Peak Performance

Why organisations work with Les Hewitt A coaching method that has been deployed inside more than 300 companies, including Wells Fargo, RBC, FedEx, RE/MAX and the Million Dollar Round Table, with a focus on sales-led and franchise organisations rather than abstract leadership theory. Co-authorship of The Power of Focus with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, a book that has sold more than 825,000 copies in North America and given Hewitt a recognisable thesis his audiences have often already encountered. Three decades of building and running The Power of Focus coaching program, including more than 900 delivered workshops, so the content is operating practice and not a recycled keynote. A clear diagnostic for why senior teams underperform: unclear future targets, leaders not protecting their top objectives, weak internal communication, and habits that quietly cost productivity. Built specifically for sales leaders, owner-operators and franchise networks, audiences that are usually underserved by leadership-development speakers pitched at corporate HQ. Biography highlights Co-author with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen of The Power of Focus, an international bestseller translated into more than 20 languages. Founder of The Power of Focus Coaching Program, used by more than 300 companies across North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia, the Gulf, Singapore and Russia. Named clients include Wells Fargo, Royal Bank of Canada, FedEx, Cameron Inc., Nexen Energy, RE/MAX, Royal LePage, Investors Group and the Million Dollar Round Table. Author of further titles in the series, including The Power of Focus for Women, The Power of Faithful Focus and The Power of Focus for College Students. Built and ran Achievers Canada, the seminar business that delivered more than 450 leadership and sales programs before evolving into the current coaching practice. Originally from Belfast; rose to top salesperson in an international network marketing company before moving into coaching and authorship. Biography Most senior teams are not failing on strategy. They are failing on follow-through. Targets get diluted by competing demands, the highest-value work slips down the calendar, and the habits that quietly govern productivity go unexamined. Hewitt has spent more than thirty years building a coaching practice around that gap. The Power of Focus, the book he co-authored with Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, was the first articulation of his method outside the workshop room. It became a long-running international bestseller, has been translated into more than twenty languages, and seeded the coaching program that now carries the same name. The book gave him a public thesis. The coaching business gave him the operating evidence behind it. That coaching business has been deployed inside more than 300 organisations, including Wells Fargo, Royal Bank of Canada, FedEx, RE/MAX, Royal LePage, Cameron Inc. and the Million Dollar Round Table. The work concentrates on a specific cohort: sales-led and franchise organisations where individual leader habits and team focus translate directly into commercial results. More than 900 workshops have been delivered, so the material is tested under load. Hewitt’s distinctive value is the combination of a recognisable book and a long working catalogue of what actually changes inside companies when leaders narrow their targets and protect their top priorities. Audiences leave with concrete habits and language to install on Monday, not a framework to file away. Key speaking topics Focus and follow-through for senior leaders Goal clarity and execution discipline Productivity habits in sales-led organisations Leadership effectiveness and self-management High-performance team behaviour Ideal for CEOs and owner-operators of mid-market and growth-stage businesses Sales leaders, franchise principals and broker networks Senior leadership teams running annual planning and offsite resets Member organisations such as MDRT, RE/MAX, Royal LePage and similar producer networks Audience outcomes A clearer set of personal and team targets, written down and prioritised before they leave the room. Specific habits to protect the highest-value hours of the working week. A common language for accountability that the team can keep using after the event. Practical tactics drawn from sales and entrepreneurial environments rather than abstract leadership theory.

Why organisations work with Lawrence Dallaglio He captained one club, Wasps, through the most successful period in its history: five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups. That is sustained operating leadership at one institution, not a portfolio of short stints. The 2003 England side is one of the most studied teams in modern sport. Dallaglio was the only player on the pitch for every minute of the World Cup campaign. He can describe the mechanics of that team from inside the unit, not through hindsight. He founded and built Dallaglio RugbyWorks into a charity with measurable, third-party-evaluated outcomes for school-excluded young people. That is a specific, hands-on operating story, not a patronage role. He is one of two players to have won the Rugby World Cup in both 15-a-side and 7-a-side formats, a credential that no other speaker on the British circuit holds. Biography highlights 85 caps for England, captain in 1997 and again from 2004. Member of the 2003 Rugby World Cup and Grand Slam-winning side; played every minute of the World Cup campaign. Five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups with London Wasps as a player and captain. One of two players to have won the Rugby World Cup in both 15-a-side and 7-a-side codes. MBE 2004, OBE 2008 for services to rugby and to charity. Founder of Dallaglio RugbyWorks, working with school-excluded young people aged 12 to 18. Author of It’s in the Blood: My Life, Headline, 2007. Biography The 2003 England side is one of the most analysed teams in international sport. Dallaglio was on the pitch for every minute of that World Cup campaign, in a back row with Richard Hill and Neil Back that other coaches still cite as a benchmark for balance and trust between three players in the same unit. The substance of what he speaks about begins there: how an elite team is actually held together over a long campaign. He played his entire professional club career at London Wasps. Under his captaincy, the club won five Premiership titles and two Heineken Cups. That is unusual in modern rugby, where careers move and loyalty is shorter. He captained England in 1997 and again from 2004 after Martin Johnson retired, and finished his international career with 85 caps. He is one of two players, with Matt Dawson, to have won the Rugby World Cup in both 15-a-side and 7-a-side codes. Dallaglio founded RugbyWorks in 2009 to work with young people excluded from mainstream education. The charity reports working with 4,439 young people across 101 provisions, with 90% of participants moving into education, employment or training, against 62% for their peers. It has been funded by the Youth Endowment Fund and works with school leaders who report attendance improvements in their cohorts. He was made MBE in 2004 and OBE in the 2008 Queen’s Birthday Honours, the latter explicitly for services to rugby and to charity. His 2007 autobiography It’s in the Blood is unusually direct for a sports memoir. The Daily Telegraph called it “uncontrollably frank”. The book covers his sister Francesca’s death in the 1989 Marchioness disaster, his short and contested first England captaincy, and the long arc back to the 2003 squad. For a corporate audience, the material that travels is the operating discipline behind sustained captaincy at one club, the inside view of the 2003 England unit, and the practical work of building an institution that does measurable good after the playing career ends. Key speaking topics Captaincy and team leadership High-performance culture in elite sport The 2003 England Rugby World Cup campaign Resilience and recovery from setback Charity and social impact through sport Motivation and after-dinner speaking Ideal for Sales conferences and annual kick-offs that need a leadership-anchored keynote with broad recognition Senior leadership offsites focused on team performance and captaincy Sponsorship, hospitality and broadcasting businesses where rugby has clear cultural currency After-dinner and awards audiences where authority and storytelling both matter Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how the 2003 England team operated week to week, not the post-match version Concrete examples of holding a dressing room together across a long campaign and through injury Insight into the operating model behind a charity that produces measurable outcomes for excluded young people A sharper read on what sustained captaincy at one club actually requires over a decade

Why organisations work with Konstantinos Karypidis He holds a room the way a stage performer does, then converts that attention into mindset work, drawing on years performing in theatres and on national television before moving into corporate training. His method is built on clinical ground, not platform clichés: as a licensed psychotherapist he targets the beliefs that keep behaviour stuck, which is where most change initiatives quietly fail. Every workshop is built from scratch against the client’s specific problem rather than delivered from a fixed deck, so the content matches the actual tension in the organisation. He has run sessions for the people-facing functions of demanding multinationals, including Sanofi, Roche, KPMG, L’Oréal and AstraZeneca, across sales, HR and customer-service briefs. Biography highlights Licensed psychotherapist, business consultant and executive coach to senior leaders internationally. Began his career as a performance artist, writing and directing his own shows for theatres and national television. Has delivered keynotes and bespoke workshops for Sanofi, Roche, Johnson & Johnson, KPMG, Philips, AstraZeneca, L’Oréal, DHL, AXA and JTI. TEDx speaker. Listed in the Thinkers360 Top 50 Global Thinkers & Influencers in Change Management, 2022. Hosts a podcast and a YouTube channel devoted to books worth reading. Biography Most behaviour-change efforts inside organisations stall in the same place. The strategy is sound and the training is delivered, but the people expected to change carry the same assumptions out of the room that they brought into it. Konstantinos Karypidis works on that gap. He came to corporate work by an unusual route. Before the boardroom he was a performer, writing and directing his own shows for theatres and national television. That background gives him a working performer’s command of attention, which he treats as the precondition for any real change rather than the point of it. The substance underneath the stagecraft is clinical. As a licensed psychotherapist, he focuses on the beliefs and mental patterns that govern how people act, the layer most training programmes skip. His sessions are built individually for each client, shaped around the specific friction a team is facing in sales, HR or customer service. That approach has been tested across demanding environments, from Sanofi and Roche to KPMG, L’Oréal and AstraZeneca. He was listed among the Thinkers360 Top 50 Global Thinkers and Influencers in Change Management in 2022, and speaks regularly on the same TEDx and conference platforms where he first built his reputation for getting an audience to question how they think. Key speaking topics Mindset change and behavioural adoption Peak performance and productivity Employee motivation and engagement Non-verbal communication and influence Sales and customer service Embracing organisational change Ideal for Heads of HR and L&D commissioning a keynote that needs to land emotionally and stick afterwards Sales and customer-service leaders running kick-offs or summits where energy and engagement matter Conference organisers who need an opening or closing speaker who can hold a large room After-dinner audiences at corporate events Audience outcomes A clearer view of the mental patterns that hold back individual performance, and practical techniques to interrupt them Specific tools for reading and using non-verbal communication Renewed motivation tied to concrete take-away methods rather than a temporary lift A shared, energised reference point that teams can carry back into day-to-day work

Why organisations work with Kevin Gaskell He has led verifiable turnarounds at three named global brands – Porsche GB from near-bankruptcy to the UK’s most profitable car company, BMW GB to four years of record growth and 500% profitability improvement, and Lamborghini GB – which means his frameworks are grounded in a documented, repeated track record, not a single case. His book Catching Giants (Business Book Awards 2023 finalist) makes a specific, testable argument: that resource-constrained teams with clarity of goal and high belief can consistently outperform better-resourced opponents. Organisations working through transformation can put that directly to use. His portfolio of 15+ businesses across technology, data, and manufacturing – including taking Fairline Boats from ten years of losses to profit within 14 months – shows the same turnaround approach applied across sectors, which makes it credible to audiences outside automotive. The world-record Atlantic and Pacific rowing expeditions are not decorative biography. They are tested case material on exactly the leadership dynamics he teaches: small teams, constrained resources, extreme conditions, and the challenge of sustaining belief and performance when the goal feels unreachable. He has delivered keynotes and masterclasses in over 50 countries for clients including Google, Oracle, JP Morgan, P&G, and Airbus – a range that tests his frameworks against diverse industries, organisation sizes, and cultures. Biography highlights MD of Porsche GB: took the business from near-bankruptcy and bottom of UK customer satisfaction rankings to most profitable car company in the UK within five years MD of BMW GB: four years of record growth, 70% sales increase, 500% improvement in profitability MD of Lamborghini GB; CEO of Fairline Boats, leading the business from ten years of losses to profit within 14 months Founder, chairman, and investor across 15+ businesses in technology, data, manufacturing, and professional services; portfolio has created over £3 billion in shareholder value Author of Catching Giants (Right Book Press, 2022), shortlisted for the Business Book Awards 2023 Guinness World Record holder as part of the Ocean 5 team, fastest five-person Atlantic row (2020); world record Pacific row (2025); expeditions to both the North and South Poles Keynote and masterclass clients include Google, Oracle, JP Morgan, P&G, Airbus, and Accenture; delivered in over 50 countries Recognised as one of the UK’s Top 40 Managers under 40 Biography Turning round a failing business is one of the most demanding tests of leadership because it requires people to change their behaviour before there is any evidence the change will work. Kevin Gaskell has done that three times – at Porsche GB, BMW GB, and Lamborghini GB – and the mechanism in each case was the same: rebuilding team belief in a new direction ahead of any visible result. Appointed MD of Porsche GB at 32, he inherited a company close to bankruptcy and ranked at the bottom of UK customer satisfaction tables. Within five years it was the most profitable car company in the UK. At BMW GB, he led four years of record growth, including a 500% improvement in profitability. At Lamborghini GB, the same approach – refocusing the team on a clear goal, rebuilding culture from the inside – produced comparable results. Across these three brands, the pattern was never primarily about strategy. It was about belief. That same discipline has been applied outside automotive. At Fairline Boats, a business carrying ten years of losses was returned to profit within 14 months. Across a wider portfolio of technology, data, and manufacturing businesses, his teams have created more than £3 billion in shareholder value. His book Catching Giants, shortlisted for the Business Book Awards in 2023, formalises the core argument: that teams with limited resources and a clear goal, led well, can outperform better-equipped competition consistently. The expedition record – both poles, world-record Atlantic and Pacific rows – provides a parallel body of case material on the same dynamics. Small teams, constrained resources, extreme conditions, and the central leadership question: how do you sustain the belief and cohesion needed to reach an objective that looks, for most of the journey, unreachable. Key speaking topics Business turnaround and performance recovery High-performance team leadership Organisational culture as a performance lever Leading through disruption and uncertainty Brand building and repositioning Resilience and performance under pressure Entrepreneurship and business building Ideal for CEOs, MDs, and executive teams in businesses facing stalled performance, competitive disruption, or active turnaround Senior leadership teams initiating or sustaining large-scale transformation programmes Board-level and C-suite audiences exploring the human and cultural dynamics of sustained organisational performance Commercial and operations leaders responsible for driving step-change performance in established organisations Audience outcomes A specific framework for diagnosing why performance has stalled and what leadership change is needed to address it Practical tools for building team belief and shared purpose around an ambitious goal Case-based understanding of how cultural change typically precedes financial performance recovery in turnaround situations A working model for connecting leadership behaviour to commercial outcomes, drawn from multiple named business examples Perspective on sustaining high performance and decision quality under conditions of extreme pressure and limited resource

Why organisations work with Justin Hughes His BETTUR (Better Understanding of Reality) model gives teams a structured, named framework for planning, executing, and adapting under conditions of ambiguity and pressure – one tested in military aviation and refined across corporate and public sector organisations on multiple continents. The Business of Excellence (Bloomsbury, 2016) advances a specific argument – that consistent high performance is a systems problem, built around people, capability, and delivery – giving his advisory work an intellectual foundation that separates it from standard high-performance keynote content. His advisory work spans genuinely diverse high-stakes environments: BP’s global safety operations programme, Mercedes Formula 1, the United Nations, and Microsoft – meaning the principles he applies have been stress-tested well beyond the military analogy. As current CEO of a biotech startup operating under real commercial pressure, he holds practitioner credibility that most speakers with a military or aviation background left behind long ago. His diagnostic starting point – that cognitive and motivational biases distort individual and team judgement under pressure in predictable, addressable ways – gives organisations a more honest and specific entry point than generic resilience or leadership development typically provides. Biography highlights Former RAF fighter pilot; served as Executive Officer of the Red Arrows, flying more than 250 displays across three international tours Founder of Mission Excellence, an organisational performance consultancy; strategic adviser to Microsoft, the United Nations, and Mercedes Formula 1 Regular contributor to BP’s global Leading in Operations programme Author of The Business of Excellence (Bloomsbury, 2016), a performance framework built around people, capability, and delivery; endorsed by Paddy Lowe, Executive Director of Mercedes Grand Prix Profiled in the Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Director Magazine, and the London Evening Standard; interviewed on BBC World Talking Business, BBC Breakfast, and GB News MBA with Distinction, London Business School; MSt with Distinction in International Relations, University of Cambridge Biography The Business of Excellence, published by Bloomsbury in 2016, makes a specific claim: consistent high performance is not a talent question. It is a question of systems, behaviours, and the decision-making habits that hold up when conditions deteriorate. Justin Hughes wrote that book after twelve years as an RAF fighter pilot and three as Executive Officer of the Red Arrows. Since leaving the RAF, Hughes has operated in the environments his book describes. As founder of Mission Excellence, he has advised Microsoft, the United Nations, and Mercedes Formula 1 on organisational effectiveness. He is also a regular contributor to BP’s global Leading in Operations programme – a safety-critical context where the gap between intended and actual decision-making carries serious consequences. The practical instrument of that advisory work is the BETTUR model – an acronym for Better Understanding of Reality. It gives organisations a structured approach to planning, executing, and adapting under ambiguity and pressure. The model addresses a specific failure mode: the cognitive and motivational biases that cause individual and team judgement to degrade when information is incomplete and stakes are high. Hughes holds an MBA with Distinction from London Business School and an MSt with Distinction in International Relations from the University of Cambridge. As CEO of NetZeroNitrogen, a biotech company developing alternatives to synthetic nitrogen fertiliser, he retains active operating responsibility alongside his advisory and speaking work. He has been profiled in the Daily Telegraph, The Independent, and Director Magazine, and interviewed on BBC World Talking Business and BBC Breakfast. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure Decision-making in high-stakes environments High-performance team design Organisational effectiveness and execution Risk and cognitive bias in judgement Performance culture Strategic resilience Ideal for Senior leadership and executive teams building high-performance cultures in complex, high-reliability, or fast-changing organisations Operations, safety, and transformation leaders in sectors where the cost of poor judgement is high – energy, aerospace, financial services, and healthcare CHROs and L&D directors commissioning leadership development that goes beyond standard competency frameworks C-suite and board audiences addressing the gap between strategic intent and operational execution Audience outcomes A named framework – the BETTUR model – for planning, executing, and adapting under conditions of ambiguity, incomplete information, and time pressure A clearer diagnosis of why high-performance intentions break down under operational stress, and what structural factors – not individual failings – drive that gap Practical principles for building teams that maintain standards and accountability without relying on close supervision or ideal conditions A more rigorous understanding of how cognitive and motivational biases affect individual and team judgement, and what processes reduce their impact Directly applicable approaches to debrief discipline, decision protocols, and leadership behaviour in their own organisations

Why organisations work with Jonny Wilkinson A first-person account of what elite pressure does to judgement, body, and identity, drawn from the kick that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup and the years that followed it. Authority on performance and mental health that comes with a CBE, World Rugby Hall of Fame induction, and 91 England caps, not a consultant’s reframing of athlete clichés. A founder’s perspective from One Living, the B Corp drinks business he built around his own recovery, giving the talk commercial substance beyond the sporting story. Long-form work on presence and human potential through the I Am… podcast and two books, which means the content is developed, not improvised on stage. Biography highlights 91 caps for England, two British and Irish Lions tours, scorer of the drop goal that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup final against Australia. BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2003; IRB International Player of the Year 2003; OBE 2003; CBE 2015. Inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2016. Author of Jonny: My Autobiography and Tackling Life, the latter co-authored with long-time mentor Steve Black. Founder of One Living, a B Corp certified kombucha and functional drinks business stocked nationally in Tesco. Host of the I Am… With Jonny Wilkinson podcast, in conversation with thought leaders on performance, presence and mental health since 2022. Biography The drop goal that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup is one of the most replayed sporting moments in British memory. The man who struck it spent the next decade trying to explain to himself why it did not feel like the answer. Wilkinson’s body broke down through repeated injury, and the perfectionism that had driven the career became the thing he had to dismantle to live well. That second act is what gives his speaking content its weight. He writes and talks about presence, fear, and the relationship between high performance and mental health, drawing on his own recovery rather than secondhand frameworks. Tackling Life, written with his long-time mentor Steve Black, set the early ground. The I Am… podcast, running since 2022, has extended it into a body of conversation with global thinkers on potential and self-awareness. The credentials are not in doubt. 91 England caps, two Lions tours, the 2003 BBC Sports Personality award, the 2003 IRB International Player of the Year, an OBE the same year, a CBE in 2015, and induction into the World Rugby Hall of Fame in 2016. As a founder he has built One Living, a B Corp certified drinks brand born directly out of his own work on gut health, mental health and recovery. For a corporate audience, the value sits in the honesty about what elite pressure costs and how composure is rebuilt afterwards. The story is recognisable to anyone responsible for performance under public scrutiny, and the takeaways are practical rather than motivational. Key speaking topics Performing under pressure Mental health and recovery after high performance Presence and self-leadership Resilience and reinvention after a defining career Founder lessons from One Living Mindset, fear and the cost of perfectionism Ideal for Senior leadership offsites where composure under pressure is the practical theme CHRO and people director audiences focused on mental health, wellbeing and high-performing cultures Sales kickoffs and annual conferences seeking a credible performance keynote with intellectual depth Awards dinners, panel moderation and after-dinner appearances where rugby authority and on-stage authenticity carry the room Audience outcomes A grounded account of what perfectionism and fear do to performance at the top, and how that pattern is changed Specific habits Wilkinson uses for presence, focus and recovery, drawn from his own practice rather than a generic framework A reframing of mental health as a leadership capability, not an HR concern Permission to talk openly about the gap between visible success and private cost

Why organisations work with Jonnie Peacock The credibility behind his pressure narrative is specific. He won the London 2012 Paralympic 100m in front of 80,000 people, at 19, as the home favourite, having been largely unknown twelve months earlier. The preparation-to-execution discipline he describes is grounded in that exact moment, and he makes it concrete for business audiences in ways retrospective case studies cannot. His Strictly Come Dancing appearance was a deliberate disability advocacy strategy, not a media opportunity. He has described it publicly as a specific effort to shift mainstream perception of disability, which gives organisations working on inclusion a frame grounded in personal agency rather than policy or HR language. He has won at the highest level and lost at the highest level: two Paralympic golds, a bronze when gold was expected at Tokyo 2020, and a fifth place at Paris 2024 after a career as the public face of British Paralympic sprinting. His account of managing that full arc is something few performance speakers can draw on with equivalent specificity. His Channel 4 series Jonnie’s Blade Camp placed him in a structured coaching role with five young amputees, demonstrating that his performance insight has been tested and applied beyond his own biography. Competing at four Paralympic Games across twelve years, he provides a long-cycle view of high performance: managing injury, rival pressure, public expectation, and identity shift across a career, not just the story of a single peak moment. Biography highlights Two-time Paralympic 100m champion (London 2012, Rio 2016); bronze medallist T64 100m Tokyo 2020; silver medallist 4x100m Universal Relay at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 World champion at the IPC Athletics World Championships, Lyon 2013, and the World Para Athletics Championships, London 2017; multiple European champion; former world record holder in amputee sprinting (10.85 seconds) MBE for services to athletics, 2013 New Year Honours First amputee Paralympian to compete on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing (Series 15, 2017), partnered with Oti Mabuse Featured in the Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix (2020) and Channel 4’s “Meet the Superhumans” campaign (2012) Creator and presenter of Channel 4’s Jonnie’s Blade Camp (2021), a structured training programme for young amputees Biography At the 2012 London Paralympic 100m final, a 19-year-old largely unknown twelve months earlier stood behind the start line as the home favourite, in a stadium of 80,000 people. Jonnie Peacock won by a clear margin and set a Paralympic record. The insight that produces is not just biographical. Performing consistently when pressure is highest is one of the hardest things organisations ask of their people. Peacock is a two-time Paralympic 100m champion and former world record holder in amputee sprinting, with medals at three of the four Paralympic Games he has competed in across twelve years. His Channel 4 series Jonnie’s Blade Camp placed him in a structured coaching environment with five young amputees, demonstrating that his understanding of performance development has been applied in a formal teaching context, not only in his own career. His mainstream media presence reflects a deliberate strategy. He became the first amputee Paralympian on BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2017, a decision he has described publicly as an act of disability advocacy rather than entertainment. He features in the Netflix documentary Rising Phoenix and was at the centre of Channel 4’s “Meet the Superhumans” campaign in 2012, both of which sit inside the wider argument about how disability is perceived in high-performance sport. The story underneath all of this is not decorative. Peacock contracted meningitis at five and lost his right leg below the knee. He found athletics through a Paralympic talent identification day and became Paralympic champion in his first competitive senior season. His argument to organisations rests on that arc: the gap between preparation and peak execution under genuine pressure is real, and it can be closed. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Resilience and adversity recovery Elite competitive mindset Disability and inclusion High-performance team discipline Managing expectation in high-stakes moments Long-cycle career performance Ideal for Executive and leadership teams focused on consistency, decision-making, and execution under scrutiny Organisations running DEI programmes seeking inclusion framed through personal agency and elite performance evidence Commercial, sales, and competitive teams preparing for high-stakes pitches or critical competitive moments HR and people leaders building resilience and wellbeing strategies with credible, first-hand evidence Audience outcomes A first-hand account of what mental preparation for maximum-pressure performance feels like, grounded in verified results across four Paralympic Games Sharper distinction between building capability in training and executing consistently when real scrutiny arrives Disability reframed as competitive capability, evidenced through elite sport rather than policy language Greater clarity on managing external expectation from rivals, public audiences, and an organisation’s own culture A longer view of high performance: how to absorb setback, return to competition, and sustain standards across a career

Why organisations work with Jonathan Edwards A world record that has stood since 1995 gives him a rare authority on what it actually takes to perform at the top of a discipline, not a generic story about effort. He is a working broadcaster, not a retired athlete reading from cue cards. His BBC and Eurosport background carries directly into hosting awards nights, conferences and panel discussions with credibility on camera and on stage. His career arc covers Olympic gold, Olympic silver, a long stretch of injury and doubt, and a full second career in media. That gives him real material on the difference between winning once and staying competitive. He has worked at the centre of major institutional sport, from the LOCOG board for London 2012 to his current ambassador role with The R&A, which makes him comfortable in front of senior, formal audiences. Biography highlights Olympic triple jump gold medallist, Sydney 2000, and Olympic silver medallist, Atlanta 1996. World Championship gold, Gothenburg 1995, where he broke the world record twice in a single competition. Triple jump world record holder at 18.29m, set on 7 August 1995, still unbeaten three decades later. BBC Sports Personality of the Year 1995. CBE in 2001, MBE in 1996. BBC athletics commentator and presenter, anchoring the BBC’s athletics coverage at the London 2012 Olympic Games before joining Eurosport. London 2012 Olympic Ambassador and athletes’ representative on the London Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Global Development Ambassador for The R&A, with an active public role around The Open Championship. Biography The triple jump world record fell twice in twenty minutes at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg. Both jumps were Jonathan Edwards’s. The second, 18.29m, has not been beaten in more than thirty years and is one of the longest-standing records in track and field. What sits underneath that mark is more useful for a business audience than the mark itself. Edwards spent years as a quietly talented British triple jumper who refused to compete on Sundays on religious grounds and seemed unlikely to convert that talent into titles. The breakthrough came late, sustained execution came later still, and Olympic gold in Sydney arrived in 2000, five years after the world record. The arc from talent to record to gold was not a straight line, and he is direct about that. The second career matters as much as the first for the way organisations use him. As a BBC athletics commentator he anchored the corporation’s coverage of London 2012, and his broadcasting work has continued at Eurosport. That experience translates directly into the hosting, moderating and on-stage interviewing brief that most clients book him for. He is comfortable in front of a live, senior audience because he has done it for two decades on television. He has also held formal roles at the centre of British and global sport. He sat on the LOCOG board as the athletes’ representative for London 2012, served as an Olympic Ambassador for the Games, and currently works as a Global Development Ambassador for The R&A around The Open Championship. The result is a speaker who carries the weight of an undefeated world record, the polish of a working broadcaster, and the institutional credibility of long service inside major sporting bodies. Key speaking topics Peak performance under pressure Mental approach to competition Sustained excellence across a career Hosting and moderating major business events Awards presenting and after-dinner speaking Olympic and elite sport insight Resilience through setback and reinvention Ideal for Corporate awards nights, gala dinners and conferences needing a recognisable host with broadcast experience. Leadership offsites and sales kick-offs that want a credible peak performance keynote rather than a generic motivational slot. Boards and senior teams looking to interview a world-class performer on stage, with a moderator who can carry the room. Audience outcomes A clear sense of what world-class performance actually demands, told through one of athletics’ most-studied careers. Concrete language for talking about pressure, preparation and the gap between training and competition. A useful frame for thinking about long careers, where the second act often matters more than the first. A polished, professionally hosted event when he is engaged in a moderating or presenting capacity.

Why organisations work with Johnny Herbert A first-person account of returning to elite competition six months after doctors at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup debated amputating his foot, told without sentimentality and grounded in specific decisions. One of a small number of drivers to have won both the Le Mans 24 Hours and a Formula 1 Grand Prix, which gives credibility across endurance, sprint and team-strategy framings of high performance. Ten years of Sky Sports F1 punditry from 2012 to 2022 trained him to read a room, host live, and translate technical detail into clean narrative for non-specialist audiences. Seven F1 teams across a career: Benetton, Tyrrell, Lotus, Ligier, Sauber, Stewart and Jaguar. He has lived inside winning cultures and broken ones, and speaks to both honestly. Comfortable as awards host, Q&A guest, panel voice and after-dinner speaker, which makes him a flexible booking when the brief is engagement and presence rather than a fixed keynote. Biography highlights Three Formula 1 Grand Prix wins: 1995 British Grand Prix, 1995 Italian Grand Prix, 1999 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. Winner, 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours, with Mazda in the rotary-engined 787B alongside Bertrand Gachot and Volker Weidler. 161 Formula 1 starts across seven teams between 1989 and 2000, with seven podiums and 98 career points. British Formula 3 Champion 1987 with Eddie Jordan Racing. British Junior Karting Champion 1978. Le Mans Endurance Series Champion 2004 and Sebring 12 Hours winner 2002, both with Audi. Sky Sports F1 expert pundit and co-commentator, 2012 to 2022. Author of “What Doesn’t Kill You… My Life in Motor Racing”, published by Transworld. Biography The crash happened at Pilgrim’s Drop, Brands Hatch, on 21 August 1988. Herbert’s Reynard hit a bridge parapet, then a steel barrier. The medical team at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup discussed amputation. They told him his racing career was over. Six months later he was on the grid of the 1989 Brazilian Grand Prix in a Benetton, and finished fourth, eleven seconds behind Nigel Mansell. He could barely walk. The story of the next decade in Formula 1, including wins at Silverstone, Monza and the Nurburgring, sits inside that gap between the medical verdict and the result in Rio. The wider career is unusual in shape. Herbert raced for Benetton, Tyrrell, Lotus, Ligier, Sauber, Stewart and Jaguar across 161 Grand Prix starts. He won Le Mans for Mazda in 1991 in the 787B, the only Japanese car ever to take the overall victory, then went back and won the Le Mans Endurance Series for Audi in 2004 and Sebring in 2002. Few drivers have credibility across both the sprint and the endurance side of the sport. After racing, Sky Sports F1 hired him as a pundit from 2012 to 2022, a decade of live broadcasting on qualifying, races and analysis. The platform sharpened a public voice that had always been direct. His autobiography, “What Doesn’t Kill You… My Life in Motor Racing”, covers the team-mates, rivals and crashes in his own register: dry, specific, occasionally very funny. Key speaking topics Resilience and performance after serious injury Formula 1 strategy, drivers and team culture Endurance racing and the Le Mans 24 Hours High-pressure decision-making in motorsport Behind-the-scenes Formula 1 punditry and broadcasting After-dinner and awards hosting on motorsport themes Ideal for Corporate after-dinner audiences and awards evenings looking for a recognisable F1 name with broadcasting polish. Leadership and sales conferences using sport as an anchor for resilience, comeback and team-culture themes. Automotive, motorsport sponsor and engineering events where technical and team detail land with credibility. Q&A formats and on-stage interviews where the host wants a guest who can carry a room without a scripted keynote. Audience outcomes A specific, first-person account of returning to elite sport from career-ending injury, drawn from Herbert’s own experience rather than borrowed examples. Insider perspective on Formula 1 team cultures across seven different constructors, including Benetton in its title-winning years. Stories of racing alongside Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Damon Hill, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell, with named context rather than generic anecdote. A read on how live broadcasting shapes how a sport is understood, drawn from a decade inside the Sky Sports F1 commentary team.

Why organisations work with John Peters A first-hand account of decision-making, fear and recovery under conditions most executives will never experience, used as a working reference for leadership behaviour rather than as a war story. Twenty years of post-RAF consultancy through Monkey Business and UPH Ltd, with engagements at board and senior-team level on leadership, strategy and cultural change. Authority on human factors and safety culture, built on MoD programme leadership that won the Flight International Aerospace Industry Award for Training and Safety. Academic standing that supports the commercial work: former Chair of the Association of MBAs, Visiting Professor at Kingston Business School, Honorary Doctorate of Education from the University of Bedfordshire. Co-author of Tornado Down, a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller, and Team Tornado, with a BAFTA-nominated documentary in the same body of work. Biography highlights Former Royal Air Force Squadron Leader and Tornado GR1 pilot, shot down on the opening day of the 1991 Gulf War and held as a prisoner of war for seven weeks. Co-author of Tornado Down (Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller) and Team Tornado, with John Nichol. Subject of Cutting Edge: Tornado Down, BAFTA-nominated and Independent Documentary of the Year. Founder and owner of Monkey Business, a leadership and strategy consultancy working with senior teams since 2009; founder of UPH Ltd in 2000. Former Chair of the Association of MBAs; Visiting Professor at Kingston Business School; Associate Professor at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow. Honorary Doctorate of Education, University of Bedfordshire (2022). Biography A Tornado GR1 was shot down over Iraq on the opening day of Operation Desert Storm in January 1991. The two crew members, John Peters and his navigator John Nichol, were captured, interrogated and held for seven weeks. The bruised image of Peters on Iraqi state television became one of the defining pictures of the war. That experience is the entry point, not the conclusion. Peters returned to RAF service, then led Ministry of Defence work on aviation safety and human error, including a Human Factors Cultural Change Programme recognised by the Flight International Aerospace Industry Award for Training and Safety. The interest is consistent: how groups of capable people make sound decisions when stakes rise and information thins. Since leaving the RAF in 2000, Peters has worked with senior business teams on the same question, first through UPH Ltd and from 2009 through his consultancy Monkey Business. The frame is practical. Leadership behaviour, team trust and clarity of intent are treated as performance variables, observed and adjusted, not virtues to be admired. The academic work runs alongside the commercial. Peters chaired the Association of MBAs, holds a Visiting Professorship at Kingston Business School and an Associate Professorship at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow, and received an Honorary Doctorate of Education from the University of Bedfordshire in 2022. Tornado Down, written with Nichol, remains a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller and the basis of a BAFTA-nominated documentary. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Resilience and recovery after acute setbacks High-performing teams in high-stakes environments Decision-making with incomplete information Human factors and safety culture Cultural change in complex organisations Accountability and personal responsibility Ideal for Boards and executive committees taking on a major change, integration or operational risk CEOs and senior leadership teams stress-testing how they make decisions under load Heads of safety, operations and risk in regulated or safety-critical industries Leadership development and executive education programmes building resilience capability Audience outcomes A working language for what leadership actually looks like when conditions deteriorate A clearer view of how teams hold or lose their composure when judgement is under strain Specific reference points for handling fear, ambiguity and reputational exposure inside a senior team A first-hand case in human factors and safety culture that is hard to obtain from any other source Renewed conviction about the cost of avoiding hard conversations before they become forced

Why organisations work with John Amaechi The giants framework – introduced in The Promises of Giants (New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, 2021 Porchlight Business Book Award winner) – gives senior leaders a precise accountability tool: every person with influence shapes culture through their most ordinary behaviour, whether they intend to or not. He has held non-executive director appointments at FTSE 250 company Greencore Group plc and served a decade as board director at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust – giving him verified access to the governance conversations his clients face, not just advisory proximity to them. As Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter Business School and a Chartered Psychologist, he can name the specific behavioural mechanisms – not just the desired outcomes – that distinguish leaders who consistently build high-performing teams from those who inadvertently undermine them. His reframing of unconscious bias as “entrenched assumption” – from The Promises of Giants – shifts the inclusion conversation from psychological absolution to direct leadership accountability, making it actionable for boards and executive committees that have grown fatigued by compliance-oriented framing. Inducted into HR Magazine’s Hall of Fame in 2022, after multiple appearances on its Most Influential Thinkers list, he is recognised across HR, governance, and psychology communities – not within a single professional silo. Biography highlights Founder, APS Intelligence Ltd (est. 2008), working with executive teams and boards across FTSE 100 companies in financial services, technology, legal, and engineering sectors Professor of Leadership (HC), University of Exeter Business School; Research Fellow, University of East London; Chartered Psychologist (British Psychological Society), Chartered Scientist, Chartered Fellow of the CIPD Author of The Promises of Giants (New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller; 2021 Porchlight Business Book Award, Leadership and Strategy category) and It’s Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders Former non-executive director, Greencore Group plc (FTSE 250); former 10-year board director and HR Scrutiny Committee Chair, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust HR Magazine Hall of Fame inductee 2022; Sport Industry Integrity and Impact Award 2023; OBE 2011 First Briton to have a career in the NBA; appointed European Ambassador to the NBA Biography Culture gaps in senior teams are almost always a behaviour problem. APS Intelligence, the consultancy John Amaechi OBE founded in 2008, was built on that premise, and his advisory engagements, governance roles, and published research have only strengthened the case. Amaechi has held non-executive director appointments at FTSE 250 company Greencore Group plc and served a decade as board director at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. This places him inside the governance conversations most consultants observe from outside. He holds academic roles as Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter Business School and Research Fellow at the University of East London, where his research focuses on the mechanisms of inclusive leadership, team performance, and organisational design. His professional credentials sit across three chartered bodies: Chartered Psychologist of the British Psychological Society, Chartered Scientist, and Chartered Fellow of the CIPD. The Promises of Giants (2021) introduced the giants framework, the argument that every leader shapes culture through their most ordinary behaviour, intentionally or not. The book became a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller and won the Porchlight Business Book Award in Leadership and Strategy. His follow-up, It’s Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders, translates the framework into specific, repeatable actions that distinguish leaders who build high-performing environments from those who inadvertently undermine them. Amaechi was inducted into HR Magazine’s Hall of Fame in 2022, after multiple appearances on its Most Influential Thinkers list, and is a LinkedIn Top Voice and LinkedIn Influencer with sustained reach across professional audiences. Before his consultancy career, he was the first Briton to have a career in the NBA. That background informs his understanding of how culture either releases or suppresses individual potential, and what it costs organisations when it does the latter. Key speaking topics Leadership behaviour and culture Inclusive leadership High-performance team dynamics Executive accountability and governance Leadership through permanent disruption AI integration and the human organisation Ideal for Executive teams and C-suite leaders where a gap exists between declared culture and how people actually experience leadership Board members and non-executive directors engaged with governance, leadership accountability, and inclusive decision-making CHROs, CPOs, and people leaders designing culture and inclusion strategies that connect directly to performance outcomes Senior leadership cohorts in organisations navigating culture transformation, post-merger integration, or leadership succession Audience outcomes A specific vocabulary for naming the leadership behaviours – not strategy documents or values statements – that create or undermine the culture an organisation is trying to build Clarity on why inclusion programmes stall at leadership level, and what it takes behaviourally to move them forward A personal accountability framework – the giants principle from The Promises of Giants – that senior leaders can apply immediately to audit and adjust their own daily behaviour Greater understanding of how identity and belonging affect individual contribution, team cohesion, and organisational performance Practical, evidence-based tools from organisational psychology for building psychologically safe environments where high performance is sustainable

Why organisations work with Jim Lawless He has put his own method under the most public stress test available: 101 metres on one breath, and a televised race ride from a standing start, both inside the timelines he sets for his clients. His DARE Loop gives an executive team a shared, repeatable method, Decision, Action, Result, Evaluate, for committing to bold decisions when certainty is low and consequence is high, then holding themselves to the result. He rebuilt Diageo’s legacy global IT function into a data-led, AI-enabled organisation with CIO Benedetto Conversano, work Conversano documents in his forthcoming book The Braveheart CIO. He advises CEOs and executive teams at Diageo, Microsoft, Novartis, Bayer and BAE Systems, and coaches the Swiss Olympic and Ski teams, so the same operating model runs from the boardroom to elite sport. He spent a decade as a City of London commercial solicitor before this work, so a board conversation about accountability and disciplined decision-making is held in their language, not in performance metaphor. Biography highlights Author of Taming Tigers: Do Things You Never Thought You Could, Random House (Virgin Books), international bestseller; forthcoming title The DARE Loop. Creator of the DARE Loop, his decision and execution framework used inside boards and executive teams globally. First Briton to freedive past 100 metres, a national No Limits record of 101m, and a televised jockey within twelve months of first sitting on a horse. Founder of Symmetry, the advisory practice he has run since 2000, with work across more than 300 organisations. Ranked No. 1 motivational speaker outside the US on the Global Gurus list, and a member of the Forbes Coaches Council. Former City of London commercial solicitor and international legal counsel; elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2008. Biography Most strategy fails on the human side of the line. The board signs off the plan, the operating model is redrawn, and somewhere between the steering committee and the front line the behaviour stops changing. Jim Lawless works in that gap. His DARE Loop, a decision-engineering framework built on the sequence Decision, Action, Result, Evaluate, gives leaders a repeatable method for committing to bold decisions when certainty is low and the cost of getting them wrong is high. He has tested the same method on himself, in public. Inside a year of first sitting on a horse he qualified and rode as a televised jockey. Inside eight months of learning to freedive he became the first Briton past 100 metres, reaching 101m on a single breath. His bestseller Taming Tigers (Random House) is the foundation of that thinking and has been translated into multiple languages. Through Symmetry, the practice he has run since 2000, he advises executive teams at Diageo, Microsoft, Novartis and BAE Systems and coaches the Swiss Olympic and Ski teams. His rebuild of Diageo’s global IT function with CIO Benedetto Conversano features in Conversano’s forthcoming book, The Braveheart CIO. Key speaking topics Self-leadership and composure under pressure Strategy execution in complex organisations Leading through restructure and disruption High-performance team behaviour Decision-making under uncertainty Personal and organisational resilience Behaviour change as a leadership discipline Ideal for CEOs and executive committees holding a strategy through restructure or recovery Senior leadership populations being asked to change behaviour, not just process High-performance environments where standards have to be held under pressure, including elite sport HR and L&D leads building a resilience and self-leadership thread into executive development Audience outcomes The DARE Loop as a working mental model, Decision, Action, Result, Evaluate, that leaders can apply to their own decisions the same week. A bold strategic goal already in motion by the end of the session, with an owned plan to deliver it. A sharper read on where strategy execution is breaking down on the human side, not the planning side. A clearer shared language for composure, fear and risk in senior conversations. A worked example, drawn from his own record attempts, of what disciplined behaviour change looks like under time pressure.