Peak Performance speakers

Why organisations work with Sarah Storey The only person who can speak about sustaining elite performance across nine consecutive Paralympic Games, across two distinct sports, and against both disabled and able-bodied competition – making her case study in resilience and adaptation genuinely without parallel in British sport. Her career switch from swimming to cycling was not a choice but a forced pivot under serious illness. What she delivers to audiences is not an account of athletic triumph, but a dissection of the decisions that turn disruption into a new performance peak. As Active Travel Commissioner for Greater Manchester, a Non-Executive Director at the Department for Transport, and Visiting Professor of Sport at Manchester Metropolitan University, she operates inside institutions where outputs are scrutinised against governance standards – giving her a credibility in policy and leadership conversations that most athlete speakers cannot match. Two-time Sunday Times Disability Sportswoman of the Year (2020 and 2024), confirmed by a judging panel that includes some of the most respected names in British sport governance – recognition anchored in results, not profile. Client feedback consistently identifies her ability to adapt substantive content to the specific leadership context, rather than delivering a fixed biographical keynote – a distinction that matters for senior audiences expecting ideas, not inspiration alone. Biography highlights 19 Paralympic gold medals across nine Games (1992–2024) – the most by any British Paralympian in history, in either swimming or cycling 29-time World Champion across two sports; holder of 75 world records DBE (2013, for services to para-cycling); OBE (2009); MBE (1998) Active Travel Commissioner, Greater Manchester Combined Authority; former Non-Executive Director, Department for Transport Visiting Professor of Sport, Manchester Metropolitan University Institute of Sport President, Lancashire County Cricket Club (elected 2024) Sunday Times Disability Sportswoman of the Year: 2020 and 2024 Six-time British national track cycling champion, competing against able-bodied athletes; first disabled cyclist to represent England at a Commonwealth Games (Delhi, 2010) Biography Sustained performance across 32 years and two elite sports is not a product of talent alone. It requires specific disciplines: adapting when conditions shift, rebuilding when illness interrupts a career, setting standards before they are urgently needed. Dame Sarah Storey DBE holds 19 Paralympic gold medals – a British record across any sport – because she built those habits, not because she avoided the hard moments. Storey’s transition from swimming to cycling was not planned. A serious ear infection in 2005, following a diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome, ended her pool career. She entered a new sport, competed at Beijing 2008, and has since added 14 cycling gold medals to the five she won in the pool. The lesson she draws from that transition is not about optimism. It is about the practical decisions that make reinvention under real pressure productive rather than merely survivable. Her credibility extends well beyond athletics. She is Active Travel Commissioner for Greater Manchester Combined Authority, a former Non-Executive Director at the Department for Transport, and Visiting Professor of Sport at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has won British national track cycling titles competing against non-disabled athletes – a distinction very few Paralympic athletes can claim – and was the first disabled cyclist to represent England at a Commonwealth Games. In presentations, she connects the disciplines of elite sport directly to conditions leaders actually face: imperfect preparation, shifting targets, and pressure that outlasts the initial motivation. A two-time Sunday Times Disability Sportswoman of the Year (2020 and 2024), she brings to a senior leadership audience something rare – an athlete whose record is a matter of public fact, and whose post-competition work gives her the context to make that record relevant to the people running institutions, not just competing in them. Key speaking topics Sustained high performance and long-cycle excellence Resilience and adaptive performance under pressure Reinvention and career pivoting under constraint Marginal gains and performance culture Disability, inclusion, and elite sport Goal-setting across extended performance cycles Leadership lessons from elite sporting careers Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams seeking a credible, evidence-based perspective on sustained performance culture HR leaders and talent directors building resilience frameworks and high-performance environments Corporate conferences where disability inclusion, diversity of experience, and elite achievement intersect Public sector and policy audiences where sport leadership, active travel, and governance are on the agenda Audience outcomes A concrete framework for distinguishing resilience as a proactive discipline from resilience as a reactive recovery skill Understanding of the specific decisions that allow reinvention under pressure – drawn from a career that required a complete sport change mid-career Practical insight into how marginal gains and long-cycle goal-setting compound into sustained competitive advantage A reframed relationship with imperfect conditions: how elite performance is built in environments that are rarely ideal, rather than waiting for them to improve Renewed clarity on personal and team standard-setting: how the disciplines behind 32 years of elite performance apply to organisations that need to sustain output across strategic cycles, not just sprints

Why organisations work with Sasha De Sola Two decades of live, unedited high-stakes performance at one of the world’s top ballet companies, with the recovery patterns and pre-performance discipline that go with it. A perspective on creative work as a managed practice, not an inspiration: rehearsal, mentorship and craft repetition as the actual mechanism behind so-called artistry. Credibility on resilience earned through specific recoveries, including injury and the prolonged shutdown of live performance during the pandemic, not abstract theory. An inaugural fellow of San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders programme, currently being developed as a future arts leader through executive coaching and an international placement at the Royal Swedish Ballet. A bilingual Venezuelan American voice on belonging, mentorship and the long arc from selective mutism in childhood to lead casting on a global stage. Biography highlights Principal Dancer, San Francisco Ballet (2017 to present); named Diane B. Wilsey Principal Dancer in 2020. Trained at the Kirov Academy of Ballet, Washington D.C., on full merit scholarship, and at the Paris Opera Ballet School. BA in Performing Arts, Summa Cum Laude, Saint Mary’s College of California; completed Harvard Business School’s Crossover Into Business programme. Inaugural fellow, San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders artist-development programme (2024 to 2026), with a placement at the Royal Swedish Ballet under Nicolas Le Riche. Medallist at Varna, World and USA International Ballet Competitions. Co-founder of The Ascendant, a charitable initiative supporting Dancin Power and San Francisco Ballet; board member, Dancin Power; advisory board, Pointe Magazine. Biography A dancer who has carried lead roles in Swan Lake, Giselle and The Sleeping Beauty does not get there on talent. She gets there on the discipline of repeating small corrections until the body holds them under stage lights, with an audience watching, on a night when the knee is not quite right. That is the territory Sasha De Sola speaks from. She was named an apprentice at San Francisco Ballet in 2006, joined the corps in 2007, was promoted to soloist in 2012 and to Principal Dancer in 2017. In 2020 she was appointed the Diane B. Wilsey Principal Dancer, one of the company’s named principal positions. Her training is classical: the Kirov Academy in Washington D.C. on full merit scholarship, with a 2004 scholarship to the Paris Opera Ballet School and medals at Varna, World and USA International Ballet Competitions. The intellectual frame she brings to leadership audiences was built deliberately. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Saint Mary’s College of California with a BA in Performing Arts and completed Harvard Business School’s Crossover Into Business programme in 2022. In 2024 she was named one of two inaugural fellows of San Francisco Ballet’s Raising Leaders programme, a two-year curriculum that pairs executive coaching with an international placement shadowing Nicolas Le Riche at the Royal Swedish Ballet. What she gives a room is the practical content of staying composed when the conditions move. Recovery from injury. Performing through the prolonged closure of live theatre. The long mentorship work that, away from the stage, sits behind every confident debut. A Venezuelan American who was diagnosed with selective mutism as a child, she also speaks credibly on belonging and on the slow craft of building a voice in a setting that initially feels foreign. Key speaking topics Composure and recovery under sustained performance pressure Creative discipline as a managed practice Mentorship and craft development across long careers Resilience after injury and prolonged disruption Cross-cultural identity and belonging in high-performance settings Leadership lessons from elite artistic environments Ideal for Leadership offsites and senior-team retreats focused on performance under pressure CHRO and people-leader conferences on talent development, mentorship and craft Women’s leadership programmes and ERG events on resilience and belonging Cultural, arts and philanthropic audiences seeking a credible artist-leader voice Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what composure looks like in practice, not as a trait Specific examples of how recovery from setback is structured, not improvised A more honest read on what mentorship costs and what it produces in elite environments A counterweight to the language of “talent” with the language of repeated craft

Why organisations work with Scott Burrows A first-person account of recovery from a C6-C7 spinal cord injury that translates directly into how individuals make decisions when their assumptions collapse, not a generic resilience metaphor. Vision, Mindset, Grit, the framework behind his book of the same name, gives sales and leadership teams a simple shared language for goal-setting, response to rejection and persistence through downturn. Rare combination of elite-athlete background (Florida State football under Bobby Bowden, ESPN-broadcast kickboxing) and elite commercial performance (Million Dollar Round Table as a Northwestern Mutual advisor), which gives the talk credibility with sales and financial services audiences specifically. Track record with Fortune 500 buyers including Prudential, JPMorgan Chase, SAP, Thermo Fisher, Walgreens and Coca-Cola, and with national association audiences across healthcare, insurance and financial services. Biography highlights Walk-on wide receiver at Florida State University under head coach Bobby Bowden. Black-belt kickboxing champion whose final fight was broadcast on ESPN. Survived a car accident on 3 November 1984 that fractured the C6 and C7 vertebrae and left him paralysed from the chest down at age 19. Returned to higher education and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of South Florida. Qualified for the Million Dollar Round Table as a financial advisor at Northwestern Mutual, a top-producer benchmark in life insurance and financial services. Author of Vision, Mindset, Grit: How to Stand Up When Life Paralyzes You; co-founder of a golf course fertiliser business operating in Southeast Asia. Biography Elite athletes are taught to hold their composure under physical pressure. What they are rarely taught is what happens when the body itself becomes the constraint. On 3 November 1984, a car accident left Scott Burrows, then a Florida State University walk-on wide receiver under Bobby Bowden and a black-belt kickboxing champion whose last fight had been broadcast on ESPN, with two broken vertebrae in his neck and a quadriplegia diagnosis at 19. The interest for senior audiences is not the diagnosis. It is what he did with the years after it. He returned to higher education, graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of South Florida, and competed in wheelchair rugby, the Paralympic discipline known as Murderball. He then became a financial advisor at Northwestern Mutual, where he qualified for the Million Dollar Round Table, the production standard reserved for the top tier of life insurance and financial services producers. That commercial record matters because it is what makes the keynote land in front of revenue-carrying teams. Vision, Mindset, Grit, the title of his bestselling book and the spine of his talks, is a personal-leadership framework that names the three things he had to rebuild deliberately: a goal worth pursuing, a way of thinking that could absorb setbacks, and the daily discipline to keep moving when the original plan was no longer available. He has used that material with audiences at Prudential, JPMorgan Chase, SAP, Thermo Fisher, Walgreens, Coca-Cola and a long list of national associations across healthcare, insurance and financial services. The talk is most useful for organisations going through a period in which the previous playbook has stopped working and leaders need their people to keep performing while a new one is being written. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery after setback Peak performance under pressure Sales performance and overcoming rejection Goal-setting and personal leadership Adapting to industry change Mindset and motivation for commercial teams Ideal for Sales kick-offs, top-producer summits and incentive events, particularly in insurance, financial services and healthcare Leadership offsites where senior teams are navigating restructure, market shift or sustained pressure National association annual conferences seeking a credible opening or closing keynote on resilience and performance All-hands and town-hall settings during periods of significant organisational change Audience outcomes A shared language, Vision, Mindset, Grit, that teams can carry back into pipeline reviews, goal-setting and one-to-ones A reset on how individuals respond to rejection, missed targets and unexpected setback Specific examples of how to hold composure and decision quality when external conditions deteriorate Renewed energy and commitment heading into a sales cycle, fiscal year or strategic reset

Why organisations work with Scott Parazynski He is the only person on record to have both flown in space and summited Everest, giving every preparation and recovery argument the weight of a verifiable case study rather than an analogy. His STS-120 solar array repair, 90 feet from the airlock on a live, energised structure, is a documented worked example of decision-making at the edge of available data. Few speakers can hand a board that kind of primary material. A Stanford-trained physician and Harvard-trained emergency clinician, he brings a clinician’s discipline to how teams triage information when something is genuinely going wrong. As founder of Fluidity Technologies and CEO of OnwardAir, he speaks about innovation and risk from inside two operating aerospace companies, not from a podium career. His material on calculated risk versus reckless risk is built from cases where the distinction was tested in real time, which lands with audiences who have heard the metaphor too many times. Biography highlights Five Space Shuttle missions and seven spacewalks across 17 years at NASA, including service as EVA Branch Chief. Performed the STS-120 repair of a live P6 solar array tethered on the OBSS boom approximately 90 feet from the airlock. First person to fly in space and summit Mount Everest, reaching the summit on 20 May 2009. Stanford University BS Biology; Stanford Medical School MD; Harvard emergency medicine training. Author of The Sky Below: A True Story of Summits, Space and Speed, co-written with Susy Flory (Little A, 2017). Inducted into the US Astronaut Hall of Fame, 2016; recipient of five NASA Spaceflight Medals and two NASA Distinguished Service Medals. Founder and CEO of Fluidity Technologies; currently leading OnwardAir, a hybrid-electric VTOL venture. Biography The fourth spacewalk of STS-120 in 2007 was not in any flight plan. A torn solar array on the International Space Station had to be repaired while still energised, and the astronaut sent to do it was tethered to a boom 90 feet from the airlock, further from safety than anyone had been before. The repair held. It is one of the most cited operational saves of the Shuttle era and the working example behind most of what Scott Parazynski now teaches leadership teams about decisions made on incomplete information. He spent 17 years at NASA, flying five Shuttle missions and conducting seven spacewalks for a total of around 47 hours outside the vehicle. He served as EVA Branch Chief, leading the office responsible for how astronauts work in vacuum. The clinical training behind that career, Stanford Medical School and Harvard emergency medicine, shapes how he describes preparation: as a structured rehearsal of failure, not as confidence-building. On 20 May 2009 he became the first person to have both flown in space and stood on the summit of Everest, after a ruptured lumbar disc forced him to abandon an earlier attempt and rebuild. The Sky Below, published with Susy Flory in 2017, is the long-form account. The book is useful here because it documents recovery and re-attempt, not just achievement. His current work is operational. He founded Fluidity Technologies, the single-handed 3D input controller spun out of his spacewalk experience, and now leads OnwardAir, a hybrid-electric VTOL venture. That gives boards a speaker who is currently running engineering teams under capital and regulatory pressure, not narrating a former career. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under extreme adversity Calculated risk versus reckless risk Team performance in high-consequence environments Preparation, rehearsal and failure recovery Innovation inside engineering-led organisations Human performance at the edge of physiology Building a culture where innovation is permitted and expected Ideal for Boards and executive teams designing crisis-response and operational resilience capability CEOs and COOs in safety-critical sectors: aerospace, energy, healthcare, infrastructure Engineering and R&D leadership teams setting risk thresholds for novel programmes Leadership-development cohorts for newly senior operators Audience outcomes A clearer language for distinguishing calculated risk from reckless risk inside their own decisions A working model of pre-mission rehearsal that they can adapt to their organisation’s failure modes A primary-source view of how a small team executes a non-rehearsed repair on a live system A more honest account of recovery from setback at the individual and team level A higher bar for what counts as preparation rather than reassurance

Why organisations work with Scott Sonenshein A peer-reviewed thesis with commercial bite: Stretch synthesises a decade of his published research at Rice and Michigan into a working model for resourcefulness, not a recycled productivity argument. Credibility with finance and operations buyers: a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Washington Post pick of the 10 leadership books of 2017, anchored in studies of how constrained firms outperform better-funded rivals. A second franchise on workplace clutter and focus: co-author with Marie Kondo of the New York Times bestseller Joy at Work, giving him reach into culture, productivity and wellbeing briefs as well as strategy. Academic standing that holds up under scrutiny: former Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal, with publications in Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Science, and seven Rice Faculty Research Excellence Awards. A speaker who translates research without diluting it: keynotes at Google and Fortune 500 audiences across technology, energy, healthcare, retail, banking and manufacturing. Biography highlights Henry Gardiner Symonds, Professor of Management at Rice Business, Rice University. Author of Stretch (HarperCollins, 2017), a Wall Street Journal bestseller and Washington Post 2017 leadership book of the year selection. Co-author with Marie Kondo of Joy at Work (Little, Brown Spark, 2020), a New York Times bestseller. Ph.D. from the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan; M.Phil from the University of Cambridge. Former Associate Editor, Academy of Management Journal; published in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Review and Organization Science. Bylines in the New York Times, Time, Fast Company and Harvard Business Review; speaker at Talks at Google. Biography The instinct in most boardrooms under pressure is to ask for more. More budget, more headcount, more technology, more data. Sonenshein’s research at Rice University, drawing on more than a decade of fieldwork, argues that the firms that outperform their rivals tend to do the opposite. They redeploy what they already own. That argument is the spine of Stretch, his Wall Street Journal bestseller, named by the Washington Post as one of the ten leadership books to read in 2017. The book separates two organisational mindsets. Chasers measure themselves by what they lack. Stretchers find unconventional uses for resources, people and capabilities already inside the business. The distinction shows up in margins, in innovation rates, and in how teams behave when the next round of funding does not arrive. The academic credentials behind the argument are unusually strong for a trade book author. Sonenshein holds the Henry Gardiner Symonds Professorship at Rice Business, a Ph.D. from the Ross School of Business at Michigan, and an M.Phil from Cambridge. He has served as Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Journal and published in Administrative Science Quarterly and Organization Science. Rice has awarded him its Faculty Research Excellence Award seven times. His second book, Joy at Work, co-written with Marie Kondo and published by Little, Brown Spark in 2020, became a New York Times bestseller and extended his reach into the operating reality of how people focus, prioritise and clear cognitive load at work. That combined ground, the strategy of resourcefulness above and the discipline of focus below, is what makes him useful to executive audiences who cannot solve a growth problem by writing a bigger cheque. Key speaking topics Resourcefulness as a strategic capability Innovation under constraint Organisational change and sensemaking Productivity and focus at work Decluttering professional life and decision load Creativity and growth without additional budget Ideal for Senior leadership teams under cost pressure who still own a growth mandate CHROs and culture leads rebuilding focus, prioritisation and engagement Innovation, transformation and operations leaders running pilots without expansion capital Conferences in technology, energy, healthcare, retail, banking and manufacturing where the audience is operators, not strategists in the abstract Audience outcomes A working language to separate “chasing” from “stretching” inside their own decisions Concrete examples of how constrained firms outperform better-resourced rivals A method for auditing the underused resources, people and capabilities already on the books Practical tools from Joy at Work for cutting cognitive clutter at the team level Research-backed counterarguments to the default that growth requires more inputs

Why organisations work with Sean Conway He has lived the extreme version of the problem most leadership teams face: producing output every day, for months, while conditions degrade. The lessons translate because they were earned under measurable load. His 105-Ironmans-in-105-days record is a documented case study in pacing, recovery design and decision-making under fatigue, not a metaphor for one. He is one of a handful of people who hold multiple unsupported world records across disciplines, which gives him standing to speak on consistency over years, not single-event peak performance. Practical content for leaders: how to set targets so ambitious that conventional planning breaks, then build the operating rhythm to hit them anyway. Biography highlights World record: 105 consecutive full-distance Ironman triathlons in 105 days, 2023. World record: longest triathlon, 4,200 miles around the coast of Britain, 2016. World record: fastest unsupported solo cycle crossing of Europe, Portugal to Russia in 24 days, 18 hours, 39 minutes, 2018. First person to swim the length of Britain, 900 miles, 2013. Author of seven books, including Hell and High Water (Penguin Random House). Featured on Rich Roll, BBC, 220 Triathlon and national press for endurance records. Biography The hardest problem in endurance is not the peak day. It is the eighty-fourth day, when the body is broken, the conditions are worse than forecast, and the decision is whether to continue at all. Conway has solved that problem more times than almost anyone alive. In 2023 he completed 105 full-distance Ironmans in 105 days, beating the previous world record by four. The achievement matters less than the operating system behind it: a daily structure of swim, bike, run, eat, sleep, repeat, designed so that performance held when motivation could not. He has applied the same discipline to swimming the length of Britain, cycling unsupported across Europe faster than anyone before him, and circumnavigating Britain by swim, bike and run. His route to this work is unusual. He arrived in the UK from Zimbabwe with limited means, built a corporate photography business, sold it for £1 to fund a first round-the-world cycle, and has worked as a full-time endurance athlete and writer ever since. Seven books, published by Penguin Random House and others, document the practical content of how the records were built. What he gives senior audiences is the engineering of long-haul output: how to set targets that conventional planning would reject, how to design recovery so it produces capacity rather than guilt, and how to make decisions cleanly when the body and the conditions are voting no. Key speaking topics Ultra-endurance performance Resilience under prolonged stress Goal setting beyond conventional limits Recovery and pacing as performance disciplines Decision-making under fatigue Mindset for sustained output High-performance habits Ideal for Leadership teams running multi-year transformation or turnaround programmes Sales, operations and delivery functions facing extended high-output periods Executive offsites focused on resilience, performance and ambition setting Conferences seeking a credible peak-performance keynote with verifiable record-breaking achievements Audience outcomes A working model for sustaining output across long periods, drawn from a documented 105-day case. A sharper view of how recovery and pacing produce performance, rather than restrict it. Concrete techniques for decision-making when fatigue and conditions are working against you. Permission and a method for setting targets the rest of the planning system would reject.

Why organisations work with Sean Fitzpatrick He captained the All Blacks during one of the most successful periods in the team’s history, including a first ever Test series win in South Africa in 1996 and the 1993 series victory over the British and Irish Lions, so his case material is drawn from decisions with named consequences, not abstractions. Two international records, 63 consecutive Tests and 23 consecutive Tests unbeaten, turn the conversation about consistency from aspiration into evidence. His post-playing record, Chairmanship of the Laureus World Sports Academy, board and advisory roles at Harlequins and Scarlets, CEO of Front Row Hospitality, shows a continuing engagement with leadership and governance beyond the on-pitch career. The induction into the World Rugby Hall of Fame and the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, with the Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, gives his authority on elite performance the kind of external validation conference audiences recognise quickly. He brings a calm, specific, operator-style register to the corporate stage rather than a motivational one, which is what boards and senior leadership teams actually want when they book a sports speaker. Biography highlights 92 Test caps for the New Zealand All Blacks between 1986 and 1997 Captain of the All Blacks 1992 to 1997; captained at the 1995 Rugby World Cup 1987 Rugby World Cup winner; series wins against the British and Irish Lions (1993) and in South Africa (1996) 63 consecutive Test appearances and 23 consecutive Tests unbeaten World Rugby Hall of Fame and New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame inductee; Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit Chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy; CEO of Front Row Hospitality Ltd; board and advisory roles at Harlequins and Scarlets Biography Few teams in world sport hold the level of consistent international performance the All Blacks do. Sean Fitzpatrick spent fifteen years inside that environment, first as a hooker drafted into the 1987 World Cup-winning squad, then as captain of the side from 1992 to 1997 through one of its most demanding periods. Ninety-two Test caps, 63 of them consecutive, 23 of them unbeaten in a row. The 1993 series victory over the British and Irish Lions. The 1996 series win in South Africa, the first by any New Zealand touring side. The 1995 World Cup final as captain. The credentials are still the external measure. Induction into the World Rugby Hall of Fame and the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, selection for Rugby World magazine’s Team of the Century. Inside the rugby world, Fitzpatrick remains the reference point for elite hooker play across that era. The post-playing career has been organised around leadership and sport governance rather than media presence. He has chaired the Laureus World Sports Academy, the international body supporting social change through sport, and held board and advisory roles at Harlequins and Scarlets. He managed the Auckland Blues at the start of their Super Rugby period and now runs Front Row Hospitality Ltd. For corporate audiences, the value of Fitzpatrick on stage is that he makes the conversation about culture, standards and sustained performance specific. He does not describe peak performance; he describes what the All Blacks did week after week to hold it, what breaks inside a team under pressure, and what a captain actually owns when those conditions arrive. That is the session senior leaders get. Key speaking topics Sustained high performance in elite teams Leadership and captaincy under pressure Culture, standards and accountability Resilience and recovery from setback Building and maintaining team cohesion through change Lessons from All Blacks leadership for corporate teams Ideal for CEOs, executive teams and senior leadership groups focused on consistency of performance rather than one-off results Leadership development programmes, offsites and corporate universities Sports, hospitality and fast-growth businesses looking for a sports-to-business voice with governance credentials Awards dinners, conferences and high-profile headline slots needing a globally recognised elite-sport speaker Audience outcomes A specific view of how a world-leading team actually builds and defends standards over multiple cycles Leadership and team-performance lessons drawn directly from the 1987 World Cup, the 1993 Lions series, the 1995 final and the 1996 South Africa tour A clearer vocabulary for captaincy, accountability and discipline in a senior corporate team A rare operator’s account of how elite performance is preserved under pressure, not the motivational version of it

Why organisations work with Serena Guthrie She has the rare credential of captaining a national team in the cycle immediately after its biggest win, with the specific leadership problem of defending a standard rather than chasing one. Her playing record is decided in the strongest leagues in the sport: Team Bath in England, Northern Mystics in New Zealand, Giants Netball in Australia, where she was named club MVP for the 2017 season. She speaks credibly about the captain’s role inside a high-performance system, including how a senior player holds a dressing room when the head coach is making selection calls that hurt teammates. An MBE for services to netball and a continuing role as Performance Lead at Jersey Netball mean her authority sits in current practice, not retired commentary. Biography highlights 110 senior caps for England; captain of the Vitality Roses from November 2018 to retirement in March 2022. Gold medal, 2018 Commonwealth Games, with the England Roses. Bronze, 2019 Netball World Cup, as captain. Three Netball World Cups (2011, 2015, 2019) and two Commonwealth Games (2014, 2018). Club career across the three strongest leagues in the sport: Team Bath, Northern Mystics, Giants Netball. Giants club MVP, 2017. MBE, 2020 New Year Honours, for services to netball. Performance Lead, Jersey Netball; founder of Legacy Netball; accredited executive coach; business coaching work with Humanise Solutions. Biography England had never won a major netball title before April 2018. When the Roses came home with Commonwealth gold, the team that had spent forty years finishing behind Australia and New Zealand was suddenly the one being chased. Seven months later, Serena Guthrie was named captain. The captaincy she took on was the difficult one. The first World Cup cycle after a defining win is the cycle in which a team has to prove the result was not a peak. Guthrie led the Roses to bronze at the 2019 World Cup in Liverpool under head coach Tracey Neville’s final campaign, and stayed in the role through the next three years of restructure, coaching change, and a pandemic that interrupted the international calendar. She retired in March 2022 with 110 caps and 28 as captain. Her club career sits alongside that international record. She played at Team Bath in the Vitality Netball Superleague, moved to Northern Mystics in New Zealand’s ANZ Premiership, and then to Giants Netball in Australia’s Suncorp Super Netball, the strongest domestic league in the sport, where she was named club MVP in her first season. That is a player who tested her standards in the environments her opponents came from. What she offers corporate audiences now is the substance of the captain’s role inside a high-performance system. She is direct about the gap between leading on the court and managing the room around selection decisions made by someone else; about how senior players hold standards when results turn; and about what defending a benchmark feels like compared with chasing one. Her current work as Performance Lead at Jersey Netball, founder of Legacy Netball, and an accredited executive coach with Humanise Solutions keeps that material in active practice. Key speaking topics Captaincy and senior leadership inside high-performance teams Holding standards after a defining win Team culture under public pressure and scrutiny Selection, accountability, and the senior player’s role Resilience and composure in decisive moments Talent development and the long arc of an elite career Ideal for Executive teams operating under the pressure to repeat or defend a recent result HR and talent leaders working on captaincy, succession, and senior player roles inside teams Women’s leadership programmes and senior development cohorts Sales and commercial leaders running through a defined competitive cycle Audience outcomes A concrete account of what a senior captain does inside a high-performance system when selection calls are not theirs to make A working reference point for holding team standards after a result everyone now expects you to repeat Honest perspective on the personal weight of leading peers, including senior teammates, through public results A usable model of long-career resilience across three of the most competitive leagues in a global sport

Why organisations work with Shawn Achor The Happiness Advantage is one of the most-read popular books on the science of positive psychology, a New York Times bestseller that gives audiences a shared reference before the session begins. His TED talk «The Happy Secret to Better Work», with over 16 million views, is one of the most-watched of all time and is routinely used by HR and communications leaders to introduce his work internally. His Happiness Advantage training has been delivered across approximately a third of the Fortune 100, which means his intervention design is already calibrated for large, complex organisations rather than small-group coaching settings. A Harvard teaching record that includes more than a dozen distinguished teaching awards and one of the university’s most popular classes means his delivery has been pressure-tested in front of demanding, non-paying audiences. The research base is continuous: Institute for Applied Positive Research, collaboration with Yale and Columbia, HBR cover feature and a PBS special, all keeping the material updated rather than frozen at the 2010 book. Biography highlights CEO of Good Think, Inc.; founder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research BA from Harvard University; MA in Christian and Buddhist Ethics from Harvard Divinity School; twelve years at Harvard Author of New York Times bestsellers The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness TED talk «The Happy Secret to Better Work» viewed over 16 million times Research featured on the cover of Harvard Business Review; subject of a PBS special Happiness Advantage training deployed across approximately one third of the Fortune 100 Biography The success formula most organisations run on, work harder, deliver results, then be happy, runs against what positive psychology research has produced for the last two decades. Shawn Achor has built his career on inverting it, and The Happiness Advantage, his New York Times bestselling book, is the most accessible expression of the argument: positive mindset precedes performance, and the data now exist to prove it at corporate scale. His credentials are anchored at Harvard. A BA from the university, a Master of Arts from Harvard Divinity School in Christian and Buddhist Ethics, twelve years on faculty with seven of those as an Officer of Harvard living in Harvard Yard, and more than a dozen teaching awards across that period. He taught what became one of the most popular classes in Harvard’s history on positive psychology. He now teaches in Wharton’s Advanced Management Program and continues research collaborations with Yale and Columbia through the Institute for Applied Positive Research. The public profile extends the research into the mainstream. His TED talk has been viewed more than 16 million times, one of the most-watched of all time. His work has been the cover of Harvard Business Review and the subject of a PBS special. He has lectured in more than 50 countries, a roster that includes CEOs in China, senior leaders at the Pentagon and the White House, and farmers in Zimbabwe. The commercial footprint is the point for corporate buyers. Achor’s Happiness Advantage training has been delivered across roughly a third of the Fortune 100 companies, which makes his positive-psychology material one of the most extensively deployed in enterprise use. For CHROs, chief wellbeing officers and executive teams trying to connect wellbeing investment to performance outcomes, he is one of the few researchers who has both the Harvard credentials and the deployment experience to hold both ends of the conversation. Key speaking topics The science of happiness and performance Positive psychology at organisational scale Mindset, optimism and resilience in high-pressure environments Leadership behaviours that generate positive contagion Stress, energy and sustainable performance Applying positive psychology to education and social systems Ideal for CEOs and executive teams connecting wellbeing and engagement to measurable performance outcomes CHROs, chief wellbeing officers and HR leadership teams designing enterprise-wide positive psychology programmes All-hands, sales kick-offs and leadership conferences requiring a main-stage, globally recognised speaker Schools, universities and education leadership teams applying positive education principles Audience outcomes The seven principles of positive psychology from The Happiness Advantage translated into workplace practice A research-grade view of the link between optimism, social support and job performance Specific behavioural interventions that are deployable without structural change Reference points from Harvard teaching, Fortune 100 corporate engagements and the Institute for Applied Positive Research

Why organisations work with Shirley Ballas A live-television presence with nearly a decade on the Strictly judging panel, comfortable hosting awards nights, fundraisers and after-dinner sessions on the same scale as the corporate audiences in front of her. Forty years of performing at the highest level of competitive Latin dance, including ten US Latin American titles and three British Open World titles, gives her a credible voice on sustaining standards over a long career. A working ambassador for the Campaign Against Living Miserably and Suicide and Co, with a personal account of losing her brother to suicide that gives weight to mental health programming inside organisations. President of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, the institutional credential that distinguishes her from celebrity speakers without a substantive professional body behind them. Biography highlights Head Judge, BBC One Strictly Come Dancing, since 2017. Three-time British Open to the World Latin American Champion; ten-time United States Latin American Champion; 17-time British Open finalist. President of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Author of Behind the Sequins: My Life (John Blake, 2020). Ambassador for the Campaign Against Living Miserably and Suicide and Co; Appeal Ambassador for Alder Hey Children’s Charity 7in10 Mental Health campaign. Inducted into the United States and Great Britain Dance Halls of Fame; three-time recipient of the Carl Alan Award. Biography Competitive Latin dance is a brutal long-game discipline. Most champions peak briefly and disappear. By 21, Shirley Ballas had already won nearly every major Latin title available, and she stayed at the top of the international circuit until retiring from competition in 1996. That career produced three British Open World Latin Championships, ten US Latin American titles, and 17 British Open finals across a single division. It also produced the credibility that took her into adjudication and coaching at the highest international level, and on into the President’s chair at the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing. Since 2017, Ballas has been the Head Judge on Strictly Come Dancing, the role Len Goodman vacated. The BBC seat is the live-television equivalent of her competitive career: scored every week by an audience of millions, with no margin for an off night. Her 2020 autobiography Behind the Sequins covers the cost of that life, including a working-class start in Wallasey, two marriages, and the loss of her brother David to suicide in 2003. That loss is the basis for her public mental health work. Ballas is an ambassador for the Campaign Against Living Miserably and for Suicide and Co, and an Appeal Ambassador for Alder Hey Children’s Charity’s 7in10 mental health campaign. Inside corporate rooms her draw is the combination of celebrity recognition and a serious, lived account of resilience and male-suicide awareness. Key speaking topics Resilience and recovery from personal loss Performance under pressure Mental health advocacy and male suicide awareness Sustained excellence across a long career Live broadcast and high-profile judgement Event hosting, Q&A and after-dinner Ideal for Awards nights, gala dinners and charity fundraisers seeking a recognisable host with a substantive personal story. Internal corporate events on resilience, wellbeing or mental health, particularly programmes addressing male mental health. Employee engagement and recognition events looking for a high-profile broadcast personality for Q&A or fireside formats. Audience outcomes A first-hand account of staying at standard across four decades of competitive performance and live television. A direct personal perspective on grief, suicide loss and the work of CALM and Suicide and Co. A Q&A or fireside conversation that lands with audiences who know her from Strictly Come Dancing. A glamorous and confident hosting presence for awards, gala or recognition formats.

Why organisations work with Sílvia Vidal She offers a first-person account of high-stakes performance with no team, no rescue, and no communication, on expeditions that run up to two months at a time and include weeks living alone on the wall, which translates directly into senior conversations about judgement under pressure. She holds international recognition at the top of her sport: a Special Mention at the Piolets d’Or 2021 in Briancon for two decades of solo big wall climbing, and Spain’s Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit in 2022. She speaks credibly about fear and uncertainty as managed working conditions rather than abstractions, drawing on first ascents in Patagonia, the Karakorum, the Himalaya, the Andes, and Alaska, among others. She is unusual in choosing complete communication blackout on every expedition: no radio, no phone, no GPS, no weather forecasts. She carries the same principle into daily life, where she has never owned a mobile phone, so the discipline is lived rather than performed. She presents internationally in both English and Spanish, with more than 25 years on stage for corporate and festival audiences across Europe, the Americas, and beyond. Biography highlights Special Mention at the Piolets d’Or 2021, Briancon, for outstanding contribution to solo big wall climbing over two decades Spanish Piolet de Oro (1996), Spanish Mountain Federation, for the solo first ascent of Principado de Asturias Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit (2022), Spanish High Council of Sports Honorary Member of the Spanish Geographic Society (2023) Solo first ascents on remote walls across five continents, including Sincronia Magica (Cerro Chileno Grande, Patagonia, 33 days on the wall) and Un pas mes (Arrigetch, Alaska, 53-day expedition) Master’s degree in Physical Education, INEFC-Barcelona Biography The west face of Cerro Chileno Grande in Patagonian Chile is a 1,200-metre granite wall in one of the least visited corners of the Aysen region. In 2020 Sílvia Vidal spent 33 days alone on it, opening a new route called Sincronia Magica, with no radio, no phone, no GPS, and no weather forecasts. The Piolets d’Or jury cited that climb, and the two decades behind it, when they awarded her a Special Mention in Briancon in 2021. Vidal was born in Barcelona in 1970, came into climbing through adventure racing during a Master’s in Physical Education at INEFC-Barcelona, and within a couple of years was climbing at the hardest aid grades, A5. The 1996 solo first ascent of Principado de Asturias in northern Spain earned her the Spanish Piolet de Oro from the Spanish Mountain Federation. Since then she has put up first ascents on remote walls in Patagonia, the Karakorum, the Himalaya, the Andes, and Alaska, including Un pas mes in the Arrigetch range, a 53-day expedition in 2017. What separates her from most extreme-environment speakers is the choice of complete communication blackout. She hauls her own gear, lives on the wall for weeks, and has no contact with the outside world until she walks out. Spain’s High Council of Sports awarded her the Gold Medal of the Royal Order of Sporting Merit in 2022, and the Spanish Geographic Society made her an Honorary Member in 2023. Across more than 25 years she has presented to corporate and festival audiences in Europe, Canada, and Peru in English and Spanish. The argument she brings to a leadership audience is concrete. Composure under pressure is not a personality trait. It is built before the wall, tested every day on it, and rebuilt every time fear arrives without warning. The lessons that come back down with her are about preparation, self-honesty, and the difference between solitude and loneliness when there is genuinely no help available. Key speaking topics Decision-making under irreversible commitment Composure and self-leadership under sustained pressure Working with fear and uncertainty Preparation as the foundation of high-stakes performance Solitude, focus, and self-reliance Resilience in extreme environments Ideal for Executive and senior leadership off-sites focused on judgement and composure under pressure Risk, operations, and safety leadership audiences who want a practitioner-level account, not a metaphor Company-wide events looking for credible inspiration anchored in a verifiable record Leadership development programmes on resilience, self-management, and decision-making Audience outcomes A concrete benchmark for what sustained performance under pressure actually requires A practical relationship with fear and uncertainty as working conditions, not obstacles Specific language for talking about preparation and risk that leaders can carry into their own decisions A model of resilience built on preparation, daily routine, and self-honesty under sustained pressure A reset on what self-leadership looks like when no one is watching and no help is available A different reference point for attention and focus, from someone whose work depends on sustained concentration with no notifications, no inbox, and no way to call for help

Why organisations work with Simon Alexander Ong A serious, published thesis on energy management as a leadership and workforce capability, anchored in Energize (Penguin, 2022) and recognised as Business Book of the Year for Wellness and Wellbeing in 2023. Direct credibility with global employers on people and culture briefs, with named keynote work for Microsoft, Salesforce, Unilever, EY, Adobe and Barclays. A coaching practice behind the content, with qualifications from The Coaching Academy and NLP training, so the material survives contact with senior audiences, not just town-hall settings. Endorsements from Simon Sinek, Marie Forleo and Marshall Goldsmith, giving HR and communications leads confident reference points when pitching internally. Biography highlights Bestselling author of Energize: Make the Most of Every Moment (Penguin Life, 2022). Winner, Business Book of the Year, Wellness and Wellbeing, Business Book Awards 2023. Endorsed by Simon Sinek, Marie Forleo and Marshall Goldsmith. Keynote engagements with Microsoft, Salesforce, Unilever, EY, Adobe, Barclays and DocuSign. Featured on Sky News, BBC Radio London and LBC, with written contributions in Forbes, HuffPost, Virgin and The Guardian. BSc Economics, London School of Economics; coaching qualifications from The Coaching Academy. Biography Most organisations now accept that burnout, disengagement and quiet exit are not edge cases. They are showing up across leadership teams, middle management and frontline staff at the same time. The argument in Energize, published by Penguin in 2022 and named Business Book of the Year for Wellness and Wellbeing in 2023, is that this is an energy problem before it is a wellbeing problem. Simon Alexander Ong treats energy as a managed resource. His work asks leaders to look at how attention, recovery, relationships and purpose are organised across a working week, then to redesign the parts that drain people without producing anything. The same lens is then turned on teams and on the wider employee experience. The practitioner side keeps the material grounded. Ong is a qualified coach through The Coaching Academy, trained in NLP, and works one-to-one with senior leaders alongside the speaking work. That is why a keynote at Microsoft, Salesforce, Unilever or EY tends to land as a conversation with the room rather than a motivational set piece. Endorsements from Simon Sinek, Marie Forleo and Marshall Goldsmith have helped place him on the same shelf as the leadership and performance authors that senior HR and culture functions already trust. For boards thinking about engagement, retention and the human cost of permanent change, his content gives a language and a set of moves that staff and leaders can actually use. Key speaking topics Energy management for leaders and teams Sustainable high performance Employee engagement and wellbeing Purposeful leadership Focus and attention in a noisy work environment Mindset and personal growth Coaching cultures inside organisations Ideal for CHROs, CPOs and heads of employee experience designing wellbeing and engagement strategy Leadership development and learning teams running senior offsites and high-potential programmes Internal communications and culture leads planning all-hands and kick-off events Sales and commercial leadership audiences working under sustained pressure and target intensity Audience outcomes A clear language for energy as a managed resource at individual, team and organisational level Specific practices for protecting focus and recovery inside an existing diary, not in addition to it A more honest view of where current wellbeing efforts are working and where they are decorative Renewed sense of purpose and ownership for senior leaders carrying long change agendas Practical prompts a manager can use with a team the following Monday