Peak Performance

Why organisations work with Albert Bosch INVERGROUP, his clean-energy investment platform, has been operational since 2004. That gives him something most adventure speakers lack: an ongoing operator’s view on the energy transition he describes on stage. In 2015, he co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered in the Dakar Rally, the first fully electric vehicle ever to enter the event. A specific, verifiable motorsport-sustainability milestone anchoring his work in real engineering and real risk. The record underwrites the argument. An unassisted 1,152 km crossing from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole, the Seven Summits were completed on first attempts, and over 100 extreme-sports events. When he talks about preparation and setbacks, senior audiences hear a practitioner. He walked away from fossil-fuel motorsport in 2011 because the values stopped aligning. Since then, he has engaged with the sector only through electric-vehicle projects. For audiences weighing sustainability as a strategic commitment, that kind of operating consistency matters. Biography highlights Completed an unassisted coast-to-South Pole Antarctic expedition covering 1,152 km, 98% of it solo Summited Mount Everest in 2010, finishing the Seven Summits challenge with every peak completed on the first attempt Competed in nine Dakar Rallies, two by motorbike and seven by car Co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered in the 2015 Dakar Rally, the first fully electric car ever to enter the event Founder of INVERGROUP (2004), a clean-energy and environmental investment platform Author of six books including “Spirit of Adventure,” “The Future Explorer,” and “Living to Feel Alive.” MBA from ESADE, Barcelona Biography Leadership in extreme environments is different from leadership in difficulty. In difficulty, the variables are still countable. In an extreme environment, the variables keep moving and the team keeps paying a cost for every error. That is the territory Albert Bosch has spent three decades studying from the inside. The record is specific. Bosch crossed from the Antarctic coast to the South Pole unassisted, covering 1,152 km with 98% of the journey solo. He reached the summit of Everest in 2010, closing out a Seven Summits campaign in which every peak went on the first attempt. He has nine Dakar Rallies to his name. In 2015, he co-drove the Acciona 100% EcoPowered, the first fully electric car to enter that event. A working business sits behind the adventure CV. Bosch founded INVERGROUP in 2004, a platform for clean-energy and environmental projects, and has run it since. That gives his keynotes a grain of commercial reality, because he is still managing a live portfolio on the questions he speaks about. He has written six books in the same territory. “Spirit of Adventure” examines the seven factors that separate ambitious projects from failed ones. “The Future Explorer” addresses the leadership attitudes required in unsettled conditions. “Living to Feel Alive” retells the Antarctic crossing as a study in sustained commitment. The work he does on stage carries into material that audiences can keep. Key speaking topics Leadership under extreme pressure and uncertainty Decision-making in complex environments Resilience and recovery from setback Sustainable leadership and the energy transition Team performance in high-stakes conditions Entrepreneurship and long-horizon risk Leading change when plans break Ideal for CEOs, COOs and transformation leads driving high-stakes strategic shifts Senior teams going through restructuring, integration, or major operational change CSOs and energy-transition teams setting a sustainability position they will have to operate, not just announce Leadership groups whose strategy requires sustained commitment against market or macro pressure Audience outcomes Specific reference points for decision-making when information is incomplete and stakes are real A sharper internal language for preparation, setback and recovery A more honest read on when sustainability claims support strategy and when they collapse under operating pressure A clearer sense of which behaviours separate teams that complete ambitious projects from teams that stall

Why organisations work with Alain Prost Four Formula One World Championships won against the strongest field of the modern era, including Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell, Nelson Piquet and Niki Lauda. Evidence, not assertion, that analytical preparation outlasts raw aggression over a full season. Few speakers move between the cockpit and the boardroom with equal authority. Competed for McLaren, Renault, Ferrari and Williams across 13 F1 seasons, then owned and ran Prost Grand Prix, and later served in a senior advisory role at Renault and Alpine. The mantra of “win as slowly as possible” translates directly to senior leadership. It reframes the question from speed to timing: how to preserve the machine and execute the decisive move when rivals have overextended. Held the record for most Grand Prix victories (51) for 14 years, broken only by Michael Schumacher, and remains the only French driver ever to win a Formula One World Championship. Biography highlights Four-time Formula One World Drivers’ Champion (1985, 1986, 1989, 1993). 51 Grand Prix victories, a record that stood for 14 years until Michael Schumacher surpassed it in 2001. Competed at the Formula One level for McLaren, Renault, Ferrari and Williams. Founded and ran the Prost Grand Prix Formula One team from 1997 to 2001, after acquiring the former Ligier operation. Co-owner of Renault e.dams in Formula E, winning three consecutive Teams’ Championships. Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur; honorary OBE; recipient of the 1999 World Sports Awards of the Century in motorsport; inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. Biography Ayrton Senna was faster over a single lap. Alain Prost won four Formula One World Championships. That gap is the argument of his career. Speed is measurable. Winning a 16-race season is a different discipline, closer to running a complex business than to driving a fast car. His mantra, “win as slowly as possible,” described a specific operating method. Conserve brakes and tyres early. Read the race against the field’s pace, and position the car so the decisive move comes late, when rivals have burned through their margins. The nickname “the Professor” was given by journalists who could not explain how a driver who rarely topped qualifying still kept ending the season as champion. The perspective extends beyond the cockpit. Prost founded and ran his own Formula One operation, Prost Grand Prix, from 1997 to 2001, after acquiring the former Ligier team. He later became co-owner of Renault e.dams in Formula E, where the team won three consecutive Teams’ Championships from 2014-15. He has held senior advisory roles at Renault and Alpine, and continues to work as a commentator and analyst across the sport. Senior teams running complex, capital-heavy operations recognise the discipline immediately. A Formula One season, played out across 16 races and four continents, is sustained decision-making under pressure in a highly instrumented environment, against rivals with similar resources. The winners read conditions accurately and know when to hold a position and when to strike. Prost brought that method to McLaren and Williams as a driver, then to the pit wall as owner of Prost Grand Prix. Key speaking topics Strategic decision-making under sustained competitive pressure Team leadership in complex, technical environments Risk management in high-performance competition Building and running an elite competitive operation Lessons from four decades at the top of Formula One Ideal for Board and executive teams are responsible for long-cycle competitive strategy CEO and COO audiences in capital-intensive, operationally complex industries Leadership forums focused on high-performance teamwork and technical collaboration Senior leaders in sectors where timing and risk determine outcomes Audience outcomes A case study in why methodical preparation beats high-effort aggression across a long competitive season A working vocabulary for reading conditions and timing the decisive move under pressure A first-hand account of what it takes to hold together a Formula One team, where engineers, strategists, commercial partners and the driver each shape the next decision Direct lessons from competing against, and later working alongside, some of the most demanding figures in global sport

Why organisations work with Adrian Hayes A senior commercial career running in parallel with the expedition record. Six years as Airbus Middle East sales director is the kind of credential adventure-only speakers cannot produce, and it changes how executive audiences engage with the material. ICF-accredited executive coaching behind every session. Audiences leave with frameworks they can apply to decision-making and team performance back in the business, beyond the story they will remember. Direct experience of serious failure and life-threatening decisions. The 2013 K2 attempt ended in a fatal avalanche for his teammates. The 2025 Kanchenjunga summit ended in a near-fatal descent and a Sherpa-assisted rescue. His position on risk comes from having made those calls himself. Arabic and Nepalese fluency, with residence in eight countries and operational work in more than a hundred. The cross-cultural perspective comes from years inside those cultures at the working level. Biography highlights Former British Army Gurkha officer, commissioned through the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, with eight years in the Brigade of Gurkhas and postings in Hong Kong, Brunei, and Oman. Two Guinness World Records: fastest male completion of the Three Poles Challenge (Everest, North Pole, South Pole) in 1 year 217 days, and the longest unsupported Arctic kite-ski expedition for a 67-day crossing of Greenland in 2009. Summited the world’s three highest mountains: Everest (2006), K2 (2014), and Kanchenjunga (2025). Former Airbus Middle East sales director for six years, followed by over fifteen years as an ICF-accredited executive coach and keynote speaker. Author of Footsteps of Thesiger (2013) and One Man’s Climb: A Journey of Trauma, Tragedy and Triumph on K2 (Pen and Sword, 2019). Presenter or featured subject in broadcast documentaries for National Geographic Channel (The Greenland Quest) and Discovery Channel (Footsteps of Thesiger; In Inner Mongolia); Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Biography An avalanche at Camp 3 on K2 killed New Zealand climbers Marty and Denali Schmidt on 27 July 2013. Adrian Hayes was due to begin his own summit push the next day. The expedition stopped. He returned a year later and reached the top. That sequence, the halted attempt followed by the return and summit on 26 July 2014, says something about how Hayes approaches his work with senior leaders. He teaches what decision-making looks like when the cost of mistakes is absolute and the ordinary conditions for clear judgment have gone. The experience behind that work is unusually broad. Eight years in the Brigade of Gurkhas, including training and operational roles across Hong Kong, Brunei, and Oman. Six years as Airbus Middle East sales director, running a major commercial portfolio in one of the world’s more complex regions. Two Guinness World Records: the fastest male Three Poles Challenge in 1 year 217 days, and the longest unsupported Arctic kite-ski expedition for his 2009 crossing of Greenland. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an ICF-accredited executive coach. His two books, Footsteps of Thesiger and One Man’s Climb: A Journey of Trauma, Tragedy and Triumph on K2, sit alongside documentary work for National Geographic and Discovery. In May 2025, he summited Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain, completing the three highest peaks on earth. He was injured on the descent and rescued from Camp IV by Sherpa climbers. Key speaking topics Leadership decision-making under uncertainty Team performance under sustained pressure Cross-cultural leadership in complex markets Resilience and mental endurance Risk management and recovery from setback Responsible leadership and sustainability Ideal for CEOs and executive teams facing major strategic change or commercial pressure Boards navigating crisis, setback, or leadership transition Sales and commercial leadership in complex international markets Senior leadership development programmes, particularly cohorts preparing for cross-cultural or high-stakes assignments Audience outcomes A method for making decisions when information is limited and the cost of error is high A view of what resilience looks like in practice, distinct from its motivational framing Leadership lessons drawn from senior roles in the Gurkhas, at Airbus, and on major expeditions A clearer picture of what separates teams that hold under sustained pressure from those that fracture

Why organisations work with Ade Adepitan He has lived disability discrimination in three intersecting dimensions – Nigerian-born, Black, and physically disabled in working-class East London – giving organisations a perspective on inclusion that is personal, structural and political, not theoretical. His Paralympic bronze, World Championship gold and 20 years as one of the UK’s first visibly disabled television presenters mean he speaks from earned authority on both peak performance and public representation – not campaigning alone. His Channel 4 documentary on Nigeria’s polio eradication prompted Bill Gates to invite him to address the Global Vaccine Summit in 2020 – evidence that his work on disability and global health has real policy reach beyond the broadcasting world. The 2023 RTS Best Sports Presenter Award and BAFTA-winning Paralympic coverage give him peer recognition from the broadcast industry as a communicator of genuine authority, which directly validates his use as a platform for any inclusion message. As Chancellor of Birmingham City University since 2024, he brings current institutional standing – and a live stake – in questions of access, diversity and representation in education and public life. Biography highlights Bronze medallist, 2004 Athens Paralympic Games (wheelchair basketball, Great Britain); gold medallist, 2005 Paralympic World Cup, Manchester; silver medallist, European Championships MBE (2005) for services to disability sport; Honorary Doctorates from Loughborough University and the University of East London One of the first visibly disabled television presenters in the UK; over 20 years broadcasting for Channel 4 and the BBC Lead presenter, Channel 4’s BAFTA-winning coverage of the 2012 London Paralympic Games (alongside Clare Balding) RTS Award, Best Sports Presenter (2023), for Channel 4’s 2022 Winter Paralympics coverage Named in the Powerlist 2020 – 100 most influential Black British people Chancellor of Birmingham City University (from 2024), succeeding Sir Lenny Henry Speaker, Global Vaccine Summit: We Changed History (2020), at the invitation of Bill Gates, following Channel 4 documentary on Nigeria’s polio eradication Biography Disability rarely gets equal airtime in inclusion conversations – and when it does, it tends toward legal compliance rather than lived experience. Ade Adepitan MBE has spent over two decades making that distinction impossible to ignore: as a Paralympic medallist, a BAFTA-winning broadcaster, and now as Chancellor of Birmingham City University. His credentials begin with sport. Contracting polio in Lagos at 15 months and growing up in East London, he reached the highest level of wheelchair basketball – winning bronze at the 2004 Athens Paralympics and gold at the 2005 Paralympic World Cup in Manchester. The disciplines of elite competition – preparation, decision-making under pressure, and recovery from setback – form the foundation of everything he brings to organisations on resilience and performance. He became one of the first visibly disabled presenters on British television and has been a lead voice for Channel 4 and the BBC for over 20 years. That includes the BAFTA-winning 2012 London Paralympic Games coverage, the four-part BBC Two documentary Africa with Ade Adepitan, Climate Change: Ade on the Frontline, and extensive coverage of Paralympic Games from Athens to Paris. The 2023 Royal Television Society Award for Best Sports Presenter – for his 2022 Winter Paralympics work – came with judges describing him as a broadcaster of genuine insight and charisma, not a ceremonial accolade. His reach extends into policy. His Channel 4 documentary investigating Nigeria’s polio eradication prompted Bill Gates to invite him to address the Global Vaccine Summit in 2020. He appears on the Powerlist of the 100 most influential Black British people. And in 2024 he became Chancellor of Birmingham City University, where his stated mission is to be a torchbearer for disability rights in education and public life. Organisations working with Ade Adepitan are engaging someone whose work has moved from screens into summits – and whose authority on inclusion is earned from all three directions at once. Key speaking topics Disability inclusion and workplace accessibility Resilience and elite performance mindset Diversity, equity and representation in organisations Storytelling and the role of media in shaping social perception Global health advocacy and public responsibility Climate change and environmental impact Inclusion in education and leadership pipelines Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads developing or stress-testing disability inclusion strategies Leadership conferences addressing the gap between ESG commitments and workforce experience Organisations with social impact and public accountability mandates Education sector and public institutions focused on access, representation and opportunity Audience outcomes A sharper understanding of how disability inclusion differs from – and connects to – broader DEI programmes, grounded in direct lived experience An honest account of how resilience and elite performance are built over time, drawn from competitive Paralympic sport and a 20-year public career Insight into the role organisations and media play in either sustaining or dismantling the invisibility of disability Awareness of the strategic cost of treating disability as a compliance exercise rather than a cultural and commercial priority A credible, evidence-based challenge to the assumption that DEI commitments translate automatically into inclusion

Why organisations work with Laura Winterling Her reference point for high-stakes team performance is not a business school case study. She trained more than 80 international astronauts at ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in conditions where errors carry mission-critical consequences. A master’s in Physics and a second in Organisational Psychology (UCL) let her diagnose both the structural and human causes of team failure simultaneously. Most leadership consultants address one or the other. She is a certified Crew Resource Management instructor. CRM is the human-factors methodology aviation uses to systematically reduce error in complex operations, and it is mandatory recurrent training for working pilots. Organisations working with her receive a framework tested in environments far more demanding than their own. She authored the on-console handbook for Mission Control Europe: her understanding of how multinational teams coordinate under live operational pressure comes from having written the procedures that govern it. She is an active commercial helicopter pilot and helicopter flight instructor. The CRM principles she teaches in leadership rooms are her own working discipline in the air. Biography highlights Astronaut Instructor, European Space Agency (European Astronaut Centre, Cologne); trained more than 80 international astronauts – including crews from NASA, ESA, and Roscosmos – on spacecraft systems for ISS modules Authored the on-console handbook for Mission Control Europe Commercial helicopter pilot and helicopter flight instructor Certified Crew Resource Management (CRM) instructor and licensed MBTI practitioner MSc in Physics, University of Bayreuth; MSc in Organisational Psychology, University College London Three TEDx talks, including «From Perfection to Excellence» (TEDxUniMannheim), published on TED.com Founder and CEO, Space Time Concepts GmbH; clients include Mercedes-Benz, SAP, and Boston Consulting Group Biography Laura Winterling spent nearly a decade as an Astronaut Instructor at the European Space Agency’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne. She trained more than 80 international astronauts from NASA, ESA, and Roscosmos on the spacecraft systems they would rely on during missions to the International Space Station. In that environment, how a team communicates, decides, and recovers from error determines whether a mission succeeds. Her responsibilities extended beyond the classroom at EAC. She worked across mission control centres in Toulouse, Houston, and Moscow, sat console during live ISS operations, and observed three Soyuz launch campaigns in Kazakhstan. She also authored the on-console handbook for Mission Control Europe, which specifies how multinational teams coordinate under live operational pressure. She holds master’s degrees in Physics (University of Bayreuth) and Organisational Psychology (University College London), and is also a commercial helicopter pilot, helicopter flight instructor, and certified Crew Resource Management instructor. CRM is the human-factors methodology aviation uses to systematically reduce error in complex operations, and it is mandatory training for working pilots. Her teaching of these principles in leadership rooms is grounded in her own active practice of them in flight. Since founding Space Time Concepts GmbH in 2016, she has taken these frameworks into leadership sessions at organisations including Mercedes-Benz, SAP, and Boston Consulting Group. Three TEDx talks make her central argument publicly available – that excellence under pressure can be designed and trained. «From Perfection to Excellence» (TEDxUniMannheim) and «Why Astronauts Don’t Need Telepathy» (TEDxHHL) are available on TED.com and YouTube. Key speaking topics Leadership and decision-making under operational pressure Crew Resource Management and human factors in organisations Team communication and structured debriefing High-reliability operations and organisational resilience Cross-cultural team performance in international programmes Excellence vs. perfection in professional and team development Leadership and followership as interdependent disciplines Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite executives building capability for decision-making under uncertainty CHROs and people development leads designing resilience and high-performance team programmes Engineering, operations, and technology organisations where system failure carries real consequences Organisations managing international, cross-cultural, or mission-critical teams Audience outcomes A clear framework for distinguishing team performance in stable conditions from performance under genuine pressure Practical understanding of Crew Resource Management principles and how they apply in non-aviation organisational settings Specific protocols for communication clarity, structured debriefing, and error recovery drawn from ISS mission operations A reframe of mistakes as diagnosable, recoverable data – not indicators of individual inadequacy Concrete tools for moving teams from competent to reliably high-performing in complex, multinational environments

Why organisations work with Baroness Grey-Thompson She chaired the government’s independent Duty of Care in Sport review (2017), producing recommendations on athlete welfare, safeguarding, and governing body accountability. Her authority on organisational responsibility comes from having produced the policy, not just commented on it. Her perspective on inclusion is grounded in decades of lived experience as a disabled person navigating institutions not designed for her – which gives her a precision and candour on the subject that no theoretical framework produces. As a sitting crossbench peer, she debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance in Parliament. Her understanding of how policy accountability functions – or fails to – is current, not retrospective. She has held board-level positions across sport, transport, broadcasting and the public sector. She speaks to senior decision-makers from a position of peer-level governance experience, not from outside it. Eleven Paralympic gold medals and six London Wheelchair Marathon victories represent one of the most demanding sustained performance records in British sporting history. Her insight into resilience and long-term excellence comes from a context that most performance speakers cannot match. Biography highlights 11 Paralympic gold medals across five Games (Seoul 1988 to Athens 2004); six London Wheelchair Marathon victories; over 30 world records Baroness Grey-Thompson DBE; crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2010; debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance Led the government-commissioned independent Duty of Care in Sport review, published April 2017 Chancellor of Northumbria University since 2015; honorary Doctor of Law, University of Cambridge (2016) Member of the Laureus World Sports Academy; BBC Sports Personality of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award, 2019 Board experience includes Transport for London, London Legacy Development Corporation, ukactive (Chair), BBC and UK Athletics Biography The question of how organisations balance the drive for performance with the duty to protect the people inside them is one that Tanni Grey-Thompson has spent three decades navigating – first as an elite athlete competing in systems rarely designed with her in mind, then as a legislator and governance lead responsible for changing them. Her athletic record is the foundation of her credibility. Across five Paralympic Games between 1988 and 2004, she won 11 gold medals in wheelchair racing, set over 30 world records, and won the London Wheelchair Marathon six times. What that record represents, beyond the numbers, is sustained excellence under physical and institutional pressure. She competed with spina bifida in an era when structural support for disabled athletes was limited, and she won anyway – a fact that shapes everything she says about resilience and the conditions that enable long-term achievement. In 2017, the government commissioned her to lead an independent review into duty of care in sport. The resulting report set out recommendations on athlete welfare, safeguarding, mental wellbeing, and the accountability of governing bodies for the people in their systems. It remains the most authoritative published framework on institutional responsibility in British sport, and it gave her a body of work that no other speaker in the inclusion space can claim. She joined the House of Lords as a crossbench peer in 2010, where she debates welfare reform, disability rights and sport governance. Her board experience spans Transport for London, the London Legacy Development Corporation, ukactive, the BBC, and UK Athletics. She has been Chancellor of Northumbria University since 2015. What she brings to a senior audience is not a motivational narrative – it is a working knowledge of how accountability for people actually functions, or fails to, in large organisations. Key speaking topics Elite performance and sustained achievement Inclusion and disability in organisational life Duty of care and institutional accountability Leadership under pressure Governance and board responsibility Disability rights and welfare policy Sport governance and athlete welfare Ideal for Senior leadership and board teams where performance expectations and inclusion commitments are in tension HR, people and DEI leaders responsible for disability inclusion and employee wellbeing strategy Public sector, sport and charitable sector boards with governance and accountability responsibilities Corporate audiences undergoing culture change where the gap between stated values and daily practice is a live concern Audience outcomes A sharper understanding of where performance culture and duty of care come into structural conflict – and what resolving that actually requires First-hand perspective on what inclusion looks like beyond policy, drawn from lived experience in systems not designed for disability Grounded insight into board-level accountability for the wellbeing of people inside an organisation An honest account of sustained high performance – what enabled it, what threatened it, and what the institutions around her got right and wrong Practical framing for the gap between an organisation’s stated commitments and the culture leaders actually sustain

Why organisations work with Molly Bloom A first-hand account of how pressure and money distort judgement among hedge fund managers, studio heads, and high-net-worth players. The observation comes from inside the room. A real case study in rebuilding after professional and legal collapse. Bloom pleaded guilty to running an illegal gambling operation, then re-emerged as a published author whose memoir was adapted into the Oscar-nominated Molly’s Game, Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, starring Jessica Chastain. Lived experience of decision-making at the edges of legality and ethics. She knows how the wrong choice looks before it is made, and why intelligent people make it anyway. A practitioner’s view of how exclusivity and discretion build a customer base wealthy clients fight to join. Bloom designed and ran the operation herself, with rooms at venues like the Peninsula Beverly Hills hosting individual hands worth millions. Biography highlights Author of the memoir Molly’s Game (HarperCollins, 2014), adapted into Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, which earned a 2018 Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Former member of the U.S. Ski Team in freestyle moguls, ranked third in the Nor-Am Cup season standings. Built and ran one of the largest high-stakes private poker operations in the United States, with regular players including Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Alex Rodriguez. Host of Torched, an investigative sports podcast produced by FilmNation Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio. Corporate speaking clients include BlackRock, Blackstone, Adobe, Cisco, Dell, SiriusXM, Uber, Comcast, and US Bank. Biography The hands at the Peninsula Beverly Hills sometimes ran past $4 million. Bloom designed the operation and ran the room before she turned 26. Her clients were Hollywood actors and Wall Street financiers. The FBI eventually took the business apart. Before any of that, she was a competitive skier. She made the U.S. Ski Team in freestyle moguls and ranked third in the Nor-Am Cup season standings. A back injury ended her Olympic ambitions before she finished her degree at the University of Colorado Boulder. Los Angeles was meant to be a gap year. Within a few years she was hosting weekly poker games for some of the most recognisable people in entertainment. Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck, and Alex Rodriguez were among the regulars. In 2013 she was indicted in a federal money-laundering case in New York and pleaded guilty the following year. The second act began on the page. The memoir Molly’s Game (2014) became the basis for Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, starring Jessica Chastain and earning a 2018 Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. She hosts Torched, an investigative podcast on the costs of elite competition, and her corporate audiences include BlackRock, Blackstone, Adobe, Cisco, Dell, SiriusXM, Uber, Comcast, and US Bank. In those rooms she examines how high performers misjudge risk under pressure, and what serious recovery looks like once they have. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Risk and judgement in high-stakes environments Resilience and reinvention after professional setback Ethics and integrity in competitive markets Customer experience and exclusivity Behavioural dynamics of high performers Entrepreneurship from a standing start Ideal for Boards and senior executives facing decisions where the costs of judgement errors are large and public Financial services, investment, and trading audiences working under live time pressure Sales and customer experience leaders building premium or exclusive propositions Conferences on resilience and second-act leadership Audience outcomes A first-hand view of how ego and short-term incentives erode judgement among senior players A specific account of how to read the early signals of risk before public consequences arrive An honest reckoning of what professional and legal failure costs, and what real recovery demands A working sense of how exclusivity and discretion build premium customer bases that competitors cannot easily copy

Why organisations work with Diana Nyad She offers a studied, first-person account of what it takes to keep a team aligned across four failed attempts and a decade of setbacks, which is closer to the reality of most major transformations than single-peak success stories. Her material is built on a specific, documented pursuit: five attempts to swim from Havana to Key West, culminating in a 53-hour crossing at age 64. Organisations get a concrete case study, not a motivational abstraction. She speaks from a long second career in serious journalism (NPR, ABC Wide World of Sports, New York Times, CBS News Sunday Morning), which means she can argue a point, not only tell a story. Her TEDWomen 2013 talk “Never, ever give up” is one of the most widely circulated speeches on long-horizon perseverance, giving audiences a reference point before she enters the room. Her story has been examined at length in Knopf’s Find a Way and dramatised in Netflix’s 2023 Nyad, which means her case is unusually well known to senior audiences before a keynote begins. Biography highlights Completed a swim from Havana to Key West in September 2013, approximately 110 miles in roughly 53 hours, on her fifth attempt at age 64. Circumnavigated Manhattan Island in 1975 in 7 hours 57 minutes, breaking a record that had stood for 48 years. Inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame (1978) and the National Women’s Sports Hall of Fame (1986). Sports and culture journalist at ABC’s Wide World of Sports, NPR, CBS News Sunday Morning, The New York Times, and Newsweek. Host of NPR’s The Savvy Traveler, 2001 to 2004. Author of Other Shores (1978), Basic Training for Women (1981), Boss of Me (1999), and Find a Way (Knopf, 2015). Subject of the 2013 documentary The Other Shore and the 2023 Netflix biopic Nyad. Biography The Havana to Key West crossing took five attempts and more than three decades between the first try and the one that finished. The 2013 swim ran roughly 110 miles and took about 53 hours in open water. The story most organisations know from the TED talk is the ending; the part that matters to leaders is the four attempts before it, and the team that kept assembling after each one. Nyad was already an accomplished marathon swimmer well before Cuba. In 1975 she circled Manhattan Island in 7 hours 57 minutes, breaking a record that had stood since 1927. She was inducted into the International Marathon Swimming Hall of Fame in 1978 and the National Women’s Sports Hall of Fame in 1986. That era produced a particular kind of athlete: one who had to build, fund, and lead her own campaigns, because no federation was going to do it for her. The second career is what makes her unusual in this category. She spent roughly thirty years as a sports and culture journalist at ABC’s Wide World of Sports, NPR, CBS News Sunday Morning, The New York Times, and Newsweek, and hosted NPR’s The Savvy Traveler from 2001 to 2004. She is a writer before she is a motivator, and her books, including Knopf’s Find a Way in 2015, argue a case rather than recite a highlight reel. For senior audiences, the Cuba project is useful because it is legible as a management problem. A non-negotiable goal, a team that changes between attempts, four public failures, a shifting set of physical and logistical obstacles, and the question of when to stop. She is also clear-eyed about the ratification questions that followed the 2013 swim, which matters: the material she brings is about method and persistence, not an untouchable record. Key speaking topics Sustained pursuit of long-horizon goals Leading teams across repeated failure Decision-making under physical and psychological duress Resilience as a practised discipline Women in leadership and late-career reinvention Storytelling and the journalism of performance Ideal for Senior leadership offsites dealing with multi-year transformation programmes where setbacks are expected CEO and board sessions framing a non-negotiable strategic objective Sales and commercial leadership kick-offs anchored on persistence and team discipline Culture and people events for organisations rebuilding after a public failure or missed target Audience outcomes A concrete reference case for what a decade-long pursuit looks like from inside the team A clearer frame for the difference between motivation and method when a goal keeps slipping Language for talking to a team about the cost of the next attempt after a visible failure A usable argument that age, tenure, and timing are not the constraints they are usually treated as A reminder, grounded in a specific campaign, that solitary-looking achievements are almost always team outputs

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

Why organisations work with Martin Bayfield A rare first-hand account of operating inside two of England rugby’s most successful sides of the 1990s, including the 1992 Grand Slam squad and the 1993 Lions Test pack, told without sentimentality. Direct insight into how a career-ending neck injury reshapes identity, preparation and decision-making, and what that demands of leaders managing people through forced change. A serving police officer for much of his international career, which gives him a working understanding of accountability, public scrutiny and operating under formal command structures alongside elite sport. Two decades of broadcasting craft on ITV rugby, BT Sport and BBC One’s Crimewatch, which translates into a stage manner that holds a senior room rather than performing at it. One of the few keynote speakers who can move credibly between high-performance team sport, public service and major popular culture, with the Hagrid body-double work in the Harry Potter films sitting alongside the rugby record. Biography highlights 31 caps for England at lock; member of the 1992 Five Nations Grand Slam squad and the 1995 Rugby World Cup squad. Three Test appearances for the British and Irish Lions on the 1993 tour of New Zealand, partnering Martin Johnson in every Test. Club career at Bedford Blues and Northampton Saints; retired in 1998 after a neck injury sustained in a Northampton training session. Police service with the Metropolitan Police from 1985 to 1989, then with Bedfordshire Police. Author of A Very Tall Story, published by Simon and Schuster UK in 2022. Co-presenter of BBC One’s Crimewatch with Kirsty Young from 2012 to 2016; rugby presenter for ITV at the 2007 and 2011 Rugby World Cups, and for BT Sport and TNT Sports; body and stunt double for Hagrid in the Harry Potter films. Biography Most leadership stories about elite sport are told in highlight reel. The more useful version is what happens inside the squad on the days when the plan is failing, the body is hurt and the public verdict has already been written. Martin Bayfield played in that environment for most of the 1990s, winning 31 England caps and three Tests for the British and Irish Lions in New Zealand in 1993 alongside Martin Johnson. He did it while still a serving police officer, first with the Metropolitan Police and then with Bedfordshire Police, which gave him an unusual vantage point on accountability and command. The amateur era forced players to hold two careers at once, and Bayfield speaks about that compression with the directness of someone who lived it rather than the nostalgia of someone who reads about it. His playing career ended in February 1998 when a neck injury in a Northampton Saints training session closed the door overnight. The reinvention that followed is the part that resonates with senior audiences. Broadcasting work for ITV at the 2007 and 2011 Rugby World Cups, BT Sport and TNT Sports rugby coverage, four years co-presenting BBC One’s Crimewatch with Kirsty Young, and a parallel screen career that includes serving as Robbie Coltrane’s body and stunt double for Hagrid across the Harry Potter films. The 2022 memoir A Very Tall Story, published by Simon and Schuster, sets out the same material in his own voice: the shambolic last days of amateurism, the two Grand Slam squads, the players around him from Will Carling to Brian Moore, and what a sudden ending teaches about identity. For senior leadership audiences, that is the substance behind the talk. Key speaking topics High-performance team dynamics in elite sport Leadership under public scrutiny Career-ending change and personal reinvention Accountability inside high-trust groups Lessons from the British and Irish Lions and international rugby Communication and presence on camera Ideal for Executive leadership offsites and board strategy days focused on team performance under pressure Sales kick-offs and major customer events where a keynote also needs stage authority and humour After-dinner and conference dinner slots at gala formats where senior audiences expect substance with delivery Audience outcomes A specific account of how the 1993 Lions and Grand Slam-era England squads built trust and held discipline when results were in doubt. A grounded perspective on accountability drawn from playing and policing alongside one another. A useable frame for thinking about identity and reinvention after a forced career change. A senior-room reset on what high-performance teamwork actually looks like up close, separated from the cliches.

Why organisations work with Jon Acuff He brings original research, not commentary. The Soundtracks framework is built on a study of 10,000 participants run with researcher Mike Peasley, PhD, which gives leaders a defensible behavioural model rather than a motivational pep talk. Finish is a Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller built around a specific, uncomfortable data point: most goals fail in the middle, not the start. Teams leave with a method for surviving the middle of any initiative. He is one of Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers and a repeat keynote at FedEx, Walmart, Microsoft, Nissan, Lockheed Martin, Chick-fil-A and Nokia, which means his frameworks have already been pressure-tested inside large, complex workforces. His sessions convert into language a workforce can use the next morning. Soundtracks, Finish, Do Over and All It Takes Is a Goal each give teams named tools they can apply without a consultant in the room. He is funny in a way that lowers defences without lowering the bar. Senior audiences engage with behavioural content they would normally resist when it arrives as a slide titled “mindset”. Biography highlights New York Times bestselling author of Soundtracks, Finish, Start, Do Over, and All It Takes Is a Goal. Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done was a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller. Named to Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers list. Keynote client list includes FedEx, Walmart, Microsoft, Nissan, Lockheed Martin, Chick-fil-A, Nokia and Comedy Central. Soundtracks framework built on a 10,000-participant study of overthinking conducted with Mike Peasley, PhD. Host of the All It Takes Is a Goal podcast; earlier career as a copywriter for The Home Depot, Bose, and Staples, and three years as a touring speaker at Dave Ramsey’s Lampo Group. Biography Most large organisations do not have a strategy problem. They have a finishing problem. Goals are set in January and re-set in July. Initiatives stall in the middle. Smart teams overthink themselves to a stop. The work that gets booked is the work that helps a workforce close the gap between intention and execution, which is the territory Jon Acuff has spent two decades inside. His method is built on research, not anecdote. The Soundtracks framework, published in the bestselling book of the same name, was developed alongside researcher Mike Peasley, PhD, using a study of 10,000 participants on how overthinking degrades performance. Finish, his Wall Street Journal #1 bestseller, sits on a similar evidence base and reframes goal failure as a problem of the middle, not the start. Soundtracks, Finish, Start, Do Over and All It Takes Is a Goal have collectively crossed a million copies in print. Inc. Magazine ranks him among its Top 100 Leadership Speakers, and the keynote client list reads like a stress test of the work itself: FedEx, Walmart, Microsoft, Nissan, Lockheed Martin, Chick-fil-A, Nokia, Comedy Central. He came to the stage through an unusual route, beginning as a copywriter for The Home Depot, Bose and Staples, then spending three years at Dave Ramsey’s Lampo Group, before going independent in 2013. What makes the work usable is the language. A workforce cannot run on a 200-page model. It can run on a phrase like “retire the broken soundtrack” or a tool like the Finish principle of choosing what to do imperfectly. Acuff’s audiences leave with named tools that survive the trip back to the desk on Monday morning. Key speaking topics Overthinking and decision-making Goal completion and follow-through Performance and motivation in large workforces Behaviour change at scale Resilience through career and role transitions Leadership communication and storytelling Ideal for CHROs and people leaders running annual goal-setting, performance, or engagement cycles. Sales and revenue leaders preparing kick-offs that need execution lift, not just energy. Transformation and change leads inside large workforces where initiative fatigue is a real risk. Annual all-hands and leadership conferences for organisations of 1,000-plus employees. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for the overthinking patterns slowing teams down, drawn from the Soundtracks research. A repeatable method for finishing initiatives in the messy middle, taken from the Finish framework. Named tools, not abstractions, that managers can use in one-to-ones the following week. A measurable shift in how a workforce talks about goals, motivation, and personal accountability. Confidence that a serious behavioural message can land in a room without losing its evidence base.

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