “Slaying the Dragon” with Jess Walter in 1996, and built it into a working business through Michael Johnson Performance, which has trained Olympic and professional athletes for more than two decades. His current platform is Grand Slam Track, the professional sprint league he founded and runs as Commissioner. The league launched in April 2025 with backing from Winners Alliance and a roster of contracted athletes competing across four annual meets. It has since had to restructure under Chapter 11 protection. The point for a corporate audience is not the outcome, which is unfinished. It is that he is currently operating as a founder under public, financial and regulatory pressure, which sharpens the material he brings into the room on decisions, capital, and execution. He sits on the Laureus World Sports Academy and has worked as a BBC athletics analyst across multiple Olympic cycles, which means audiences get a speaker who is comfortable being interviewed and pushed, not only one delivering a prepared keynote. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Preparation, training design and execution Sustained excellence and competitive longevity Leadership of self and team in high-stakes moments The Olympic mindset Founding and running a new sports league Ideal for Senior leadership offsites focused on execution and composure Sales kickoffs and high-performance team events Board and CEO dinners where authority and presence matter as much as content Sport, media and commercial audiences interested in the business of athletics Audience outcomes A clear account of what elite preparation looks like when the day cannot be repeated A specific framework for composure when the stakes are visible and external A grounded view of what sustained excellence costs, beyond the highlight reel A current operator’s perspective on building a new institution under financial pressure

Why organisations work with Michael Owen A first-hand account of operating at the top of a global sport from the age of 17, with the goalscoring record at Liverpool, Real Madrid, Newcastle, Manchester United and England to back it. One of only nine Englishmen to win the Ballon d’Or, and the most recent, which gives any audience an unusually direct line to what world-class performance actually requires day to day. A second career built deliberately rather than by accident: Manor House Stables in Cheshire, founded with Andrew Black in 2007, has become a working thoroughbred yard now training under Hugo Palmer. Active broadcast presence with TNT Sports and Amazon Prime Video Premier League coverage, which keeps the perspective current rather than retrospective. Author of Reboot: My Life, My Time (2019), a candid account of injuries, scrutiny and the transition out of professional sport that gives an after-dinner or Q and A session real substance. Biography highlights 2001 Ballon d’Or winner, the first English recipient since Kevin Keegan in 1979. 89 England caps, 40 international goals; sixth on England’s all-time scoring list at retirement. Named in Pele’s FIFA 100 list of the greatest living players in 2004. Career clubs: Liverpool, Real Madrid, Newcastle United, Manchester United, Stoke City. Author of Off the Record (2004) and Reboot: My Life, My Time (Reach Sport, 2019). Co-founder of Manor House Stables, Cheshire; pundit for TNT Sports and Amazon Prime Video. Biography Liverpool were 1-0 down to Arsenal in the 2001 FA Cup final when Michael Owen scored twice in the last eight minutes to win the trophy. That season he helped Liverpool to a treble of the FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup, and in December he was named European Footballer of the Year. He was 22, and the most recent English winner of the Ballon d’Or to this day. The career around that moment is the substance of his speaking. A debut at Liverpool at 17, a Premier League Golden Boot in his first full season, 89 England caps, 40 international goals, and spells at Real Madrid, Newcastle, Manchester United and Stoke. Pele included him in the FIFA 100 list of the greatest living players. The lived experience underneath those numbers, including injury, scrutiny and the discipline of staying selectable across four major tournaments for England, is what audiences buy when they book him. Life after football has been built deliberately. In 2007 he and the entrepreneur Andrew Black converted a cattle barn in Cheshire into Manor House Stables, now a Classic-winning operation with Hugo Palmer as resident trainer and a racing club that opens ownership to a broader audience. He works as a pundit for TNT Sports and Amazon Prime Video, with regular Premier League coverage. His 2019 autobiography Reboot: My Life, My Time is a frank account of what playing through pain, public criticism and the end of a top-level career actually felt like. For corporate audiences the value is direct testimony rather than a framework. Owen speaks to what it takes to perform under sustained pressure, how to keep going when the body and the press are against you, and how to construct a second act on purpose rather than by drift. That makes him a strong fit for after-dinner formats, leadership offsites with a sports lens, and brand-ambassador work where credibility and recognition matter as much as content. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Lessons from elite sport for business leaders Resilience through injury and setback Transition from professional sport to entrepreneurship Building a second career: Manor House Stables and racing Football punditry and the modern Premier League Ideal for After-dinner audiences at corporate events, partner conferences and client hospitality Sales, leadership and high-performance offsites that want a credible sporting voice Brand and sponsorship activations where a recognisable name is part of the value Q and A and fireside formats with a host who can draw out career stories Audience outcomes A direct account of what world-class performance demands across a 17-year career Specific stories about Liverpool, Real Madrid, Manchester United and England rather than generalised lessons A candid view on injury, scrutiny and the pressure of being the youngest player in the room A working example of building a second career on purpose, through racing, broadcasting and writing