Peak Performance

Key speaking topics Endurance and resilience High-performance mindset Long-term goal achievement Overcoming setbacks Team support and collaboration Performing under extreme conditions Ideal for Senior leadership conferences Corporate resilience and change programmes Sales and performance kick-offs Organisations navigating complex, long-term transformation Audience outcomes Clear perspective on sustaining focus over extended time horizons Practical insights into managing failure and repeated setbacks Understanding of disciplined preparation and mental resilience Appreciation of the role of team support in individual achievement Why organisations work with Diana Nyad Brings first-hand experience of achieving high-risk, high-complexity goals under sustained pressure. Connects elite athletic endurance with commercially relevant themes of persistence and execution. Offers a credible, experience-led perspective grounded in documented achievements and global speaking platforms. Delivers a narrative that supports leadership, performance and resilience agendas. Biography Diana Nyad’s career is defined by high-risk ambition, disciplined preparation and the pursuit of goals that many considered unattainable. Her achievements in marathon swimming, including record-setting open-water swims and a landmark Cuba-to-Florida crossing without a protective shark cage, position her as a compelling voice on endurance, resilience and long-term performance under pressure. In her early competitive career, she established herself as a leading figure in marathon swimming, setting notable marks in events such as the Bay of Naples race and completing a record-breaking swim around Manhattan. She later completed a marathon swim from North Bimini to Florida that was described at the time as the longest ocean swim in history. After a period away from elite competition, Nyad returned to the Cuba-to-Florida challenge, making multiple attempts before ultimately completing the crossing with the support of a dedicated team. The scale, complexity and physical demands of that swim have made it a case study in sustained focus, risk management and collective effort. Beyond sport, Nyad built a career in broadcast journalism and sports media, including hosting and reporting roles in public radio. She is the author of memoirs including Other Shores and Find a Way, and her story has been adapted into both documentary and feature film formats. Her contributions to swimming have been recognised with induction into the International Swimming Hall of Fame and the National Women’s Sports Hall of Fame. Today, she brings first-hand insight into perseverance, preparation and the psychology of achieving complex, high-stakes objectives, making her a relevant and credible voice for organisations navigating demanding performance environments.

Roy Hodgson’s background Having been a youth player at Crystal Palace, Roy spent the rest of his playing days in non-league football before beginning his managerial career in 1976. Throughout his career, Roy managed 16 different teams in eight countries, beginning in Sweden with Halmstads BK in the 1976 season. He later guided the Switzerland national team to the last 16 of the 1994 World Cup and qualification for Euro 1996; Switzerland had not qualified for a major tournament since the 1960s. From 2006 to 2007, he managed the Finland national team, guiding them to their highest-ever FIFA ranking of 33rd place and coming close to qualifying for a major tournament for the first time in their history. He managed the England national team from 2012 to 2016, taking the England job shortly before Euro 2012. ‘Roy’s England’ won all 10 matches in qualifying for Euro 2016, but he stepped down after a 2-1 last-16 defeat by Iceland left him with a record of three victories from 11 games in major tournaments. Other clubs that Roy has managed include Inter Milan, Malmö FF, Grasshoppers, FC Copenhagen, and Udinese. He has also been in charge of Blackburn Rovers, Liverpool, West Bromwich Albion, Fulham and, most recently, Crystal Palace, in the Premier League; guiding the Cottagers to the Europa League final in 2010. As of the end of the 2021 football season, Roy will step down from managing Crystal Palace, to retire from football. Roy served several times as a member of UEFA’s technical study group at the European Championships and was also a member of the FIFA technical study group at the 2006 World Cup. Roy speaks five languages and has worked as a television pundit in several of the countries in which he has coached. Hodgson was made a Knight, First Class, of the Order of the Lion of Finland in September 2012. He received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of York on 22 January 2016 and is an alumnus of the University of Greenwich, having graduated from Avery Hill College in 1972 with a Cert ED. In 2018 Hodgson was made a Freeman of the Borough of Croydon.

Key speaking topics High-performance teamwork Leadership under pressure Resilience and overcoming career-ending injury Elite sport insights for business audiences Communication and collaboration Transition and career reinvention Lessons from international sport Ideal for Senior leadership teams Sales and performance-driven organisations Sports industry and high-performance environments Conferences focused on teamwork and resilience Audience outcomes Clear understanding of what drives high-performance teams. Practical insights into leadership in high-pressure environments. Perspective on resilience following significant setbacks. Lessons on transferring elite sport principles into business contexts. Increased awareness of accountability and collective responsibility. Why organisations work with Martin Bayfield Combines international sport experience with broadcasting and public-facing expertise. Brings first-hand insight from elite competition and team environments. Offers credible perspectives on leadership, resilience and performance. Engages business audiences through experience across sport, media and public service. Biography Martin Bayfield brings the perspective of elite international sport, public service and national broadcasting to corporate audiences seeking insight into performance, leadership and resilience. As a former England international rugby union lock with 31 caps and a British & Irish Lions tourist, he competed at the highest level of the game, including Grand Slam campaigns and a Rugby World Cup squad. His experience in high-pressure, team-based environments underpins his understanding of accountability, discipline and collective responsibility. Alongside his sporting career, Bayfield served as a police officer with the Metropolitan Police and later Bedfordshire Police. This dual background in professional sport and public service informs his practical perspective on leadership, decision-making and operating under scrutiny. Following his retirement from rugby due to a serious neck injury, he established a successful broadcasting and presenting career. His work has included rugby coverage for ITV and BT Sport (now TNT Sports), presenting roles on BBC One’s Crimewatch, and coverage linked to the NFL and World’s Strongest Man. His on-screen presence reflects credibility, clarity and the ability to engage large audiences. Bayfield has also worked as an actor and stunt performer, including serving as Robbie Coltrane’s body double in the Harry Potter film series and appearing in feature films such as Wrath of the Titans. He later reached the final of Celebrity MasterChef, demonstrating his breadth beyond sport and media. He is the author of the rugby memoir A Very Tall Story and supports charitable organisations including the Wooden Spoon Society and the London Playing Fields Foundation.

Key speaking topics Goal achievement Performance improvement Leadership communication Overthinking and decision-making Personal effectiveness Workplace motivation Behaviour change Ideal for Corporate leadership teams Sales and performance-driven teams Company-wide conferences and annual meetings Organisations focused on execution and accountability Audience outcomes Clear frameworks for setting and completing meaningful goals Practical tools to reduce overthinking and improve decision-making Greater clarity on personal and team performance habits Structured approaches to turning ideas into completed work Shared language around accountability and execution Why organisations work with Jon Acuff Combines bestselling author insight with corporate keynote experience. Translates goal-setting and performance concepts into structured, usable frameworks. Trusted by global brands across multiple industries. Aligns individual motivation with organisational execution priorities. Biography Jon Acuff is a New York Times bestselling author and keynote speaker whose work centres on goal achievement, performance, and leadership communication within organisations. He is the author of multiple books including Soundtracks, Finish, Start, Do Over, Quitter, and All It Takes Is a Goal. His writing translates complex ideas about overthinking, productivity, and behaviour change into structured, practical frameworks that support execution at scale. Recognised as an INC Top 100 Leadership Speaker, Jon delivers keynotes for corporate and conference audiences internationally. His client list includes Microsoft, Walmart, Nissan, Nokia, FedEx, Chick-fil-A, Lockheed Martin, and Comedy Central, reflecting experience across sectors and leadership contexts. Alongside his books and keynote work, he hosts the podcast All It Takes Is a Goal, extending his focus on sustained performance and practical goal-setting strategies for modern workplaces. Based in the Nashville, Tennessee area, Jon works with organisations seeking to strengthen accountability, improve decision-making, and align individual ambition with collective results.

Why organisations work with Christian Gansch His work draws directly on the governance and communication structures of professional orchestras to diagnose alignment failures inside organisations – not as analogy, but as operational system analysis. Leaders leave with a replicable model, not just a perspective. His 14 years as a senior producer at Deutsche Grammophon (1990-2003) mean he has exercised genuine executive authority – across production, marketing, sales, and commercial strategy – inside a major global institution. This is the experience of a manager who performed at the highest level, not a performer who later studied management. His book «From Solo to Symphony» (2006) gives his framework a named, tested structure that organisations can return to. The central argument – that orchestras are precision operating systems, not just inspiring metaphors – is the intellectual spine of every engagement. He puts a question to leadership teams that most frameworks avoid: how many high-performing soloists can a team accommodate before individual excellence starts to fracture collective output? The orchestra offers a concrete, daily-tested answer. He speaks and consults in both English and German, making him an operationally practical choice for pan-European organisations and those with significant DACH-region leadership presence. Biography highlights Leader (concertmaster) of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra from 1981 to 1990 Senior producer at Deutsche Grammophon from 1990 to 2003; responsible for approximately 190 classical recordings including productions with Pierre Boulez, Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Lang Lang, and Anna Netrebko Multiple Grammy Award winner as a producer; recipient of the Record Academy Award Tokyo (Gold) in the Best Concerto Disc category Conducted major orchestras internationally, including the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France Paris, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, and BBC National Orchestra of Wales BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall; conducted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the orchestra and chorus of Teatro La Fenice, Venice; opera credits include Le nozze di Figaro with Opera North Author of «From Solo to Symphony – What businesses can learn from orchestras» (2006) and a second German-language business book; corporate consulting and keynote work with clients including Airbus, BASF, Deloitte, and Roche since 2003 Biography Christian Gansch spent a decade as leader of the Munich Philharmonic. He then spent fourteen years as a senior producer at Deutsche Grammophon. In both roles, the daily challenge was identical: turning highly skilled, independently minded specialists into a functioning collective. His book «From Solo to Symphony» (2006) makes a specific argument from that experience. Professional orchestras are not simply compelling analogies for corporate life – they are operational systems, with precise structures for authority, communication, and coordination. Most large organisations have never consciously built those structures. The gap shows up in execution. His 190 recordings at Deutsche Grammophon were produced across commercial, artistic, and logistical functions simultaneously. That cross-functional executive experience – managing complexity at the level of a major global label – is what separates his framework from that of performers who later turned to speaking. Gansch operated inside the institution, not just on stage. Since 2003, his consulting and keynote work has taken him to organisations including Airbus, BASF, Deloitte, and Roche. The question he brings to every leadership engagement is the one an orchestra solves in every rehearsal: when each individual in the room is an expert in their own domain, what structure of communication and authority allows the group to act as one? Key speaking topics Orchestral leadership and organisational alignment High-performance team dynamics in expert-driven environments Communication and authority structures in complex organisations Leadership decision-making under pressure Managing the tension between individual excellence and collective output Change readiness and adaptability Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams working on alignment, coordination, and collective performance CHROs and organisational development leads designing performance culture in large, expert-heavy organisations Executive conferences and leadership summits with DACH-region or international audiences Organisations in professional services, engineering, or life sciences navigating cross-functional complexity Audience outcomes A named operational framework – the orchestral model – for thinking about authority, communication, and coordination in large organisations Specific diagnostic questions for their own leadership teams about the relationship between individual performance and collective output A clearer vocabulary for the gap between team capability and team alignment – and what structures close it Practical perspectives on decision-making under pressure, drawn from the specific demands of conducting at the highest level A changed understanding of what «communication» requires at an organisational level, beyond cultural aspiration

Key speaking topics High-performance teamwork Leadership under pressure Resilience and endurance mindset Goal achievement and accountability Cross-functional collaboration Nonprofit leadership and mission-driven teams Lessons from elite adventure racing Ideal for Senior leadership teams Sales and performance-driven teams Organisations navigating change or high-pressure environments Corporate conferences and leadership events Audience outcomes Clear principles for building accountable, high-trust teams Practical insights into leading in high-stakes environments A framework for aligning individual performance with shared goals Perspective on resilience drawn from elite sport and emergency services Why organisations work with Robyn Benincasa Brings cross-sector credibility from firefighting, elite sport and nonprofit leadership. Translates extreme team experiences into commercially relevant leadership lessons. Connects performance, accountability and shared purpose in a way that resonates with corporate audiences. Provides structured, experience-based insights that support stronger team culture and execution. Biography Robyn Benincasa brings together elite sport, frontline emergency service and nonprofit leadership to deliver practical insight on high-performance teamwork and leadership under pressure. Her career spans expedition adventure racing at the highest level, long service with the San Diego Fire Department, and the founding of a mission-driven organisation supporting women overcoming significant medical and life challenges. As a champion in major expedition races including Eco-Challenge Borneo and the Raid Gauloises, she has operated in extreme, high-stakes environments where trust, accountability and shared purpose determine success. Her achievements also include Guinness World Records in endurance paddling, reflecting sustained performance, resilience and disciplined team coordination. Beyond sport, Benincasa served as a long-standing member of the San Diego Fire Department, bringing real-world experience of crisis response, operational discipline and leadership in unpredictable conditions. This frontline perspective informs her understanding of how teams perform when the margin for error is narrow. She is the founder of the Project Athena Foundation, a nonprofit that supports women recovering from serious medical or traumatic setbacks through structured, endurance-based goals. The organisation reflects her commitment to translating resilience and teamwork into measurable outcomes. Benincasa is the author of How Winning Works: 8 Essential Leadership Lessons from the Toughest Teams on Earth and has contributed to publications including Harvard Business Review and Fast Company. Her work connects extreme team performance with the realities of corporate leadership, helping organisations build alignment, accountability and sustained results.

Why organisations work with Caspar Craven His Big Bold Mindset® and Big Bold Circle give leadership teams a named, structured framework for changing how they think and act under pressure, not a set of borrowed principles, but a system built and tested through his own experience of pursuing extreme goals in commercial and offshore environments. His background as a KPMG Associate Director and CFO, including a technology business exit to a listed company, grounds the material in commercial and financial reality, making it credible with boards, finance teams and senior executive audiences, not only culture or L&D audiences. The argument he makes is unusual: that the behaviours required to hold a team together on a two-year ocean voyage are the same behaviours that determine whether a leadership team delivers or stalls, and he can evidence that claim from both sides of the equation. The Big Bold Circle’s 20 principles connect individual mindset to team behaviour to organisational execution, giving buyers a framework that extends beyond the event into coaching, offsites and leadership programmes. Organisations including Johnson & Johnson, GSK, Boston Consulting Group and Burberry rebook him, evidence that the material holds up under repeated use with commercially sophisticated audiences. Biography highlights Author of three Bloomsbury-published books: Where the Magic Happens, Be More Human: Rethinking the Rules of High-Performance Teamwork, and The Big Bold Mindset: Re-thinking the Rules of Leadership Former Associate Director at KPMG; former CFO in the technology sector, including a business sold to Private Equity Built, scaled and sold a technology business to a stock market listed company Team leader on trophy-winning yacht in the BT Global Challenge (2000/01) Captain of family circumnavigation (2014/16), leading a crew that included three children under ten Speaker for global organisations including Johnson & Johnson, GSK, Boston Consulting Group, Burberry, Standard Life and BAE Systems Biography Most leadership teams do not lack ambition. They lack the thinking that holds when ambition meets sustained pressure. Caspar Craven has spent three decades studying that gap, in FTSE-boardroom pressure, in the execution risk of building and selling a technology business, and in the conditions of offshore sailing, and building the frameworks that close it. His commercial background is foundational. As an Associate Director at KPMG and then CFO of a technology business sold to Private Equity, Craven worked inside the financial and strategic pressures that boards and senior leadership teams actually face. He then built and exited his own technology company, selling it to a listed firm for a seven-figure sum. That sequence – corporate discipline, then ownership, then entrepreneurial risk – is the basis of his credibility with finance, commercial and executive audiences. The two round-the-world sailing voyages are not adventure narrative. The first, as a team leader on a trophy-winning yacht in the BT Global Challenge (2000/01), tested leadership under competitive pressure and physical exhaustion. The second (2014/16), as captain of a family crew including three young children, tested something harder: sustaining shared values, clear roles and collaborative decision-making over two years in an environment where the cost of poor leadership is immediate and real. Both voyages provided the evidence base for the frameworks he now teaches. That evidence base is formalised in the Big Bold Mindset® and the Big Bold Circle, 20 principles connecting individual mindset to team behaviour to organisational execution, published across three Bloomsbury books. The framework has been applied with leadership teams at Johnson & Johnson, GSK, Boston Consulting Group, Burberry and Standard Life, among others. The core argument is practical: that the gap between ambitious goals and actual delivery is a thinking and behaviour problem, and that it can be addressed systematically. Key speaking topics Leadership mindset and behavioural change High-performance team dynamics Goal-setting and execution under pressure Decision-making in uncertainty Resilience and organisational adaptability Entrepreneurship and business growth Culture change and human-centred leadership Ideal for Senior leadership teams and executive committees setting ambitious growth or transformation targets CHROs and L&D leaders designing leadership development programmes, particularly for high-potential talent or senior cohorts Commercial and sales organisations at annual kick-offs or strategic resets Boards and C-suite audiences navigating significant change, M&A, or sustained performance pressure Audience outcomes A named, structured framework (The Big Bold Mindset® and Big Bold Circle) applicable immediately to their own goals, team dynamics and leadership behaviours Clearer understanding of why leadership teams stall under pressure, and what specifically needs to change in how they think and make decisions Practical approaches to aligning teams around ambitious goals, reducing execution friction and sustaining momentum through setbacks A shared vocabulary for discussing leadership mindset and team behaviour that moves beyond generic or abstract concepts Renewed confidence in pursuing bold goals, grounded in evidence and principle rather than motivation alone

Meet Ebony Rainford-Brent Ebony Rainford-Brent MBE is a World Cup Winning Cricketer, Broadcaster, Motivational Speaker and Performance Coach. Ebony is a former English cricketer and was a member of the England Team that won the 9th ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in Sydney 2009. In the three months following their World Cup win, the team went on to win: the ICC Women’s World Twenty20, the NatWest One Day series and retained the Ashes. During her playing career, she was also captain of the Surrey women’s team. Since retiring from sport, Ebony has gone on to a career in the media including becoming a broadcaster and commentator for the flagship BBC programme ‘Test Match Special’ and in 2020 she joined the Sky Sports cricket commentary team. Ebony has also worked with BT Sports / TNT Sports and Channel 4. Most recently, Ebony has fronted Sky’s The Hundred coverage and The White Ball Series for BBC. Ebony has also presented and commentated for numerous cricket tournaments, including, ICC cricket, WPL, WBBL and IPL. Ebony also runs a podcast called ‘The Art of Success’ where she sits down with high performers from various fields to unpick tools and strategies for success. Host of BBC Radio London’s The Women’s Sport Show from 2021-2023. She is also an ambassador for Beyond Sport, Chair of the Ace Programme and the first female Director of Women’s Cricket for Surrey County Cricket Club. Ebony has recently been made an MBE for her services to cricket and charity. Ebony has worked with brands including Galaxy, Actimel and Spotify.

Why organisations work with Aaron Phipps A first-person account of high performance under genuinely extreme physical constraint, told by a Tokyo 2020 gold medallist on the first GB team to win a team-sport Paralympic gold. Specific stories built around named decisions: continuing the Kilimanjaro climb on hands and knees for four days when the chair failed, returning to elite sport at three Paralympic Games across twelve years. Material that travels into senior leadership conferences without sliding into generic motivation. The talks are structured around setbacks, recalibration, and execution, not slogans. Co-delivered Path to Gold session with performance coach Jon Cooper, which gives senior teams the athlete and coach view of the same elite partnership. Track record with FTSE 100 audiences including PwC, Google, HSBC, Deloitte, Allianz, Salesforce and Nestle. Biography highlights Three-time Paralympian for Great Britain in wheelchair rugby: London 2012, Tokyo 2020, Paris 2024. Tokyo 2020 gold medallist as part of the first GB team to win a team-sport Paralympic gold. Appointed MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to wheelchair rugby. First disabled British person to summit Mount Kilimanjaro, completing the final four days on hands and knees in May 2016 after his adapted wheelchair failed. Lost both legs and most of his fingers at age 15 to meningococcal sepsis after contracting Meningitis C in January 1999. Keynote client list includes PwC, Google, HSBC, Bupa, Allianz, Deloitte, Salesforce, Nestle and O2. Biography A Meningitis C infection on 7 January 1999 put a fifteen year old Aaron Phipps into a two week induced coma. He came out of it without both legs and without most of his fingers, and spent the next year in hospital. The recovery story matters less than what he chose to do with it. He went back into competitive sport, completed two London Marathons by 2009, and was selected for the GB wheelchair rugby squad ahead of London 2012. The Kilimanjaro climb in May 2016 is the story most senior audiences remember. The adapted wheelchair built for the route gave way early. Rather than turn back, Phipps spent four days crawling on hands and knees to the summit, becoming the first disabled British person to reach it. The point that lands in a corporate room is not the heroism. It is the decision architecture: keep going under conditions you did not plan for, with equipment that no longer works, when nobody would blame you for stopping. Tokyo 2020 produced the result that defines his sporting career. Great Britain won the wheelchair rugby final, the first team-sport gold any GB Paralympic team has ever taken. Phipps was central to it, and was appointed MBE in the 2022 New Year Honours. He competed at a third Paralympic Games in Paris 2024, twelve years after his first. He is not a management theorist and does not present himself as one. He is booked because he tells specific stories about staying functional under genuinely extreme conditions, and because senior buyers at PwC, Google, HSBC, Deloitte and others find that those stories survive the translation into a leadership conference room better than most. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained adversity High performance and elite team partnership Mindset and recovery from setback Goal pursuit when the original plan fails Paralympic sport and disability inclusion Self-leadership through extreme constraint Ideal for Senior leadership conferences and executive offsites where the brief is composure under pressure Sales kickoffs, performance teams and high-stakes commercial groups closing demanding cycles Organisations going through restructure or sustained change where workforce fatigue is the named risk Inclusion and disability-focused programmes that want a substantive lived account rather than a panel Audience outcomes A specific, retold account of a senior person continuing to execute when conditions are worse than planned Sharper language for the difference between motivation and the practical mechanics of recovery A reference point teams use back at work when the discussion turns to whether to push on or stop Recalibration of what counts as a serious obstacle inside the audience’s own commercial context

Key speaking topics Leadership presence Transformational leadership Executive development Peak performance in leadership Arts-based approaches to leadership development Leadership and personal development Ideal for Senior leaders and executive teams Board-level and C-suite audiences Organisations investing in leadership development programmes Corporate and public-sector leadership events Audience outcomes Greater understanding of leadership presence and its impact on performance Practical perspectives on transformational leadership Insight into integrating personal development with executive responsibility New approaches to leadership drawn from performance and arts-based disciplines Why organisations work with Nicholas Janni Combines authorship, executive education and consultancy experience. Brings cross-sector leadership development experience in corporate and public-sector contexts. Connects leadership theory with applied executive practice. Offers a perspective shaped by both business education and professional theatre training. Biography Nicholas Janni works at the intersection of leadership development, executive presence and organisational transformation. His work is designed for senior leaders and boards seeking to strengthen the human dimension of leadership in complex corporate environments. He is the author of Leader as Healer, published by LID Publishing, which won Business Book of the Year at the 2023 Business Book Awards, including Leadership Book of the Year. The book sets out his approach to leadership presence, responsibility and the inner capacities required for effective executive performance. Janni serves as a Visiting Professor of Leadership at IMD Business School, contributing to executive learning journeys and leadership programmes. His work in executive education connects personal development with organisational impact, supporting leaders in translating insight into practice. He founded CORE PRESENCE, his leadership development consultancy, and previously co-founded Olivier Mythodrama, an arts-based leadership development firm. This combination of consultancy and executive education experience underpins his practical, applied approach to leadership growth. Before focusing fully on leadership development, Janni worked in theatre direction and taught acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. This background informs his distinctive perspective on presence, performance under pressure and the embodied aspects of leadership in high-stakes environments.

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

Why organisations work with 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.