Peak Performance speakers

Why organisations work with Børge Ousland The leadership and performance insight he delivers was built at the source, in conditions where failure was real and irreversible. His three polar firsts (first solo Antarctic crossing, first solo North Pole, first winter North Pole) are not analogies for organisational pressure. They are where the understanding was formed. The 2025 Royal Geographical Society Founder’s Medal (approved by King Charles, first awarded in 1832, previously given to Sir David Attenborough and Neil Armstrong) places this engagement in a different credibility category from any other adventure or resilience speaker. His IceLegacy project, crossing the world’s 20 largest ice caps since 2012, means his perspective on climate and environmental change is grounded in active, ongoing field work, not historical expedition. For organisations seeking credible eyewitness testimony on environmental change, this is something no desk-based sustainability speaker can replicate. The pre-expedition career, nearly a decade as a North Sea saturation diver and service with Norway’s elite Marinejegerkommandoen, gives his understanding of operational teamwork, accountability, and high-stakes judgment a grounding that is independent of the exploration narrative and reinforces its relevance to organisational audiences. As one of a small number of speakers on the National Geographic Speakers Bureau, with five magazine features spanning three decades, the engagement carries institutional weight that goes beyond the leadership speaker circuit. Beyond exploration, Ousland founded and operates Manshausen Island Lodge in Northern Norway, a design destination built from scratch that has won more than 60 international architecture, design and hospitality awards, including the Michelin Hotel Guide One Key. The discipline he speaks to is grounded in commercial operation as much as in field expedition. Biography highlights First person to cross Antarctica solo and unsupported (1996-97), covering 1,864 miles with no resupply, one of the most significant feats in exploration history First solo and unsupported journey to the North Pole (1994); part of the first unsupported ski trek to the North Pole (1990, with Erling Kagge) First to reach the North Pole during the Arctic winter with Mike Horn (2006); first to cross the Arctic Ocean from Alaska to Norway in continuous polar winter darkness with Mike Horn (2019), described by National Geographic as “the boldest polar expedition of modern times” 2025 Royal Geographical Society Founder’s Medal, one of the oldest and most prestigious geographical honours in the world, approved by King Charles; previous recipients include Sir David Attenborough and Neil Armstrong National Geographic Speakers Bureau; featured across five separate issues of National Geographic Magazine (1991, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2009) Founder and operator of Manshausen Island Lodge in Northern Norway, recipient of more than 60 international architecture, design and hospitality awards including the Michelin Hotel Guide One Key Author of 11 books on polar exploration; first prize in the Adventure category at the Banff Mountain Book Festival (2009) for “The Great Polar Journey” Former North Sea saturation diver and member of Norway’s Marinejegerkommandoen (naval special forces) Biography Børge Ousland has crossed Antarctica alone, reached the North Pole during the Arctic winter, and spent four decades documenting the world’s changing polar landscape from the ice itself. What makes his perspective valuable to organisations is not the scale of those journeys but the disciplines that sustained them. Decision-making under incomplete information, performance over extended periods of pressure, and leadership when the margin for error disappears: these are the things his expeditions tested at the highest level. Ousland was the first person to cross Antarctica solo and unsupported, covering 1,864 miles from coast to coast with no resupply. He made the first solo and unsupported journey to the North Pole in 1994. In 2006, he and Mike Horn became the first to reach the North Pole during the Arctic winter, running in total darkness at minus 40 degrees over unstable, drifting ice. In 2019, the same partnership crossed the Arctic Ocean from Alaska to Norway in continuous winter darkness, an expedition National Geographic called “the boldest polar expedition of modern times”. Since 2012, his IceLegacy project has been systematically crossing the world’s 20 largest ice caps, building a direct, ongoing physical record of glacial change. Before devoting himself to exploration, Ousland spent a decade as a saturation diver in the North Sea, working at depths down to 360 metres, requiring weeks inside pressurised chambers. He then served with Norway’s Marinejegerkommandoen, the naval special forces. Both roles demanded precision under pressure, sound judgment in high-stakes environments, and unconditional accountability for the people working alongside you. His expeditions tested those same qualities at a different scale entirely. Alongside the expedition work, Ousland is the founder and operator of Manshausen Island Lodge in Northern Norway. Built from scratch, the lodge has won more than 60 international architecture, design and hospitality awards, including the Michelin Hotel Guide One Key. He arrives in corporate rooms with the credibility of an operator as well as that of an explorer. In 2025, the Royal Geographical Society awarded Ousland the Founder’s Medal, an honour approved by King Charles and first awarded in 1832. Previous recipients include Sir David Attenborough and Neil Armstrong. He is one of the few speakers represented by the National Geographic Speakers Bureau and has been featured across five separate issues of National Geographic Magazine spanning three decades. He has lectured at the Royal Geographical Society in London on multiple occasions, including a standing-ovation address on solo polar exploration. Key speaking topics Leadership under extreme pressure Decision-making in high-stakes, high-uncertainty environments Resilience and sustained performance Risk management and expedition planning Teamwork under isolation and stress Eyewitness climate change and polar environments Endurance and mental discipline Ideal for Senior leadership teams in energy, maritime, defence, and infrastructure (sectors where the consequences of leadership failure are high) Boards and executive teams building resilience and risk frameworks for volatile operating environments CEOs and C-suite audiences seeking non-conventional, field-tested models of decision-making under pressure Strategy and transformation conferences where sustained performance under uncertainty is a live organisational challenge Audience outcomes A concrete, field-tested perspective on what sound decision-making under genuine pressure actually requires, not a theoretical model Practical insight into the mental architecture that sustains performance when conditions become extreme: preparation depth, risk calibration, and in-the-moment adaptability A direct, first-hand account of environmental change in polar regions, grounded in 40 years of active field observation Understanding of how strong, distinct personalities can align around a shared objective under conditions of maximum stress, and what that alignment demands in practice A recalibrated sense of what resilience, endurance, and leadership under pressure can mean in organisational contexts

Why organisations work with Bradley Scanes Five seasons inside the Red Bull Racing operation during four consecutive Verstappen world titles, with direct ownership of preparation, recovery, sleep, nutrition, and rehabilitation. The reference point is operational, not anecdotal. A career that crosses Olympic gymnastics, Olympic basketball, Premier League football medical leadership, and motorsport, which means his framing of high performance is not tied to one sport’s culture. Clinical foundations through the NHS plus two postgraduate physiotherapy degrees, which gives him a physiological grounding most performance speakers in this category do not have. Active current practice with endurance racing teams at Le Mans and Daytona and with Ironman World Champion Lucy Charles-Barclay, so the examples are current, not retrospective. Biography highlights Five-year tenure as Human Performance Consultant and Physiotherapist at Red Bull Racing, working directly with Max Verstappen, 2019 to 2024 Four-year Olympic cycle as performance coach with British Gymnastics, including work with Max Whitlock Four years with Team GB Olympic Basketball Former Head of Medical at Southend United FC; clinical foundation in the NHS BSc Sport and Exercise Science (Loughborough); MSc Physiotherapy; MSc Advanced Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy and Research (distinction) Founder and Director of Elite Formula PT; creator of the Complete Sports Practitioner mentorship programme and the Formula 1 Series Course Biography Formula 1 has the shortest feedback loop in elite performance. Decisions made on Thursday show up in a stopwatch on Sunday, and the operating environment inside a top team is built around removing every variable that could cost a tenth of a second. For five seasons, that environment was Bradley Scanes’ workplace. As Human Performance Consultant and Physiotherapist at Red Bull Racing from 2019 to 2024, he was responsible for Max Verstappen’s physical preparation, recovery, sleep, nutrition, and rehabilitation across the four world championship campaigns that defined the team’s modern era. The work sat inside an organisation of more than 1,800 staff where a pit stop is measured in tenths and a tyre temperature is a strategic input. The route in was unusual. Loughborough sport science, then a Masters in physiotherapy, then a second Masters in advanced musculoskeletal physiotherapy with distinction. NHS clinical work. Head of Medical at Southend United FC. Four years with Team GB Olympic Basketball and a full Olympic cycle with British Gymnastics, including campaigns with Max Whitlock. By the time he reached Red Bull, the question of how athletes perform under pressure had been examined from five different sports and two clinical settings. He now runs Elite Formula PT, coaches Ironman World Champion Lucy Charles-Barclay, and works across endurance racing teams competing at Le Mans and Daytona. The training programmes he has written for the next generation of sports practitioners, including the Formula 1 Series Course, are taught from inside that current practice, which is why senior corporate audiences come away with operating language they can actually use the following Monday. Key speaking topics High-performance culture Recovery and sleep as performance variables Team execution under pressure Marginal gains and continuous improvement Safety, risk and learning culture in elite sport Leadership lessons from Formula 1 Composure and decision-making under load Ideal for Executive leadership teams stress-testing how they perform under sustained pressure Operations and transformation leaders looking at cycle time, error rate, and team execution Sales and commercial leadership teams preparing for high-stakes quarters People and talent leaders rebuilding cultures around recovery, focus and sustained output Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for recovery, sleep, and composure as measurable inputs to senior performance A concrete picture of how a top F1 team reduces error and increases cycle precision under time pressure Reference points from Olympic and motorsport environments that translate to corporate execution A sharper sense of how elite teams treat safety, risk and learning culture as performance levers rather than compliance

Why organisations work with Brendon Burchard He brings a named, testable framework. The six High Performance Habits (clarity, energy, necessity, productivity, influence, courage) are drawn from his research with the High Performance Institute and its validated High Performance Indicator Assessment. The research scale is unusual in this field. Survey work across more than 30,000 respondents in 190 countries, followed by structured interviews with the top-scoring subjects, gives leaders a source of advice that is not anecdotal. He has built and run the organisations he speaks about. Founder and CEO of GrowthDay, founder of the High Performance Institute, architect of the Certified High Performance Coaching programme operating across 100 countries. His content travels inside companies. Fortune 500 leadership teams and Vistage member groups have used the High Performance Habits material as a shared language for team standards, not a one-off keynote. Three-time New York Times bestselling author with a fourth title, High Performance Habits, selected by Amazon editors as a Top 3 Business and Leadership Book of 2017. Biography highlights Three-time New York Times bestselling author: The Motivation Manifesto, The Millionaire Messenger, and further titles, with High Performance Habits reaching Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. Founder and CEO of GrowthDay, a personal development platform, and founder of the High Performance Institute. Architect of Certified High Performance Coaching, operating across 100 countries with over 150,000 logged coaching sessions per Institute figures. Led the research programme behind High Performance Habits, including survey work across 30,000-plus respondents in 190 countries and more than 100 structured interviews with top-scoring performers. Twice profiled on the cover of Success magazine; named by Success and O, The Oprah Magazine as one of the most influential leaders in personal growth. Earlier career at Accenture before moving into performance research and executive coaching. Biography Most leaders know what to do. The harder question is why capable teams, with the right strategy and the right people, still underperform their potential. Brendon Burchard’s research argues the answer lies in a set of daily habits that sustained high performers practise and that most organisations leave to chance. That research is the backbone of his work. With the High Performance Institute, Burchard surveyed more than 30,000 people in 190 countries using the High Performance Indicator Assessment, then ran structured interviews with the top-scoring subjects. The output is a six-habit model (clarity, energy, necessity, productivity, influence, courage) published in High Performance Habits, selected by Amazon editors as a Top 3 Business and Leadership Book of 2017 and a Wall Street Journal bestseller. He has also built the organisations he talks about. As founder and CEO of GrowthDay and founder of the High Performance Institute, Burchard runs the Certified High Performance Coaching programme, operating in 100 countries with over 150,000 logged sessions according to the Institute’s own figures. Earlier books, including The Motivation Manifesto, The Charge, and The Millionaire Messenger, each reached New York Times or Wall Street Journal bestseller lists, giving him a readership and coaching network few performance researchers can match. For an executive audience, his value is specific. He gives leadership teams a shared vocabulary and a measurable standard for what sustained performance looks like, then ties it to the decisions senior people actually make: where to spend energy, what to cut, and how to hold a team to a clearer standard than comfort allows. Key speaking topics High performance habits Executive and team performance Personal and organisational productivity Leadership development Motivation and behavioural change Coaching culture and performance standards Influence and communication Ideal for CEOs and executive committees setting performance standards for a full leadership team Heads of sales and revenue leaders running large annual kick-offs or incentive events Chief learning officers building a coaching culture or leadership development programme Founder-led businesses scaling from owner-operator mode into managed performance Audience outcomes A shared six-habit model leadership teams can use as a common performance vocabulary A clearer view of which habits correlate with sustained results versus short-term output Specific daily practices senior people can apply to protect energy and clarity during high-load periods Language for holding teams to a higher standard without defaulting to pressure or burnout A research-backed case for treating performance as a set of trainable behaviours, not a trait

Why organisations work with Cameron Atlas The keynote runs on a documented framework. The Edge of Possible® sets out three pillars, Be Clear, Be Bold and Be Unshakable, with nine performance accelerators underneath, delivered to leadership teams as a half or full day session or across twelve months. His TEDxRoma talk “What Future Are We Creating?”, hosted on TED.com, was built around a performance involving 80 musicians from 40 countries, assembled over eight months. The talks address composure and decision quality for people running organisations through continuous change. The keynote sits on top of a working coaching practice. He runs The Edge of Possible High Performance Program with CEOs, founders, and high-performing teams, so the material is tested with clients who buy it as implementation work. He performs original music live on grand piano and acoustic guitar, offered as a closing segment where the audience suits it. Biography highlights Delivered the closing talk at TEDxRoma, “What Future Are We Creating?”, now featured on TED.com National Geographic Explorer; director of Samaná: The Last Free Flowing River of Antioquia, a documentary on the dam projects threatening Antioquia’s last free-flowing river Host of The Edge of Possible, featured as a top 100 self-improvement podcast on Apple Podcasts Performs live on grand piano and acoustic guitar as an optional closing segment, using original material written on the themes of the talk Runs The Edge of Possible High Performance Program, delivered to executive teams and as a private engagement for founders and CEOs Grew up on a farm in outback Australia in a graduating class of 11; now speaks internationally across multiple continents Biography The closing talk at Italy’s largest TEDx event, “What Future Are We Creating?”, was a performance eight months in the making, involving 80 musicians from 40 countries. It is now hosted on TED.com. Cameron Atlas organised it, and now works with leadership teams on the same question the talk asked: what people are capable of when they stop defaulting to what feels safe. The content is written for senior teams running through continuous change. The Edge of Possible® sets it out in three parts: Be Clear on purpose and direction, Be Bold enough to act before conditions feel safe, and Be Unshakable in the habits that hold performance under pressure. He has run this work with CEOs, founders, and high-performing teams for more than 15 years, delivered as a half or full day session or across twelve months. Where the audience suits it, he closes on grand piano or acoustic guitar, playing songs he wrote on the themes he has just spoken to. He also hosts The Edge of Possible, featured as a top 100 self-improvement podcast on Apple Podcasts, which covers what it takes to work past a comfortable ceiling. He grew up on a farm in outback Australia in a graduating class of eleven, and still sets the kind of goals he asks audiences to set. At 35 he put 2,000 hours into learning guitar in the first 500 days. At 41 he is training to compete in pickleball. Key speaking topics Adaptability as a performance discipline Resilience and decision-making under sustained change Composure and clarity for senior leaders Creative collaboration at scale High performance under sustained pressure Live music as an optional keynote format Ideal for CEOs, founders and executive teams running through continuous restructure or strategic change Leadership conferences and annual summits looking for a closing keynote with emotional weight Sales kick-offs and partner conferences booking an opening or closing keynote HR and people-function audiences working on resilience, wellbeing and high-performance culture Audience outcomes A clearer language for what composure under pressure looks like in senior roles A reset on the difference between motion and focus when teams are exhausted by change Where the format includes it, original music performed live in the room, written on the themes the session covers The default patterns that quietly limit progress, named and worked through in the session

Why organisations work with Carina Bruwer She draws on parallel high-performance careers in elite endurance sport, a SAMA-winning music business, and a technology platform she built and recently rebuilt, so the lessons on composure and decision-making land as operating principles a leadership team can apply. Her swims are credentialed by named bodies (WOWSA’s 2019 list of the World’s 50 Most Adventurous Open Water Women, and the Lewis Pugh Trophy for South Africa’s Outstanding Swim of the Year), which gives the resilience material a verifiable spine rather than motivational generality. Rebuilding Gigster, her events-technology platform, in 2026 put her back in the position of a beginner, which gives her reinvention material a current, first-hand reference point and not just a historical one. Through Swim For Hope, she has run a fifteen-year fundraising platform that has cleared R1 million for South African causes, which gives her credibility on values-led leadership without needing to reach for the language. She is one of the few keynote voices who can sit with a sales team in the morning and a leadership offsite in the afternoon and speak with first-hand authority in both rooms. Biography highlights Crossed the English Channel (36km) in 12h03 in 2005; held the female world record for the Strait of Gibraltar at the time and set numerous other records, including on iconic swims such as Robben Island, Cape Point, False Bay, Nelson Mandela Bay and Cape Agulhas. The only person to have completed a crossing of shark-infested Walker Bay, and the pioneer of a triple-country swim linking France, Monaco and Italy; the only person to have rounded both the northernmost and southernmost points of Africa. Featured on CNN; named in WOWSA’s 2019 list of the World’s 50 Most Adventurous Open Water Women; recipient of the Lewis Pugh Trophy for South Africa’s Outstanding Swim of the Year. Founder of Five Seasons Entertainment (2002), one of South Africa’s largest artist management agencies, and of the instrumental trio Sterling EQ (2007), winner of a South African Music Award in 2011. Founder of Gigster (2015), a live-events booking platform she rebuilt in 2026 as a technology marketplace with AI-assisted supplier tools. Founder of Swim For Hope (2014), which has raised over R1 million for beneficiaries including the Little Fighters Cancer Trust, Muzukidz and the Tribuo Fund. Biography The English Channel crossing in August 2005 took twelve hours and three minutes in unpredictable water. Carina Bruwer was twenty-three years into a competitive swimming life by then, and the swim placed her among a small group of South Africans who have completed the route. The records that followed are the spine of why senior audiences listen when she talks about preparation and composure. They include the female world record on the Strait of Gibraltar at the time, the only recorded crossing of shark-patrolled Walker Bay, and a triple-country swim linking France, Monaco and Italy. The swimming is only part of why a corporate room listens. While building the open water record, she founded Five Seasons Entertainment in 2002 and grew it into one of South Africa’s largest artist management agencies. In 2007 she launched the instrumental pop trio Sterling EQ, produced the live concert film that won a South African Music Award in 2011, and led the group through more than 2,000 performances across 20 countries. In 2015 she founded the live-events booking platform Gigster, and in 2026 rebuilt it from the ground up as a technology marketplace with AI-assisted supplier profiles and built-in quoting and contracting. The rebuild meant becoming a beginner again, an established performer and record-holder learning an unfamiliar discipline in public. It is the reason her reinvention material reads as current rather than retrospective: she is describing a choice she made this year, not a feat from the archive. The common thread is operating discipline under conditions that do not relent. The swimming supplies the language of preparation and composure; the businesses supply the language of building and rebuilding commercially, which is how she talks to leaders about the cost of staying decisive when conditions keep moving. Through Swim For Hope, founded in 2014, she has raised over R1 million for South African beneficiaries including the Little Fighters Cancer Trust and the Tribuo Fund. Key speaking topics Self-leadership under extreme pressure Resilience and recovery Composure and decision-making in volatile conditions High performance across parallel careers Entrepreneurship and creative enterprise Purpose, values and personal courage Goal setting and long-horizon execution Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes Sales kick-offs and high-performance commercial teams Conference plenaries on resilience, change and personal leadership Women’s leadership networks and ERG events Audience outcomes A concrete sense of what composure looks like as a practised skill, not a personality trait A clearer model for how to prepare for high-stakes performance moments inside the day-to-day calendar Permission to take ambitious personal goals seriously alongside the demands of a senior role A direct, lived case for how resilience is rebuilt after physical, commercial or emotional setback

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

Why organisations work with Cathy O’Dowd Her central argument that internal team dynamics, not the external environment, are the primary source of failure in high-performing groups, is drawn from specific, documented expeditions and maps directly onto the decisions senior leadership teams are already wrestling with. The 1996 South African Everest expedition provides one of the most detailed public case studies of a high-performing team collapsing through ego and power-play, then recovering to reach the summit. That arc of breakdown, diagnosis and recommitment is the substance of the work. Her participation in the 2012 Mazeno Ridge expedition on Nanga Parbat (a first ascent of a 10-kilometre ridgeline that had defeated ten previous international expeditions) provides a tested model for executing ambitious objectives when the plan meets an unpredictable environment and must adapt in real time. She makes a specific, counterintuitive claim: that most failures in extreme environments are self-created. This challenges how many organisations locate and manage risk, and gives leaders a different set of questions to ask of their own teams. As a Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland and recipient of its highest honour, the Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, she brings the structural rigour of a career speaker to content that has been tested in front of senior corporate audiences across 46+ countries. Biography highlights First woman to summit Everest from both its south (1996) and north (1999) sides – an unmatched record in mountaineering history First South African to summit Everest; member of the First South African Everest Expedition (1996) Fourth woman to climb Lhotse, the world’s fourth-highest mountain (2000) Participant in the 2012 Mazeno Ridge expedition on Nanga Parbat – a first ascent of one of the last major unclimbed lines on an 8,000-metre peak; the summit pair were awarded the 2013 Piolet d’Or Author of Just for the Love of It; co-author of Everest: Free to Decide Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland; recipient of the Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, the PSA’s highest honour Master’s degree in Journalism, Rhodes University; former university lecturer Professional speaker for 27+ years; presented to organisations in 46+ countries on six continents Biography Most teams of ambitious, capable people contain the seeds of their own failure. Not because the external environment defeats them, but because the competition between high-performers: the very drive that brought them to the room, erodes the collaboration they need to succeed. Cathy O’Dowd watched this happen in real time, at altitude, with lives in the balance. O’Dowd became the first woman to summit Everest from both its south and north sides, completing the south-side ascent in 1996 and returning for the north in 1999. What formed her thinking was not the summits but the crisis that preceded the first: the in-fighting, power-plays, and near-disintegration of a team that had every credential to succeed. Her analysis of that expedition: what broke, what was rebuilt, and how the team reached the top despite itself, is the foundation of her corporate work. Her second major case study is the 2012 Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat, a 10-kilometre Himalayan ridgeline that had repelled ten previous international expeditions. The six-person team committed to a first ascent with no existing blueprint and had to adapt in real time as the plan met a complex, unforgiving environment. Two teammates completed the ascent and were awarded the 2013 Piolet d’Or, mountaineering’s most prestigious prize. O’Dowd uses this expedition as a model for executing ambitious objectives when certainty is unavailable and the original plan cannot hold. A Fellow of the Professional Speaking Association of UK/Ireland and recipient of its Professional Speaking Award of Excellence, she has presented in 46+ countries over 27 years. She holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from Rhodes University, where she also lectured. Her presentations are built not on inspiration but on diagnosis: specific, transferable analysis of why high-performing groups succeed and fail under pressure. Key speaking topics Decision-making under extreme pressure High-performance team dynamics Leadership in high-stakes environments Executing ambitious plans under uncertainty Resilience, failure, and recovery Risk, responsibility, and the limits of control Adapting strategy when execution meets reality Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams navigating high-stakes decisions under uncertainty Organisations running ambitious transformation, innovation, or change programmes Leadership conferences centred on team performance and organisational resilience Boards and executive committees examining risk, accountability, and decision-making frameworks Audience outcomes A specific diagnostic framework for understanding why high-performing teams fail from within, not from outside Practical analysis of how ego, competition, and communication breakdown manifest under pressure, and how to interrupt those patterns A case-study model for adapting ambitious plans when execution meets an unpredictable environment A reframed understanding of organisational risk: internal dynamics as a primary variable, not just external conditions Greater clarity on what leadership under genuine uncertainty looks and feels like, drawn from real decisions with irreversible consequences

Why organisations work with Cedric Dumont His performance model is built from conditions where cognitive failure is fatal – not from business simulations. The gap between knowing what to do and doing it under pressure is one that only genuine extreme-environment experience can close. His academic grounding in Applied Sports & High Performance Psychology means the frameworks he brings into leadership programmes are clinically structured – not borrowed metaphor. The neurochemistry of flow – the state in which hyper-awareness and peak decision-making converge – is a concept he has lived under life-or-death conditions. He translates it into actionable emotional regulation tools that leaders can apply within weeks. His two books, Dare to Jump and Defy Gravity (Simon & Schuster, 2025), give organisations a portable framework they can embed in development programmes beyond the event itself. He delivers in English, Dutch, and French – making him a practical choice for European leadership events that span language and cultural context. Biography highlights Red Bull athlete and pioneer in basejumping and wingsuit flying, with over 11,000 skydives and 2,500 BASE jumps Holds records including first BASE jump from the Vilnius TV Tower, Lithuania (170m, 2009); Jin-Mao Tower, Shanghai (431m); and the Royal Gorge Bridge, Colorado (384m) Degree in Applied Sports & High Performance Psychology Author of Dare to Jump (Lannoo Campus) and Defy Gravity (Simon & Schuster / Lannoo Campus, 2025) TEDx speaker: “When Women Succeed, We All Win” (listed on TED.com); TEDxUHasselt talk on flow, survival, and high-pressure environments Clients include PwC Belgium, Brussels Airport, Le Pain Quotidien, and Spadel Biography Cedric Dumont has made over 11,000 skydives and 2,500 BASE jumps – and holds records from locations including Shanghai’s Jin-Mao Tower and the world’s highest suspension bridge in Colorado. He has been a Red Bull athlete since the turn of the millennium. He also holds a degree in Applied Sports & High Performance Psychology. That combination is the foundation of his work. In extreme environments, flow state is not a performance aspiration – it is the condition for survival. Dumont has spent two decades studying how the cognitive and emotional mechanisms that make elite athletes function under mortal pressure can be transferred, deliberately and structurally, into leadership and organisational contexts. His two books – Dare to Jump (Lannoo Campus) and Defy Gravity (Simon & Schuster / Lannoo Campus, 2025) – develop this argument for a leadership audience. The core claim is that the skills organisations most need in disruption – emotional regulation, adaptive intelligence, calculated risk tolerance, and the ability to sustain focus under stress – are the same skills extreme athletes train systematically and that most leadership programmes treat as innate. He has brought this work to CEOs and senior leadership teams across Europe – including at PwC Belgium, Brussels Airport, and Le Pain Quotidien – and has delivered TEDx talks on both flow psychology and gender dynamics in risk-taking. He speaks English, Dutch, and French. Key speaking topics High-performance psychology under pressure The neurochemistry of flow and peak cognitive state Fear management and calculated risk-taking Leadership resilience and emotional regulation Energy management for sustainable performance Psychological safety and trust in high-performing teams Bold leadership and adaptive mindset Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite executives navigating sustained disruption or transformation CHROs and L&D leads building resilience and performance capability at scale High-potential leader cohorts in executive development programmes Organisations using conference or offsite formats to reset culture and performance expectations Audience outcomes A structured model for understanding the psychology of performance under pressure – including why cognitive capability degrades under stress and how to reverse it Practical tools for emotional regulation and fear management transferable to high-stakes workplace decisions A clearer distinction between energy management and time management – and why the former determines sustainable output A framework for building psychological safety within teams, drawn from environments where trust is operationally critical Sharper awareness of the gap between knowing what to do and executing under pressure – and specific methods for closing it

Why organisations work with Chad Foster He pairs a personal resilience story with a Fortune 500 sales record, which means he lands with revenue leaders, not only HR and culture audiences. The Blind Ambition Framework gives sales and operating leaders a structured five-step model rather than an inspirational set piece, and it has been delivered to 175,000+ attendees across six continents. He is credible on technology and commercial execution because he built the first CRM software for visually impaired users, a project Oracle had judged impossible. His Harvard Business School leadership credential, the first awarded to a blind executive, gives buyers cover when programming a resilience speaker for senior commercial audiences. Named client list includes Google, Salesforce, IBM, Microsoft, GE, Caterpillar and Nestle Purina, which signals comfort with the standards of large enterprise commercial events. Biography highlights First blind executive to graduate Harvard Business School’s leadership program. Author of Blind Ambition: How to Go from Victim to Visionary, HarperCollins Leadership, 2021. Creator of the Blind Ambition Framework, a five-step methodology applied across sales, leadership and culture programmes. Fortune 500 finance and sales executive credited with directing strategies tied to $45 billion in technology contracts. Built the first CRM software for visually impaired users. Keynote clients include Google, Salesforce, IBM, Microsoft, GE, Caterpillar, Nestle Purina and Amgen. Biography Resilience as a commercial topic has a credibility problem. Most speakers in the category sit on the personal side of the stage, helpful for a culture day, harder to programme into a sales kickoff or a senior leadership offsite. Chad Foster sits on the other side of that line. Foster lost his eyesight at twenty-one and went on to become the first blind executive to graduate from Harvard Business School’s leadership program. He then spent his career inside Fortune 500 technology companies, directing financial and sales strategies tied to $45 billion in contracts and building the first CRM software designed for visually impaired users, a project Oracle had said was not feasible. His book, Blind Ambition: How to Go from Victim to Visionary, was published by HarperCollins Leadership in 2021 and sets out the Blind Ambition Framework, a five-step methodology now used inside Google, Salesforce, IBM, Microsoft, GE, Caterpillar and Nestle Purina. He has delivered it more than 200 times to over 175,000 attendees across six continents. The reason buyers programme him into senior commercial settings is that the framework is presented as an operating discipline for performance under pressure, not a story about overcoming adversity. The personal account is the proof. The argument is about how leaders sustain judgement and revenue when the conditions stay hard for longer than the playbook assumes. Key speaking topics Resilience as a commercial leadership capability Performance under sustained pressure Sales leadership and revenue under disruption Mindset and decision-making for senior teams Inclusion and diversity as competitive advantage Change leadership and culture under strain Ideal for Sales kickoffs and CRO-led revenue events Senior leadership offsites and executive development programmes Culture, inclusion and people leadership conferences with a commercial audience Technology and financial services firms running multi-year transformation Audience outcomes A structured five-step framework for sustaining performance through disruption. A clearer language for resilience that travels into a sales and commercial setting. Specific tools for reframing setbacks into operating decisions. Renewed conviction at senior level on the link between mindset and revenue performance.

Why organisations work with Charles Clark A first-person account of a career ending in a single training session, used to give audiences a concrete frame for setbacks they are currently sitting with. Habit and goal-setting tools (Thrive Planner, Recap Journal) that give attendees something to take back to their desk on Monday rather than a feeling that fades by Wednesday. A book catalogue covering self-therapy, team dynamics, and personal goal design, which lets buyers match the talk to a sales kickoff, a wellbeing day, or a leadership offsite. Comfort across audience types: Fortune 500 sales teams, professional sports organisations, and college and military audiences, all referenced in his published client list. Biography highlights 3-time NCAA National Champion and 10-time All-American at Florida State University. Ranked 6th in the world over 100m at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin. Author of “Become Your Ideal Self: How to Heal Through Self Therapy” and “Guide to Thrive.” Creator of the Thrive Planner goal-setting system and the Recap Journal. Host of the Thrive Tribe Podcast on mindset, business, and athletic development. Speaking and training engagements referenced with Nike, Amazon, Google, NFL, MLB, NCAA, Raymond James, Johnson & Johnson, Pepsi Co, and the US Army. Biography A 99% tear in the right quadriceps ends a sprinter’s career. For Charles Clark, it ended a track career that had already produced three NCAA titles, ten All-American honours, and a sixth-place finish at the IAAF World Championships in Berlin. The injury removed the only professional path he had built for. What replaced it was a deliberate second discipline. Clark studied habits, goal design, and recovery from setback, then built tools around them: the Thrive Planner, the Recap Journal, and a set of books beginning with “Guide to Thrive” and “Become Your Ideal Self.” Each is a practical product, not a memoir. That practicality is what corporate buyers are responding to. Clark works with sales organisations at Raymond James, Frontier Communications, and Pepsi, with sports bodies including the NFL, MLB, and NCAA, and with military and education audiences. The story opens the room. The planner-and-habits content gives people something to do with what they heard. Clark’s work fits an organisation that has tried wellbeing weeks and motivational posters and wants something with a real exercise attached. He is not a leadership theorist. He is a performer who learned a second craft after the first one was taken away, and who teaches the second one with the same discipline. Key speaking topics Personal resilience after setback Habit design and goal-setting Mindset and mental health for high-pressure roles Sales-team motivation and kickoff energy Team culture and relationship-building Performance under pressure Ideal for Sales kickoffs and annual conferences in commercial organisations. Wellbeing days and mental health weeks where leaders want substance over slogans. Professional sports organisations and high-performance environments. College, university, and military audiences working on resilience and personal development. Audience outcomes A specific reframe for the setback the audience is currently sitting with, drawn from Clark’s own career-ending injury. A working set of habit and goal-setting tools attendees can apply the next day. Language for talking about mental health and personal performance inside a commercial culture. Practical decisions about where attention, energy, and recovery time should go in the next quarter.

Why organisations work with Charlie Rocket A first-person reinvention story with hard credentials behind it: Grammy win as 2 Chainz’s manager at Street Execs, then a public health and athletic transformation rather than a curated brand exercise. The Nike «Dream Crazy» connection gives the keynote a culturally recognisable anchor. The Kaepernick spot won the 2019 Outstanding Commercial Emmy, and audiences place the story instantly. He moves a room emotionally without leaving it there. The Dream Machine Foundation gives the talk a working example of putting ambition into operational practice, not just rhetoric. He pairs naturally with leadership offsites, sales kick-offs, and culture moments where the brief is not analysis but a step-change in energy and self-belief at the top of the organisation. Biography highlights Founder of the Dream Machine Foundation, a non-profit funding individual dreams, small businesses and community recovery projects since 2018. Former CEO of Street Execs, the artist management company behind 2 Chainz, with a Grammy win to his name during that period. Featured in Nike’s «Dream Crazy» campaign with Colin Kaepernick, winner of the 2019 Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. Endurance athlete: marathon finisher and Ironman finisher following a documented health turnaround that included losing approximately 125 lbs. Profiled by CNN in its Turning Points series on his decision to leave the music business to focus on health. Speaks internationally on reinvention, mindset and culture for corporate audiences across sectors. Biography A music executive walks away from a multimillion-dollar artist management business at 31 because his body has stopped cooperating. That is the hinge moment in Charlie Rocket Jabaley’s story, and the reason it lands in corporate rooms. He had built Street Execs into the company behind 2 Chainz, taken home a Grammy, and was, by his own account, 300 lbs and out of road. What he did next is what makes the talk usable for organisations rather than just moving. He treated his own life as a turnaround project. He lost roughly 125 lbs, became a marathon and Ironman finisher, and ended up in Nike’s «Dream Crazy» advertisement with Colin Kaepernick, the spot that won the 2019 Creative Arts Emmy for Outstanding Commercial. CNN profiled the decision in its Turning Points series. The corporate keynote sits on top of that arc. The argument is straightforward: ambition is a renewable practice, and most senior teams have quietly let theirs decay under operational load. He extends the personal frame outward through the Dream Machine Foundation, which has been funding individual dreams and small business launches since 2018, as a working proof that the discipline scales beyond one person. The fit is specific. This is a speaker for moments when a leadership group, a sales force, or a culture programme needs a step-change in energy and self-belief, with credible substance behind the inspiration. It is not a research keynote. It is a reinvention keynote with the receipts. Key speaking topics Personal reinvention and mindset Resilience after health and career shock Culture shift and team ambition Purpose-driven leadership Storytelling and brand-led motivation Philanthropy and impact Ideal for Leadership offsites and CEO summits opening or closing on a culture moment Annual sales kick-offs and revenue team gatherings Employee experience and wellbeing programmes that need a credible voice on resilience Foundation, ESG and corporate responsibility events where the brief calls for substance behind the inspiration Audience outcomes A vivid case for treating personal ambition as a leadership discipline, not a private matter Specific behavioural anchors he has used in his own reinvention, transferable into team practice A reset on what individual leaders are willing to ask of themselves and their teams A working model, the Dream Machine Foundation, of how ambition becomes operational rather than aspirational

Why organisations work with Charlotte Storey She trains leaders in the craft of presence using the same technical toolkit she used on stage: voice, physicality, and mindset under observation. Most executive coaching talks about presence. Hers drills it. She has coached the Royal Marines Band through two of the most scrutinised live performances in recent British history: the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III. The stakes reference is not theoretical. Her work on disability inclusion is grounded in her own route into a commercial pilot’s seat with one arm, which gives her a specific, operational view on how hiring and development systems overlook non-standard candidates. Her method is concrete and demonstrable in the room: accent work, physical embodiment, vocal control, and anxiety regulation. Audiences leave with techniques they can rehearse, not concepts they have to translate. She bridges two audiences that rarely share a speaker: performance-anxious specialists (musicians, surgeons, pilots, public-facing executives) and HR and inclusion leaders working on disability at senior levels. Biography highlights Former West End actor and professional saxophonist, now working as a performance and communication coach to senior leaders. Gained a UK pilot’s licence in 2021 and flies a light aircraft as pilot in command, having lost the use of her right arm in 2008. Coached HM Royal Marines Band through the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III. Delivered a 2023 keynote at the Lockheed Martin UK Leader Conference, described by CEO Paul Livingston as the most impactful presentation seen at the annual conference. Client roster includes the BBC, Disney, Nickelodeon, the Bank of England, NatWest, the European Business Aviation Association, Warburtons, and Homebase. Lives with Ehlers-Danlos Hypermobility Syndrome and speaks from direct experience on the practical mechanics of disability in high-performance careers. Biography The Royal Marines Band rehearsed for months before the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II and the coronation of King Charles III. Charlotte Storey was the performance coach they brought in to handle the part of the job that does not show up in a music score: staying composed when the eyes of the world are on the ensemble and there is no room for a wrong note. That commission captures the work. Storey started in the West End as an actor and professional saxophonist, then moved into elite voice and acting coaching in UK conservatoires before her current career as a speaker and executive coach. Her specialism is what happens to people technically and physically when the pressure rises: voice tightens, breath shortens, attention collapses inward. She trains it out of them. The second strand of her work comes from lived experience. In 2008 she lost the use of her right arm following complications of Ehlers-Danlos Hypermobility Syndrome. In 2021, afraid of heights and working with a disability that grounds most pilots, she gained her licence and now flies as pilot in command. That route into the cockpit informs her work on disability inclusion, which she treats as an operational question about how organisations find and promote non-standard talent, not a values statement. Her keynote list runs from Lockheed Martin UK’s Leader Conference to the BBC, Disney, Nickelodeon, the Bank of England, NatWest, and the European Business Aviation Association. The through-line is the same: a practitioner teaching senior people how to perform, in the craft sense of the word, when it matters most. Key speaking topics Executive presence and the craft of performing under pressure Performance anxiety in high-stakes professional settings Non-verbal communication and vocal authority for senior leaders Disability inclusion in senior hiring and promotion Self-mastery and composure for client-facing and public-facing roles Audacious leadership and risk tolerance in technical careers Team dynamics in elite ensembles and high-performance units Ideal for CHROs, heads of leadership development, and DEI leaders working on presence, progression, and disability inclusion at senior levels. Executive teams preparing for high-stakes external appearances: investor days, regulatory hearings, media, large-scale town halls. Specialist professional communities where composure under scrutiny is part of the job: aviation, defence, surgery, financial services, broadcasting. Conferences seeking an inspirational keynote that has craft content underneath, not only a personal story. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for what presence is made of, with specific techniques for voice, breath, and physical positioning. Practical tools for regulating performance anxiety before high-stakes appearances. A sharper view of how hiring and promotion systems filter out disabled and non-standard candidates, and what changes that. A reset on the role of rehearsal and craft in senior leadership, drawn from performing arts practice. A direct experience of the techniques in the room, delivered by a speaker trained to hold the space.