Peak Performance

Why organisations work with Mark Denton Lived authority on leading mixed-ability teams under continuous pressure for ten months at sea, not a borrowed metaphor or a single-event story. Translates that experience into named diagnostic frameworks (Navig-8, CULTIV-8, COLLABOR-8, DOMIN-8) that boards and exec teams can actually use after the keynote. Carries a 20-year consulting practice through MAXVMG, so the room is being addressed by someone who works inside organisations, not only on stage. Licensed partner of Amy Edmondson’s Fearless Organisation Scan, which gives him a defensible position on psychological safety alongside the resilience material. Voted Bookers Choice at the 2024 Speaker Awards by the agents who buy speakers for a living, a sharper signal than self-reported ratings. Biography highlights Skippered BP in the BT Global Challenge round-the-world yacht race with an amateur crew, finishing on the podium. Founder of MAXVMG, an organisational development consultancy focused on leadership, team performance and change. Bookers Choice winner at the 2024 Speaker Awards, voted by booking agents. Licensed partner of Amy Edmondson’s Fearless Organisation Scan, the psychological safety diagnostic developed at Harvard Business School. Contributor to Inspiring Leadership: Staying Afloat in Turbulent Times, the Henley Management College text by Cranwell-Ward, Bacon and Mackie on emotional intelligence and sustained performance. IVCA Gold Award recipient for speaking; accredited executive and team coach. Biography The BT Global Challenge sent twelve identical yachts the wrong way around the world, with crews of mostly first-time sailors, for ten months at sea. BP’s entry, skippered by Mark Denton, finished on the podium. The relevant material for senior leaders is not the race itself, it is what running that team for that long under those conditions teaches a leader about decisions, conflict and recovery. Denton has spent the twenty years since converting that experience into a working consulting practice. Through MAXVMG, his organisation development firm, he advises leadership teams on performance, culture and change. His sessions sit on top of structured frameworks (Navig-8 for resilience, CULTIV-8 for culture, COLLABOR-8 for team dynamics, DOMIN-8 for performance) that give clients something to use after the lights go up. The intellectual ballast comes from two sources. He contributed to the Henley Management College text Inspiring Leadership: Staying Afloat in Turbulent Times, which examined emotional intelligence and sustained performance. He is also a licensed partner of Amy Edmondson’s Fearless Organisation Scan, the psychological safety diagnostic developed at Harvard Business School. The combination gives his work on team performance an academic spine that most experiential speakers do not have. In 2024 he was voted Bookers Choice at the Speaker Awards, an industry vote by the agents who place speakers for a living. That is a useful signal in a crowded leadership-from-adversity category, where lived experience without operational substance is the failure mode. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure High-performance team dynamics Resilience and recovery in volatile conditions Leading change with mixed-ability teams Decision-making under uncertainty Psychological safety in performance cultures Performance culture and accountability Ideal for CEOs and executive teams entering an extended period of operational pressure or transformation. HR and people directors building resilience and psychological safety capability across senior populations. Leadership development and talent functions investing in mixed-ability or cross-functional team performance. Sales, operations and project leaders running high-stakes programmes where the team has to perform for sustained periods without burning out. Audience outcomes A clearer view of how leadership behaviour shifts when conditions stay difficult for months, not days. A vocabulary for diagnosing team dysfunction (the Navig-8, COLLABOR-8 and DOMIN-8 frameworks) that leaders can take back into their own meetings. A sharper sense of the link between psychological safety and performance, grounded in Edmondson’s research. Specific examples of how amateur teams outperformed expectations, and what senior leaders can borrow from those mechanics. Practical reset points for leaders going into a period of prolonged uncertainty.

Why organisations work with Cole Brauer She has a first-person account of what it takes to run a high-stakes operation alone for 130 days, with no option to stop, and can translate that into language a board or executive team can actually use. She pairs the solo story with hard professional credibility: 2024 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year, first all-female team to win the Bermuda One-Two, and a current seat on Team Malizia’s IMOCA 60 programme alongside Boris Herrmann. She speaks credibly about risk management and preparation, not as abstractions, but as the specific trade-offs that kept a 40-foot racing boat sailing through the Southern Ocean for four months. She reaches audiences outside the usual sailing world; her real-time documentation of the voyage built a following of nearly 400,000 people and changed who pays attention to offshore racing. She is a rare example of a young operator, not a retired one, describing lessons that are still being tested at elite level. Biography highlights First American woman to complete a solo, non-stop, unassisted circumnavigation, finishing second in the inaugural Global Solo Challenge in March 2024. 2024 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year (US Sailing). Co-skipper, Team Malizia, competing on the IMOCA 60 in The Ocean Race Europe and the Course des Caps. Skipper of Class40 First Light; winner of the 2023 Bermuda One-Two with Cat Chimney, the first all-female team to take the race. Set a new reference time for a solo circumnavigation on a 40-foot boat, around seven days inside the previous mark. Featured across NBC News, The Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, and Robb Report for the Global Solo Challenge voyage. Biography Most people who survive 130 days alone at sea stop doing it afterwards. Cole Brauer came off the water in March 2024 as the first American woman to race solo, non-stop and unassisted around the world, and immediately began preparing for the next campaign. That sequence tells you most of what matters about how she works. The Global Solo Challenge took her 30,000 miles through the three Great Capes aboard First Light, a 40-foot Class40. She finished second overall out of 16 starters from 10 countries, set a new reference time for the class, and did it while injuring her ribs mid-race and managing a bout of dehydration that required her to insert her own IV under instruction from a remote medical team. US Sailing named her 2024 Rolex Yachtswoman of the Year the following February. The racing record is not a single-event story. In 2023 she and co-skipper Cat Chimney won the Bermuda One-Two outright, the first all-female team to do so, winning both legs by more than 12 hours. In 2025 she joined Team Malizia as co-skipper on the IMOCA 60 alongside Boris Herrmann and Will Harris, racing The Ocean Race Europe and the Course des Caps. Her longer target is the 2028 Vendee Globe. What a business audience gets from her is the operational texture of decision-making when there is no one to escalate to. She is specific about the preparation, the trade-offs she rejected, the moments she got it wrong, and how she rebuilt composure in the next watch. The voyage was also a communications exercise: near-daily video from the boat built an audience of nearly 400,000 and changed who follows offshore racing. That combination of elite performance and direct, unvarnished narration is what makes her useful to leadership teams trying to understand what real endurance looks like from the inside. Key speaking topics Decision-making under irreversible consequences Resilience and endurance in extreme environments Risk management and preparation High-performance offshore teams Leading yourself when no one is watching Narrative, visibility, and building a following around hard work Ideal for Executive and senior leadership off-sites focused on judgement under pressure Sales kickoffs and company-wide events where the goal is genuine inspiration backed by a specific story Risk, operations, and safety leadership audiences who want practitioner-level detail rather than metaphor Audience outcomes A vivid, concrete benchmark for what sustained performance under pressure actually requires Specific language for talking about preparation and risk that leaders can carry back into their own decisions A different model of resilience, rooted in routine, self-honesty, and recovery rather than willpower A reset on what courage looks like at working level, not a motivational abstraction

Why organisations work with Robby Kojetin A first-person account of recovery that holds up to scrutiny: 928 days from operating table to the summit of Everest, with the rebuild documented in two published books, not a single anecdote stretched across an hour. A working framework, Define, Decide, Deliver, that translates expedition discipline into how senior people make calls under pressure rather than freeze or default to old plans. Credibility as the 17th South African to summit Everest, ten Kilimanjaro summits, and a K2 attempt halted by helicopter evacuation at 5,000 metres. The expeditions are real, not décor. A delivery register that suits serious corporate audiences. Past clients include Deloitte, Pfizer, Mastercard, Standard Bank, Nedbank, Liberty, GSK and Wits Business School, across keynote and executive-education formats. Biography highlights 17th South African to summit Mount Everest, 2009. Author of Mind Over Mountain: A Mental and Physical Climb to the Top (Jonathan Ball Publishers, international edition ISBN 9781789561050). Co-author of Parallel Summits: Mastering the Art of Money with financial planner Thys van Zyl. Ten Kilimanjaro summits, five of the Seven Summits, first South African team member to summit Ama Dablam. Keynote and executive-education work for Deloitte, Pfizer, Mastercard, Standard Bank, Nedbank, FNB, GSK, Medtronic, LEGO, Volkswagen SA, Wits Business School and the Gordon Institute of Business Science. Ironman triathlon finisher; team leader on more than one hundred mountaineering expeditions. Biography A simple mistake at an indoor climbing gym in 2006 broke both of Robby Kojetin’s ankles and put a 28-year-old aspiring mountaineer in a wheelchair for the best part of a year. Nine hundred and twenty-eight days after leaving the operating table, he stood on the summit of Mount Everest as the 17th South African to have done so. The interesting part is what happened in between. Kojetin’s keynote work is built on the discipline of that rebuild rather than the drama of the summit. Recovery, in his framing, is not a private mental health story. It is a question of how a leader reassembles the capacity to define what now matters, decide under conditions that have shifted, and deliver without burning out the people around them. The framework he uses with corporate audiences, Define, Decide, Deliver, comes directly from the expedition logic of operating in environments where the original plan no longer applies. The published record matters. Mind Over Mountain: A Mental and Physical Climb to the Top, his account of the accident, the recovery and the climb, was first issued by Jonathan Ball Publishers and later in an international paperback edition. He has since co-authored Parallel Summits: Mastering the Art of Money with financial planner Thys van Zyl, applying the same logic to long-horizon decisions about capital. Two books, one consistent argument: the work that determines outcomes happens before the visible climb begins. Beyond Everest, the expedition CV does heavy lifting in front of senior audiences. Ten Kilimanjaro summits, five of the Seven Summits, an aborted K2 attempt that ended with a helicopter evacuation at five thousand metres, and the first South African team summit of Ama Dablam. Corporate clients including Deloitte, Pfizer, Mastercard, Standard Bank, Nedbank and Wits Business School book him for the keynote, not the climb. Key speaking topics Resilience after shock Self-leadership and composure under pressure Decision-making in disrupted conditions Long-horizon goal setting for senior teams Team accountability on extended efforts Personal recovery and return to performance Ideal for C-suite leadership conferences where the team is in the middle of, or emerging from, a significant disruption. HR, talent and L&D leaders designing senior leadership development around resilience and decision-making. Sales and commercial kick-offs where the room needs a credible reset on persistence and execution discipline. Partner and senior associate audiences in professional services firms (consulting, audit, law) running multi-year client mandates. Audience outcomes A clear sense of what changes in a leader’s decision-making after a setback, and what to do about it. The Define, Decide, Deliver structure applied to a current organisational pressure point, not as a generic motivational message. Language for talking about recovery and composure that senior leaders can actually use with their own teams. A reset on goal-setting horizons that distinguishes between summit thinking and the daily decisions that determine whether the summit is reached.

Why organisations work with Yuvaraj S Lingappa A clinician in the room, not a wellness commentator. Three decades of frontline medical practice sit behind every recommendation on stress, sleep and weight. Formal obesity-medicine credential from the World Obesity Federation (SCOPE Certified), which few corporate wellbeing speakers hold. Built and runs SlimIsEasy, a working consumer weight-management product, so the content is grounded in what actually shifts behaviour at scale, not workshop theory. Author of Easy Guide to Stress Relief, a short-form workplace stress book designed for time-poor corporate readers. Biography highlights Physician trained at Madras Medical College, Chennai. Over 30 years in clinical practice including paediatrics and family medicine at Victoria Hospital, St Lucia. SCOPE Certified by the World Obesity Federation, London. Author of Easy Guide to Stress Relief. Co-founder of the SlimIsEasy weight-management app. Speaker and corporate trainer on stress management, weight, and peak performance for executive and employee audiences. Biography Most corporate wellbeing programmes treat stress and weight as soft topics. The clinical reality is different. Both are measurable drivers of attention, decision quality, absence and attrition, and both respond to specific interventions rather than general encouragement. That is the territory Yuvaraj S Lingappa works in. He trained as a physician at Madras Medical College and practised for more than three decades, including a long tenure as a paediatrician and family practitioner at Victoria Hospital in St Lucia. The clinical grounding shapes the way he talks to corporate audiences: he treats stress as a physiological condition and obesity as a medical one, not as a motivational problem to be willed away. The obesity work carries a formal credential. He is SCOPE Certified by the World Obesity Federation in London, the international body’s professional standard for obesity care. Alongside the speaking and coaching practice, he co-founded SlimIsEasy, a consumer weight-management app, which gives him a live view of what behaviour change looks like outside the seminar room. His book Easy Guide to Stress Relief is written for corporate readers who will not finish a longer text. The same instinct runs through the speaking work: short, clinically grounded sessions that give an executive audience something to act on before the end of the week. Key speaking topics Workplace stress management Clinical approaches to weight and metabolic health Sleep, energy and executive performance Behaviour change at scale Health as a workforce productivity lever Peak performance for high-pressure roles Ideal for CHROs and heads of employee wellbeing reviewing the clinical substance of their wellness offer. Executive and leadership audiences where stress, sleep and weight are degrading performance. HR and benefits leaders in healthcare, professional services, financial services and high-pressure operating environments. Internal health and wellbeing weeks and leadership offsites that need a medically credentialed voice. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of how stress and weight actually affect workforce performance, from a clinician’s standpoint. Specific, low-friction techniques for managing stress that work inside a normal corporate day. A grounded view of what serious weight and metabolic intervention looks like, and what most workplace programmes miss. Practical steps individuals can take in the week after the session, rather than aspirational targets.

Why organisations work with Max Garcia A rare first-hand account of command at scale: responsibility for more than 1,500 Marines in an operational battalion, drawn on directly when speaking to leaders running large frontline workforces. Combat-tested perspective on decision-making under pressure, including involvement in the 2012 Benghazi consulate response and combat tours in Iraq, used to make composure a teachable skill rather than a personality trait. A practical sales and influence framework grounded in body language, credibility-building and referral generation, distinct from the leadership keynote and useful for commercial teams. Recognised by named senior figures, including the Medal for Valor presented by General James Mattis, giving the leadership material a verifiable institutional anchor. Written work as Amazon #1 best-selling co-author with Joe Vitale gives organisations a published reference point alongside the keynote. Biography highlights Sergeant Major, US Marine Corps (selected 2014), retired 2019 after 25 years of service. Combat Action Ribbon, Iraq 2003 and 2004; Medal for Valor presented by General James Mattis. Served with Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST) Company Europe; coordinated response activity during the 2012 Benghazi consulate attack. Officer Candidate instructor, University of South Florida, 2006 to 2009. Amazon #1 best-selling co-author with Joe Vitale, contributor to The Secret. Speaking client base spans Members of Parliament, NRL clubs including The Wests Tigers, professional golfers, corporate audiences and universities across the US and Australia. Biography A Marine sergeant major spends a career making the kind of decisions most organisations only model in tabletop exercises. Max Garcia spent 25 years doing it, including two tours in Iraq, deployments to Afghanistan and Europe, and command of an operational battalion of more than 1,500 personnel. His material is built from those decisions, not adapted from them. He enlisted in 1994, served as a drill instructor and Officer Candidate instructor at the University of South Florida, and joined Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team Company Europe, where he was involved in coordinating the response during the 2012 Benghazi consulate attack. In 2014 he was selected to Sergeant Major, the top enlisted rank in the Corps. General James Mattis presented him with the Medal for Valor. For senior leaders, the value is the translation. Composure under pressure, loyalty inside a unit, and the ability to keep a large team functioning when conditions deteriorate are usually discussed as personality traits. Garcia treats them as practices that can be taught, and he draws directly on named operational moments to teach them. He is also Amazon #1 best-selling co-author with Joe Vitale, contributor to The Secret. He speaks across the US and Australia to Members of Parliament, NRL teams, professional golfers, universities and corporate audiences, having travelled to all 50 US states and more than 70 countries. Key speaking topics Leadership under operational pressure Resilience and personal performance Loyalty and team cohesion Confidence and self-belief Sales, influence and credibility Goal achievement and execution Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership offsites in high-stakes industries Frontline operational leaders running large workforces Sales leadership teams looking for a credibility and influence framework Conferences seeking a keynote on resilience grounded in named military command, not generic motivation Audience outcomes A practical view of composure as a learnable command skill, not a fixed personality trait Concrete language for building loyalty inside a team during periods of strain A repeatable approach to confidence, drawn from Garcia’s own progression from adopted child to Sergeant Major A 30-point sales and influence framework covering body language, subconscious cues, credibility and referrals Decision-making cues calibrated to high-consequence environments

Why organisations work with Nikhil Desai A signature programme on stress management, “Achieving Excellence Thru Stress Management”, that has been delivered to executives across more than 2,000 organisations and refined over three decades. A trainer’s instinct for behaviour change at scale, built through 250,000-plus participants across 42 countries, not a single keynote act. Direct operating credibility from building eight businesses in eight years across Indian textile and automobile manufacturing after his US MBA. A practical blend of corporate yoga practice and MBA discipline that lands well with mixed audiences in Asia, the Gulf, and beyond. Biography highlights Director of The Centre For Excellence, the corporate training firm he founded in 1991 in the year of India’s economic liberalisation. MBA from a US university where he graduated first in his class, followed by a period working in New York. Built and ran manufacturing operations across the Indian textile and automobile sectors before moving full time into training. Programmes delivered to more than 250,000 participants across 300-plus cities in 42 countries. Recipient of the Global Iconic Motivational Speaker Award (Leadership & Excellence Awards 2021) and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World HRD Congress. Author of the forthcoming book “9 Habits Of Super Successful People”. Biography The Centre For Excellence opened its doors in 1991, the year India dismantled its old industrial controls and a generation of managers had to learn a new commercial language. Nikhil Desai had already lived both sides of that shift. He had taken an MBA in the United States, graduating first in his class, then worked in New York before returning to India to build manufacturing businesses across textiles and automobile components. That operating background matters because it shapes what he teaches. He grew one business into eight in eight years, which gave him a working view of how middle managers actually behave under cost pressure, missed deadlines, and family obligation pulling in opposite directions. His signature programmes, “In Pursuit Of Excellence” and “Achieving Excellence Thru Stress Management”, are designed around that lived friction rather than a textbook model of motivation. The reach is large by any standard for the corporate training market. More than 250,000 participants across 300 cities in 42 countries have been through his programmes over three decades. He works in English and Gujarati, runs sessions from Mumbai to Muscat, and is one of a small number of Indian trainers regularly booked into multinational programmes in the Gulf, South Africa, and South East Asia. What he is not is a strategy speaker. The work sits in personal effectiveness, stress resilience, communication, and team behaviour, which is its own discipline and one most senior leaders quietly know their organisations are weakest at. The Lifetime Achievement Award from the World HRD Congress reflects that. His forthcoming book, “9 Habits Of Super Successful People”, continues the same line. Key speaking topics Stress management and personal resilience Personal effectiveness and time management Motivation and excellence in the workplace Leadership and team performance Communication and presentation skills Customer care and sales behaviour Train the trainer programmes Ideal for HR and L&D leaders commissioning company-wide capability programmes Sales and customer-facing teams under sustained delivery pressure Middle managers stepping up into leadership roles for the first time Indian and Gulf-based organisations with mixed-language workforces Audience outcomes Practical techniques for managing stress without disengaging from the work Sharper personal time management habits that survive the week after the session A clearer view of what excellence looks like in their specific role Communication and presentation skills that hold up in front of internal and external audiences Greater confidence in handling difficult customers, colleagues, and team dynamics

Why organisations work with Noah St. John He owns a named, trademarked methodology, AFFORMATIONS, that gives leadership audiences a concrete cognitive tool rather than abstract mindset language. His Power Habits framework targets the unconscious patterns behind executive decision-making, an angle most leadership content treats as out of scope. He is one of very few authors with books carried by HarperCollins, Hay House, Simon and Schuster, Mindvalley, and Nightingale-Conant, a catalogue that reflects sustained editorial credibility across mainstream, business, and personal development publishing. He has built a body of work specifically for leaders trying to translate self-awareness into changed behaviour, which is the gap most senior development programmes leave open. Biography highlights PhD in Pastoral Counseling Psychology; founder and CEO of SuccessClinic.com since 1997. Creator of AFFORMATIONS, a trademarked questioning-based method, and the Power Habits System. Author of 27 books translated into 18 languages, including Power Habits (Nightingale-Conant), The Book of Afformations, and Get Rid of Your Head Trash About Money. Published by HarperCollins, Hay House, Simon and Schuster, Mindvalley, Nightingale-Conant, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher. TEDx speaker: «Done with Head Trash: A New Way to Think About Thinking» (TEDxMizner, Boca Raton). Media appearances and features across ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Parade, SUCCESS Magazine, and Entrepreneur. Biography Most leadership development assumes the bottleneck is knowledge. Senior leaders almost always know what good looks like. The harder problem is that decisions, energy, and recovery under pressure run on internal scripts that were never deliberately chosen, and rarely change through more information. Noah St. John has spent nearly three decades inside that gap. In 1997 he coined AFFORMATIONS, a method that replaces traditional affirmation with empowering questions designed to bypass the brain’s habitual rejection of unearned positive statements. The technique is now trademarked and forms the spine of his Power Habits System, a framework aimed at the unconscious patterns that govern how high performers behave when stretched. His written work spans 27 books in 18 languages, with editorial homes at HarperCollins, Hay House, Simon and Schuster, Mindvalley, Nightingale-Conant, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul publisher. Power Habits, his Nightingale-Conant title, sets out the operating model. Get Rid of Your Head Trash About Money applies it to the financial decisions and self-talk that quietly shape leader behaviour. He holds a PhD in Pastoral Counseling Psychology and runs SuccessClinic.com as its founder and CEO. His TEDx talk, «Done with Head Trash: A New Way to Think About Thinking,» compresses the argument: knowledge alone does not change behaviour, but a better question often does. Key speaking topics AFFORMATIONS and the cognitive science of empowering questions Power Habits for executive performance Self-talk, decision quality, and the unconscious mind Sales mindset and revenue performance Leadership under pressure and personal resilience Mindset and the human side of AI adoption Ideal for CEOs, founders, and senior operators looking to translate self-awareness into changed behaviour Sales leadership and high-performing revenue teams Leadership development programmes that want a behavioural-change tool, not another conceptual framework Conferences seeking a peak-performance keynote with a named, owned methodology Audience outcomes A working knowledge of AFFORMATIONS as a daily cognitive practice, with the mechanics for applying it A clearer view of which unconscious habits are driving current decisions and results Specific shifts in self-talk language that audiences can take into the next week of work A sharper read on the gap between what they intend as leaders and how they actually behave under load

Why organisations work with Dominic Colenso The IMPACT framework (six elements of confident communication) and the Six Ds (Discover, Distil, Design, Drill, Deliver, Debrief) give organisations a named, repeatable method for high-stakes communication. The same toolkit scales from graduate intake to executive committee. Dominic trained as a director at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and starred opposite Sir Ben Kingsley in the Hollywood remake of Thunderbirds. The acting techniques he teaches in the room are the ones he was paid to use professionally on screen and on the stages of The National Theatre and The Royal Court. He is unusually effective with the audience most communication coaching fails: detail-focused subject matter experts in technology, finance and professional services who command technical credibility and need to convert it into commercial influence. For eight years Dominic has been the lead communication coach on Paysafe Group’s Front Runner programme, working with more than three hundred fintech professionals across successive international cohorts. His YouTube channel on communication and pitching has accumulated over 2.9 million views, and audiences frequently arrive at keynotes already familiar with the frameworks. Biography highlights Played Virgil Tracy in the 2004 Hollywood remake of Thunderbirds, opposite Bill Paxton and Sir Ben Kingsley. Trained as a director at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; subsequently taught acting at RADA, Drama Centre London and Guildford School of Acting. Author of IMPACT (Rethink Press) and Cut-Through: The Pitch and Presentation Playbook (Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2025), shortlisted for The Business Book Awards 2026. Founder and Head Performance Coach of In Flow Training; lead communication coach on Paysafe Group’s Front Runner programme. Performed at The National Theatre and The Royal Court; on screen in BBC period dramas and feature film. Delivered the TEDx talk “The Power of Telling Your Story” at TEDxVitoriaGasteiz; host of the Why Life’s A Pitch podcast; contributor to Big Think, Fast Company and Entrepreneur UK. Biography When the 2004 Hollywood remake of Thunderbirds went to camera, Bill Paxton played Jeff Tracy and Sir Ben Kingsley played The Hood. Virgil Tracy, the brother who pilots Thunderbird 2, was a 22-year-old Dominic Colenso. The discipline he absorbed on that set, and on the stages of The National Theatre and The Royal Court, is the foundation of his current work. Most communication training works in adjectives. Be confident. Be clear. The actor’s craft works in mechanics: what the voice does under pressure, how the eyes hold a room, how a story is structured so it lands in the time available. Two books distil that craft into frameworks organisations can apply without a drama degree. IMPACT (Rethink Press) sets out six elements of confident communication. Cut-Through (Practical Inspiration Publishing, 2025), shortlisted for The Business Book Awards 2026, walks through the Six Ds of pitch and presentation: Discover, Distil, Design, Drill, Deliver, Debrief. The audience best served by this method is the one most communication coaching struggles with. Technical experts in finance, technology, and professional services are paid for the depth of their knowledge, then asked to distil it for a board, a client, or a 200-person sales kick-off. Across eight years Dominic has led the communication coaching on Paysafe Group’s Front Runner programme, working with more than three hundred fintech professionals in successive international cohorts. Named clients also include Barclays, Yorkshire Building Society, Morningstar, the Co-op, and the National Sales Conference. Beyond the keynote and coaching work, the method has its own distribution. His YouTube channel has accumulated over 2.9 million views on communication and pitching content, and his writing on pitching and presentation appears in outlets including Fast Company and Big Think. The Why Life’s A Pitch podcast interviews business and creative figures, including Daniel Priestley, about how they used storytelling to get where they are. The 2017 TEDx talk “The Power of Telling Your Story” remains in active circulation, including on US college course reading lists. Key speaking topics High-stakes communication Pitch and presentation craft Sales storytelling Executive presence and gravitas On-camera communication Leadership communication under pressure Translating technical depth into commercial influence Ideal for Sales leadership and revenue teams preparing for high-stakes pitches, kick-offs and renewal conversations. Senior leaders preparing keynotes, town halls or investor presentations where the room matters. Heads of L&D and CHROs investing in communication and presence as part of leadership development. Subject matter experts in finance, technology and professional services who need to convert depth into influence. Audience outcomes A named six-step method for designing and rehearsing any high-stakes pitch or presentation. Specific physical and vocal techniques for holding attention and composure when the stakes are highest. A structured approach to distilling complex or technical material into messages an audience can act on. A shared vocabulary for giving and receiving feedback on communication, so the gains continue after the session.

Why organisations work with Ruth Buscombe She has run live race strategy from the pit wall at Ferrari, Haas and Sauber, so the material is operating practice from elite competition, not a borrowed sports metaphor. She led the strategy function during Sauber’s sixth-place Constructors’ finish in 2022, the team’s best result in a decade against far better-resourced rivals, a credible reference point for performance under budget constraint. Her Cambridge engineering background (first-class honours, FIA-supervised thesis on the Drag Reduction System) means technical and analytical audiences extend her credit fast. She is one of a very small number of women to have held senior race strategy responsibility in Formula 1, which gives her STEM and inclusion content lived authority rather than allyship framing. As an F1 TV analyst, she explains decisions to a live general audience every race weekend, so she is unusually fluent at translating specialist judgement into language a board can act on. Biography highlights First-class honours in Aerospace and Aerothermal Engineering, University of Cambridge, with a master’s thesis on the Drag Reduction System conducted with the FIA. Race strategist at Scuderia Ferrari (2013 to 2015), based at Maranello, supporting drivers including Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. Strategy engineer at Haas F1 during the team’s debut Formula 1 season. Head of Race Strategy at Sauber/Alfa Romeo, leading the strategy function through the team’s sixth-place Constructors’ finish in 2022. On-air strategy analyst and presenter for F1 TV. Ambassador since 2016 for Dare to be Different, now the FIA Girls on Track initiative. Biography The pit wall is one of the few working environments where leaders make consequential calls in public, on a clock, with information that is partial and changing. Ruth Buscombe has spent her career on that wall. As a race strategist at Ferrari, then Haas, then as Head of Race Strategy at Sauber, she has owned decisions where the cost of getting it wrong is measured in championship points within the same hour. Her credibility starts with the technical foundation. A first-class honours engineering degree from Cambridge, with a master’s thesis on the Drag Reduction System conducted with the FIA, gave her the analytical grounding to be taken seriously inside Maranello at twenty-two. She joined Scuderia Ferrari in 2012, was promoted to race strategist within a year, and worked through Sebastian Vettel’s first Ferrari victory before moving to Haas for the team’s debut season. The defining body of work came at Sauber. Running the strategy function for a midfield team against rivals with far larger budgets, she led the call sheet through the team’s sixth-place Constructors’ Championship finish in 2022, its best result in a decade. That is the substance she brings to corporate audiences: how to design decision protocols that hold up when conditions change mid-race, how to allocate scarce attention under live pressure, how to disagree productively inside a senior team in the seconds before a call has to be made. She is also one of the very few women to have held senior race strategy responsibility in Formula 1, and has been an ambassador for Dare to be Different, now the FIA Girls on Track initiative, since 2016. As an F1 TV analyst she now explains the same decision logic to a live audience every race weekend, which is why her keynote lands with general management audiences as cleanly as it does with engineers. Key speaking topics Real-time decision-making under pressure High-performance team operating models Race strategy and competitive advantage under constraint Data-led judgement in elite sport Women in motorsport and STEM Engineering leadership Ideal for C-suite and senior leadership teams running high-stakes operating decisions on short cycles Strategy, operations and risk leaders responsible for live decision protocols Engineering and technical organisations where analytical credibility is the price of entry Diversity, inclusion and STEM programmes seeking a credible operator rather than an advocate Audience outcomes A clearer mental model for how elite teams separate the call from the data behind it A working sense of how decision rights, role clarity and rehearsal change behaviour under live pressure Specific examples of how a smaller, smarter team can outperform a better-resourced rival Confidence to make and defend a call when information is incomplete and time has run out A credible, non-tokenistic reference for women considering senior technical careers

Why organisations work with David Atkins Twenty-two years commanding New York State Police operations across Westchester County, including a Ground Zero deployment and incident command at the 2020 US Open at Winged Foot, give him direct authority on decision-making when the stakes are real New York State Trooper of the Year (2003) and New York State Investigator of the Year (2007) are named credentials from a credible body, not bureau adjectives The “One Decision Away” framework gives audiences a structured Assess, Address, Act sequence they can apply the next morning, not a story without a takeaway He pairs command experience with a documented commercial track record, having built a 1,400-person direct sales organisation into the top 0.5% of his company, which lets him speak credibly to sales floors as well as leadership rooms Biography highlights Retired Captain, New York State Police, 22 years of service Commanded all NYSP operations for Westchester County, overseeing reported 400,000 to 500,000 annual 911 calls New York State Trooper of the Year, 2003 New York State Investigator of the Year, 2007 Ground Zero first responder, 11 September 2001 Incident Commander, 2020 USGA US Open at Winged Foot Golf Club Author, “The Leveled Up Life: The No Excuse Blueprint to Live Up to Your Fullest Potential” Biography Most leadership content about pressure is written by people who have read about it. Atkins commanded New York State Police operations for Westchester County for more than two decades, with reported call volumes of close to half a million 911 incidents a year. The decisions were live, the consequences immediate, and the audience for those decisions was the public. That operational record sits behind his keynote work. He was a Ground Zero first responder on 11 September 2001, ran undercover units against organised crime and trafficking, and served as Incident Commander for the 2020 US Open at Winged Foot Golf Club. He was named New York State Trooper of the Year in 2003 and New York State Investigator of the Year in 2007. After retiring from law enforcement, Atkins built a 1,400-person international direct sales organisation through Beachbody, reaching the top 0.5% of the company by earnings. The commercial track record matters because it shows the same decision-making pattern applied outside a command environment, which is why sales and revenue audiences book him alongside leadership programmes. His book, “The Leveled Up Life: The No Excuse Blueprint to Live Up to Your Fullest Potential”, sets out the “One Decision Away” framework he uses on stage: Assess the single decision creating maximum momentum, Address the obstacle, Act with public commitment. The framework is the through-line buyers can point to when they need a keynote that leaves a structured takeaway rather than an emotional one. Key speaking topics Decision-making under pressure Resilience and stress management Leadership in high-stakes environments Sales performance and direct selling discipline Personal accountability and the “One Decision Away” framework First responder leadership lessons Ideal for Sales kick-offs and revenue conferences looking for credibility on personal performance Leadership programmes for line managers and frontline supervisors who carry decision risk First responder, healthcare and public safety audiences HR, talent and SHRM-style audiences focused on resilience and engagement Audience outcomes A named decision-making sequence (Assess, Address, Act) audiences can take into the next working week Concrete examples of command-level decision-making from policing, 9/11 response and major event security A reframed view of what counts as an “excuse” inside their own teams Practical language for talking about composure and accountability without slipping into wellness clichés

Why organisations work with Darren Edwards He has led injured-veteran teams across four genuine world-first or world-record expeditions, including the 1,400 km Land’s End to John O’Groats kayak and the seven-continent World Marathon Challenge in a wheelchair. The leadership content is drawn from operations, not theory. He talks about the South Pole expedition that did not finish as openly as the ones that did, which gives senior teams a rare working example of how to make a collective stop call without losing the team. His book Strength Through Adversity, an Amazon UK bestseller, sets out the adaptive mindset framework he uses with leadership teams, giving audiences a single referenceable text after a session. He founded Adaptive Expeditions, so the work is institutional rather than personal narrative, and translates into language about team capability, not individual triumph. Biography highlights Author of Strength Through Adversity, Amazon UK bestseller, published February 2023. First wheelchair user to complete the World Marathon Challenge: seven marathons, seven continents, seven days. Led the first team to kayak 1,400 km from Land’s End to John O’Groats with injured-veteran crew. Member of the first adaptive team to cross Vatnajokull, Europe’s largest ice cap. Founder of Adaptive Expeditions. Former Army Reservist and qualified teacher. Biography A ledge gave way in North Wales in 2016. Darren Edwards fell more than 100 feet, broke his back in two places, and severed his spinal cord. He woke up paralysed from the chest down. He had been a mountaineer, an Army Reservist, and a trained teacher. None of those identities survived intact. What followed is the working material of his keynote. Inside three years he was leading a team of injured veterans on the first kayak crossing of Britain from Land’s End to John O’Groats, 1,400 kilometres through some of the country’s most exposed sea. He went on to row the English Channel, cross the Vatnajokull ice cap with the first adaptive team to do it, and in 2023 became the first wheelchair user to finish the World Marathon Challenge: seven marathons, seven continents, seven days. The expeditions are not the proof point. The proof point is what he did with them. He built Adaptive Expeditions as an organisation, wrote Strength Through Adversity in 2023, and has spent the years since refining what he calls the adaptive mindset: a working set of disciplines for leading teams through sustained uncertainty. How composure is built before it is needed. How recovery is led rather than waited out. How a team makes the call to stop. In December 2025 his Redefining Impossible team cut a 222 km sit-ski attempt on the South Pole short after a week on the ice. He talks about that decision with the same clarity as the records. For organisations under sustained pressure, that is the value. Edwards has lived the gap between the plan and what actually happens, and he can describe it in operational terms. Key speaking topics The adaptive mindset for leadership teams Leading through sustained uncertainty Team leadership across injured and mixed-ability crews Composure and decision-making under pressure Recovery as a leadership discipline Resilience after catastrophic disruption Ideal for Executive leadership teams preparing for or recovering from major disruption Senior operational leaders responsible for sustained-pressure environments Programmes for high-potential leaders building decision-making range Veteran transition, healthcare leadership, and emergency-services audiences Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for talking about composure and recovery as leadership capabilities, not personality traits A clear example of how a senior team makes a collective stop decision without losing trust The adaptive mindset framework, drawn from his book, that audiences can take into team conversations after the session An honest account of the gap between the plan and the operation, useful for risk and contingency thinking

Why organisations work with Steven MacGregor He has built a single, named methodology, the Sustaining Executive Performance programme, and tested it on more than 20,000 executives in person across markets ranging from Peru to Qatar. The Chief Wellbeing Officer platform gives senior teams an operating model for sustaining leadership performance under pressure, delivered inside Google, Salesforce, Uber, Accenture, Santander, and Oracle. He founded the General Counsel Wellbeing Network, a global peer network for senior in-house counsel partnered with Pinsent Masons and shortlisted for Mental Health & Wellbeing Initiative of the Year at the Legal 500 ESG Awards 2026, evidence the platform holds up in one of the highest-pressure leadership populations. A decade-long trilogy, Sustaining Executive Performance (Pearson, 2015), Chief Wellbeing Officer (LID, 2018), and The Daily Reset (2024), gives him a coherent body of work that connects performance science, organisational design, and behavioural change. He sits inside McKinsey’s People and Organizational Performance practice as a Senior Advisor, so the work is calibrated to how serious operating companies actually run. Biography highlights Founder, Chief Wellbeing Officer (CWO) leadership development platform, delivered to executive teams at Google, Salesforce, Uber, Accenture, Santander, and Oracle Founder, General Counsel Wellbeing Network, a global peer network for senior in-house counsel with chapters across the UK, Spain, Ireland, and the Middle East Founder and CEO, Leadership Academy of Barcelona (LAB) Senior Advisor, People and Organizational Performance practice, McKinsey & Company Honorary Professor of Health and Wellbeing, Glasgow School of Art Faculty experience at IESE, IE Business School, IMD (Lausanne and Singapore), and CEIBS (Shanghai and Jakarta) Author of Sustaining Executive Performance (Pearson, 2015), Chief Wellbeing Officer (LID, 2018, with Rory Simpson), and The Daily Reset (2024) Biography Most senior leaders today are running a workload their predecessors would not recognise. Decision volume has compounded, recovery time has collapsed, and the pressure is no longer episodic. The harder question is what organisations actually invest in to make that sustainable. That is the line of work Steven MacGregor has spent two decades building, first inside business schools, then through the Leadership Academy of Barcelona, and now through the Chief Wellbeing Officer platform and as a Senior Advisor inside McKinsey’s People and Organizational Performance practice. The Sustaining Executive Performance programme started as an applied research project drawing on elite sport, including time with FC Barcelona’s athletics team, and elements of human-centred design. It has since been delivered to more than 20,000 executives in person, from Peru to Qatar. Today the Chief Wellbeing Officer platform sits on top of that foundation, and is delivered inside executive teams at Google, Salesforce, Uber, Accenture, Santander, and Oracle, with teaching at IESE, IE, IMD, CEIBS, and the Glasgow School of Art. The decade-long trilogy gives the work its intellectual spine. Sustaining Executive Performance (Pearson, 2015) set out the evidence-based link between wellbeing and decision-making, clarity, and long-term execution. Chief Wellbeing Officer (LID, 2018), written with former Telefónica Chief Learning Officer Rory Simpson, formalised the argument that wellbeing needs an owner at the top table, with metrics, budget, and authority. The Daily Reset (2024) translates behavioural science and habit formation into the everyday practices that make performance stick. The General Counsel Wellbeing Network, which MacGregor founded in 2024, is where the platform meets one of the most pressured leadership populations in business. It now operates across the UK, Spain, Ireland, and the Middle East, with a partnership with Pinsent Masons and a Legal 500 ESG Awards 2026 shortlisting for Mental Health & Wellbeing Initiative of the Year. His training is unusual for the field: a doctorate in engineering design management with research periods at Stanford and Carnegie Mellon, and an Honorary Professorship at the Glasgow School of Art. That background shapes the work. The focus is less on motivation and more on the design of work itself, which is what makes the material useful to senior teams trying to convert wellbeing language into operating change. Key speaking topics Sustainable leadership performance under pressure Executive resilience, clarity, and recovery Workplace wellbeing as an operating discipline The Chief Wellbeing Officer platform Personal energy and recovery for senior leaders Health, performance, and the design of work Behaviour change inside corporate environments Ideal for CHROs, Chief People Officers, and Chief Wellbeing Officers building enterprise-wide leadership performance and wellbeing strategies Executive committees and boards reviewing burnout, attrition, and human-capital risk General Counsel, Chief Legal Officers, and senior in-house counsel managing performance under chronic load Partner groups in professional services and law firms managing performance under chronic load Audience outcomes A working definition of what wellbeing means as a leadership performance discipline, not a benefit category The Sustaining Executive Performance framework as a concrete tool for senior leaders to apply to themselves and their teams A view on where the Chief Wellbeing Officer function sits in an operating model, with named accountabilities Practical habit-formation tools drawn from elite sport, behavioural science, and design that senior leaders can adopt in their own week