Resilience & Stress Management

Why organisations work with Ashley Rhodes-Courter A clinical credential behind the personal story. She is an LCSW running a mental health agency, the Foundation for Sustainable Families, which means her work on resilience and wellbeing is grounded in clinical practice, not motivational framing. A specific account of what trauma-informed care looks like in real institutions. Nine years across 14 foster placements gives her a rare credibility on systems that fail vulnerable people, and on what it takes to redesign them. Authority on schools, social services, and helping professions. Her talks for educators and frontline workers address abuse identification, burnout, and self-care with the precision of a practitioner, not a guest speaker. A New York Times bestselling memoir used in college curricula nationally, plus a published children’s book on a transgender sibling listed on the 2022 ALA Rainbow Book List. The body of work is taught, not just sold. Biography highlights New York Times bestselling author of Three Little Words (Simon & Schuster, 2008), with sequel Three More Words and the picture book Sam Is My Sister (Albert Whitman & Company, 2021). Licensed Clinical Social Worker. MSW from the University of Southern California; undergraduate degree from Eckerd College. Founder of the Foundation for Sustainable Families, a non-profit mental health agency providing trauma-informed care. Featured on CNN, Good Morning America, Today, The New York Times, USA Today, and Glamour, including selection as one of Glamour’s Top Ten College Women and to USA Today’s All-USA Academic Team. Profiled on NBC’s Women of Worth (December 2021). Sam Is My Sister included on the American Library Association’s 2022 Rainbow Book List. Biography Most public conversations about resilience treat it as a personal trait. In organisations that depend on people doing emotionally demanding work, teachers, social workers, healthcare staff, HR leaders, that framing breaks down. Resilience is built or eroded by systems, supervision, and the quality of care that workers themselves receive. Ashley Rhodes-Courter’s work begins from that point. She is unusual among speakers on this subject in holding the credential that matches the content. As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a Master’s from the University of Southern California, she runs the Foundation for Sustainable Families, a mental health agency providing trauma-informed care. The clinical work informs the talks, and the talks track current practice rather than stories from a decade ago. Her authority on the subject is also biographical. Three Little Words, published by Simon & Schuster in 2008, traces nine years across 14 foster placements in Florida. The book began as an essay in The New York Times Magazine, became a New York Times bestseller, and is now used in collegiate social work and education programs. Three More Words extends the account into adulthood and adoptive parenting. Sam Is My Sister, her 2021 picture book with Albert Whitman, was placed on the American Library Association’s 2022 Rainbow Book List. The combination matters for serious buyers. A leadership team that wants a substantive session on burnout, on what schools and social services actually need from staff, or on inclusion as a duty of care, gets a speaker who has lived inside failing systems and now treats people inside the current ones. The argument is not that adversity creates strength. It is that institutions decide whether the people inside them recover or break. Key speaking topics Trauma-informed leadership and organisational practice Burnout and self-care in helping professions Resilience after adverse experience Foster care, child welfare, and adoption Mental health in the workplace Inclusion and family diversity Educator and frontline-worker wellbeing Ideal for CHROs, heads of wellbeing, and people leaders designing trauma-informed support Education sector leaders, district superintendents, and school principals Healthcare, social care, and non-profit boards DEI and inclusion leads working on family diversity and lived-experience inclusion Audience outcomes A clearer working definition of trauma-informed practice and what it asks of managers Specific signals of burnout and abuse that frontline staff and leaders can act on A frame for resilience that holds institutions, not only individuals, accountable A more confident vocabulary for inclusion conversations involving family identity and lived experience

Why organisations work with Peter Baines His authority on crisis leadership is operational, not theoretical. He led international forensic teams in Thailand after the Boxing Day tsunami and held senior roles in the response to the Bali bombings, the 2010 Jeddah floods and the 2011 Japan tsunami. Few speakers can talk credibly about international counter-terrorism work from the inside. He spent his final police years seconded to the National Institute of Forensic Science on counter-terrorism and leadership capacity building, advising Interpol in France and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime across South East Asia. He brings a 20 year, AUD 40 million case study in purpose at scale through Hands Across the Water, which lets him talk about values, culture and CSR with real numbers behind him rather than slogans. He has published with Wiley twice on the substance of his work, Doing Good By Doing Good (2014) and Leadership Matters (2023), giving organisations a coherent body of thinking to engage with beyond the keynote. He carries an Order of Australia Medal and a royal Thai honour, which gives the talk a level of public standing that lands credibly with boards, philanthropic committees and senior leadership audiences. Biography highlights 22 year career as a forensic investigator with NSW Police, holding qualifications in Law, Forensic Science, and postgraduate Management, with leadership roles in the response to the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand Spent his final police years seconded to the National Institute of Forensic Science on counter-terrorism and leadership capacity building, advising Interpol in France and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in South East Asia Founder of Hands Across the Water, an Australian charity that has raised more than AUD 40 million for children in Thailand since 2005 Awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2014 for international humanitarian work, and the Most Admirable Order of the Direkgunabhorn by the King of Thailand in 2016 First Australian to receive the Rotary International Professional Excellence Award (2008), a NSW finalist for Australian of the Year (2010), and recognised in 2025 as one of the top five most influential Australians working in Thailand Author of four books: Hands Across the Water (Pan Macmillan, 2011), Doing Good By Doing Good (Wiley, 2014), Leadership Matters (Wiley, 2023), and Together We Can: 33 Marathons in 26 Days (2025) In December 2024, ran 1,400 km across Thailand in 26 days, the equivalent of 33 marathons, in support of Hands Across the Water Biography The bodies were still being recovered in Thai temples when the question of leadership stopped being abstract. In the weeks after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the Australian and international forensic teams operating out of Phuket and Khao Lak had to identify thousands of victims with limited infrastructure, exhausted personnel and grieving families waiting for answers. The leader running multiple rotations of that operation was a NSW Police forensic investigator on secondment. That investigator was Peter Baines. Before leaving the force, he had also worked through the Bali bombings, spent his final police years seconded to the National Institute of Forensic Science on counter-terrorism and leadership capacity building, and advised Interpol in France and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime across South East Asia. The Saudi government later engaged him to review the response to the Jeddah floods. He was deployed again after the 2011 Japan tsunami. The leadership argument he draws from that work is simple but unfashionable: authority comes from how you behave when nobody is keeping score, and culture is what survives a bad day. He set out to test it in practice. In 2005 he founded Hands Across the Water, an Australian charity that has now raised more than AUD 40 million for children in Thailand and supported 46 of them through university degrees. He has written it up in two Wiley books, Doing Good By Doing Good (2014) and Leadership Matters (2023), and most recently in Together We Can (2025), the account of his 1,400 km, 26 day run across Thailand at age 57. The Order of Australia Medal and the King of Thailand’s Most Admirable Order of the Direkgunabhorn followed, but the real proof point is that the operation he started in a tent of orphaned children in 2005 is still functioning, and growing, twenty years later. Key speaking topics Leadership in crisis and disaster response Decision-making under uncertainty and operational pressure Purpose-driven leadership and culture Corporate social responsibility and shared value Resilience and recovery after shock Building and sustaining high performing teams Storytelling and humanitarian impact Ideal for Boards and executive committees rebuilding leadership credibility after a crisis, restructure or reputational shock CHROs, CSOs and culture leads designing values-based leadership programmes with substance behind them CSR, sustainability and foundation leads who need a credible voice on shared value and authentic purpose Senior leadership offsites and partner conferences in professional services, financial services and complex operating environments Audience outcomes A clearer view of what authority actually looks like when titles, scripts and procedures stop helping Specific reference points for decision-making under fatigue, ambiguity and public scrutiny A practical model for connecting organisational purpose to measurable community outcomes, not slogans Renewed appetite to hold leadership teams to a higher standard of behaviour in ordinary, not just exceptional, conditions A repertoire of concrete stories, tested in disaster response and humanitarian work, that senior leaders can carry into their own teams

Why organisations work with Julian Placino Practitioner credibility: nearly two decades inside corporate recruiting, including seven years leading talent acquisition at Bottle Rocket, a Dallas mobile development firm with an outsized reputation for hiring quality. Operating-level content. His recruiting talks address the working mechanics buyers ask about: employer value proposition, candidate pipeline, referral systems, hiring manager discipline. Not HR theory. Doubles as a host. With 220+ episodes of The Pathways to Success podcast under his belt, he is comfortable interviewing leaders on stage and moderating panels, useful when an event needs both a keynote and a host. Personal-brand and resilience material that translates for sales, recruiting, and frontline audiences who need a motivational anchor rather than a leadership framework. Biography highlights Former Head of Recruiting, Bottle Rocket (seven-year tenure) Earlier recruiting leadership at ReachLocal (Gannett) Founder, Pathways Media and the Recruitment Masterclass training programme Host and creator, The Pathways to Success podcast (220+ episodes, Apple Podcasts and Spotify) BBA, University of North Texas Commercial actor and voice-over artist with named campaigns including Microsoft, Indeed, Ford, AT&T, and the NFL Biography Most companies treat recruiting as an administrative function until a critical hire stalls. Then it becomes a board-level problem. Placino built his career inside that gap. As Head of Recruiting at Bottle Rocket, he spent seven years scaling a hiring operation at a Dallas mobile development firm whose product work for Fortune 500 clients depended on the quality of its engineering bench. That operating background is what he brings to the stage. His core keynote, Mastering the Talent Puzzle, treats employer brand and recruiting strategy as a system that can be deliberately built, not a function of headcount or agency spend. The argument is grounded in what worked inside a high-pressure tech recruiting environment, including how to design an employment value proposition, how to mobilise existing employees as a pipeline, and how to make hiring managers accountable for the people they bring in. Beyond the recruiting material, Placino runs The Pathways to Success podcast, where he has interviewed more than 220 leaders across business, sport, and the creative industries. The format gives him a working interviewer’s craft, which he extends into event hosting and panel moderation. He also delivers talks on personal branding, resilience, and stewardship, drawn from his own path as a first-generation Filipino American who built a recruiting career, a media company, and a parallel commercial acting line that includes Microsoft, Indeed, Ford, AT&T, and NFL campaigns. He is based in Dallas and holds a BBA from the University of North Texas. He is represented by multiple bureaus across the US in addition to Speakers Associates internationally. Key speaking topics Recruitment strategy and employer brand Talent acquisition operating models Personal branding and reputation Resilience and adaptability Stewardship-based leadership Event hosting and interview-format moderation Ideal for CHROs and Heads of Talent Acquisition rebuilding in-house recruiting capability Talent and recruiting team offsites Sales and revenue kickoffs that need a personal-brand or motivation anchor Conferences requiring a keynote speaker who can also host or moderate Audience outcomes A working model for designing an employer value proposition that survives contact with the labour market A specific approach to turning current employees into a recruiting pipeline Language for separating personal brand from job title, useful for sales and client-facing roles A reframing model for adversity and change drawn from the speaker’s own career history

Why organisations work with Toni Kent She makes social mobility a concrete operating question rather than a values statement, drawing on a decade running major UK partner relationships at Microsoft and a personal history that maps directly onto the barriers her audience is trying to remove. She is one of a small number of UK speakers who can carry both the hosting craft of a large awards night and the substantive keynote inside it, evidenced by twice hosting the UK Social Mobility Awards. Audiences get an unusual combination of stand-up comic timing and corporate fluency, which makes uncomfortable conversations about class, education and access land without defensiveness. The Common Good Network gives her keynote a follow-through mechanism: a directory of UK organisations that the audience can actually route their employee resource groups, CSR teams and emerging-talent programmes towards. Biography highlights Ten years at Microsoft UK, managing several of the company’s largest partner relationships. Founder of The Common Good Network, an interactive directory of UK social mobility organisations. Twice host of the UK Social Mobility Awards (2021, 2023). Author of four books, including Reasons to be Cheerful, Part One. Host of the Challenging University podcast; co-host of KAYBE Talks and The Partnership Path Podcast. Keynote and hosting clients include AWS, KPMG, PwC, Direct Line Group, Baker Hughes, ForHousing, Smart Works Reading and the University of East London. Biography Most large UK employers now have a social mobility position. Far fewer can show what it has changed inside their recruitment funnel, their early-careers programme, or their promotion patterns. The work of turning a stated commitment into an operating change is where Toni Kent has spent the last decade. She came to the question through a decade at Microsoft UK, where she ran several of the company’s largest partner relationships. Before that, a council-estate upbringing in Basingstoke, a father who died when she was fourteen, a family on state benefits, no university route. The combination matters commercially because she can speak with equal fluency to the chief people officer and to the apprentice in the second row. The Common Good Network is the operating layer underneath the keynote: an interactive directory of UK organisations working on socioeconomic barriers, designed to give corporate audiences a route from intention to partnership. Her hosting of the UK Social Mobility Awards in 2021 and 2023 sits in the same body of work, as do her four published books and her podcasts Challenging University, KAYBE Talks and The Partnership Path. The reason organisations book her for the room and not only for the content is that she is also a working stand-up comedian. The craft shows in how she handles a difficult brief: she can name class, access and education without making the audience flinch, and she can host an awards night for two thousand people without losing the thread of why it matters. Key speaking topics Social mobility in the workplace Inclusive hiring and early-careers access Storytelling and authentic personal narrative Imposter syndrome and confidence in corporate environments Mindset and decision-making under change Event hosting and panel moderation Women in technology Ideal for CHROs, heads of DEI and emerging-talent leads who need a credible voice on social mobility as an operating discipline. Employee resource group chairs and ERG sponsors briefing senior leadership on socioeconomic inclusion. Awards programmes, internal recognition events and large all-hands meetings requiring a confident, comic-timed host. Technology, professional services and financial services audiences engaging with inclusion content for the first time. Audience outcomes A working definition of social mobility that distinguishes class-based access from broader DEI categories. A clear sense of where the typical corporate social mobility commitment breaks down between policy and practice. Specific organisational entry points: ERG design, early careers, mentoring, supplier diversity and procurement. A directory of UK partner organisations, via The Common Good Network, to route follow-through activity through. Permission to discuss class openly inside the organisation without defensiveness.

Why organisations work with Mark DeVolder A practising change consultant with a named methodology, Empowered Change, used inside organisations from NASA to Coca-Cola, not a motivational speaker who borrows the language of change. Author of Perpetual Pivot, a book-length argument that continuous adaptation is now the default operating condition, with a defined construct leaders can apply to repeated reinvention. Holds a research doctorate on unity, diversity and synergy from Fuller, which gives the work an evidence base most change keynotes lack. Has worked with leadership teams in regulated, high-stakes environments such as Pfizer, Qatar Petroleum, Siemens and the US Air Force, where the cost of badly handled change is operational, not theoretical. Brings a Target Zero safety-culture frame for clients in industrial and engineering sectors where change failure shows up as incidents, not engagement scores. Biography highlights Doctorate, Fuller, with dissertation on unity, diversity and synergy. Founder of the Empowered Change methodology, used in client engagements across five continents. Author of Perpetual Pivot: How the Best Leaders Adapt to Exponential Change and Get Engaged! on employee engagement. Has spoken in over 25 countries to clients including NASA, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Siemens, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Canada, Verizon, Medtronic, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Qatar Petroleum and the US Air Force. Signature talks on change, resilience, employee engagement and Target Zero safety culture. Biography Change has become the operating condition of large organisations, not the event between strategies. The leaders who hold their teams through repeated restructure, integration and digital reset are not the ones with the most polished communications plan. They are the ones who understand how people move through transition and can hold the line on engagement when the next wave arrives. This is the territory Mark DeVolder has worked in for two decades. His Empowered Change methodology and the wider argument set out in Perpetual Pivot: How the Best Leaders Adapt to Exponential Change treat continuous adaptation as the default state of senior leadership. The work is built on a doctorate from Fuller on unity, diversity and synergy, which gives the practice a research base rather than a personality base. Client engagements have included leadership teams at NASA, Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Siemens, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Royal Bank of Canada, Verizon, Medtronic, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Qatar Petroleum, alongside the US Air Force. The work spans corporate integration, regulated industry, industrial safety and public-sector transformation, which means the methodology has been tested against very different definitions of what a failed change actually costs. For industrial and engineering clients, DeVolder also runs a Target Zero programme that frames change leadership as a safety-culture problem. In those settings the test of good change leadership is not employee survey scores; it is whether the operating environment becomes safer or more dangerous through the transition. That is a sharper test than most change keynotes are built to pass. Key speaking topics Change management and organisational transition Leadership through continuous restructure Resilience and decision-making under pressure Employee engagement during transformation Safety culture and high-performance operating environments Adapting to exponential change Ideal for Boards and executive teams entering or recovering from major restructure, M&A integration or digital reset. CHROs and transformation leads accountable for retaining trust and discretionary effort through repeated change. Operating leaders in regulated, industrial or safety-critical sectors where change failure shows up as incidents, not survey scores. Senior leadership development programmes building change-leadership capability across cohorts. Audience outcomes A clearer view of why repeated change erodes capability and what to protect first. A practical model, the Empowered Change journey-map, for diagnosing where a workforce sits in a transition. Specific behaviours senior leaders can adopt during continuous restructure to hold trust and engagement. Language to talk to a workforce about change without slipping into corporate abstraction. For industrial clients, a route to connect change leadership directly to safety performance.

Why organisations work with Zoe Harrison A current, contracted international whose authority on performance under pressure is live, not retrospective. She kicked four conversions in the 2025 World Cup final the same year she walked into the room. The fly-half perspective on team performance: the position responsible for game management, tempo and the next decision after a mistake. Translated for senior leaders who own the equivalent calls inside their organisations. Saracens-era discipline was brought into a corporate setting. Two consecutive Premier 15s titles and the dominant club culture of that period sit behind her view of what a winning team actually looks like day to day. A serious England career built through visible setbacks, including a period out of the starting side before returning to win the World Cup. Useful for audiences whose recent story is recovery, not uninterrupted success. Biography highlights 65 caps for England; 242 international points. Starting fly-half for England at the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, won by the Red Roses against Canada (33-13). Saracens Women regular since 2016-17; Players’ Player of the Season in her first senior year. Started the 2018 and 2019 Premier 15s finals, scoring two tries in the 2019 final. 2019 Six Nations Grand Slam winner with England; full-time England contract from January 2019. Trained through the Hartpury AASE Girls Rugby Programme; Sports Rehabilitation and Exercise studies at Middlesex University. Biography The Red Roses won the 2025 World Cup at Twickenham against Canada. Zoe Harrison started at fly-half and kicked four conversions in the final. That detail matters because the fly-half is the position that runs the game, sets the tempo, and makes the next call after a mistake. It is the closest on-field equivalent to the role a senior leader plays inside their organisation. Harrison has been a Saracens first-team regular since 2016-17, named Players’ Player of the Season in her debut senior year. She started both the 2018 and 2019 Premier 15s finals and scored two tries in the 2019 win. England honoured her with a full-time contract in January 2019 and a Six Nations Grand Slam followed that year. Across 65 caps, she has scored 242 international points. Her authority for corporate audiences is built on a specific kind of experience. She has held the playmaker role in a sustained winning culture at Saracens, lost and regained the England starting shirt, and stood over the kicking tee in a World Cup final. That arc is more useful to senior teams than an uninterrupted highlight reel, because most boardrooms now operate after a setback rather than before one. She is most credible on what a fly-half actually does: read pressure, pick the next play, hold the team’s composure when the score has just moved. Translated for a leadership audience, that is the practical content of self-leadership and team behaviour in moments where the cost of the wrong call is public. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Team behaviour in high-stakes environments Composure and decision-making in the next moment Elite team culture and standards Resilience after setbacks Women in elite sport and the changing professional game Ideal for Senior leadership teams entering a high-visibility year (IPO, restructure, public scrutiny) Sales and commercial conferences where the audience owns the next-call decisions All-company kickoffs anchoring a year on standards, behaviour and pace Networks and ERGs centred on women in leadership and performance environments Audience outcomes A clear picture of what composure looks like in practice, drawn from the position on the pitch responsible for it. Specific language for the moments inside a team where the next decision sets the tone, and how an elite environment handles them. A working definition of standards in a winning team that is not generic, drawn from a sustained Saracens and England culture. An honest account of losing form and regaining it at the highest level, useful for teams whose recent story is recovery.

Why organisations work with Marlo Clarke He gives employees a working language for purpose and fulfilment that is concrete enough to use on a Monday morning, built around named frameworks like the Cycle of Success through Intentional Action and the Spectrum of Joy. He treats setbacks as feedback to be evaluated, not motivation to be hyped past, which makes his content usable for teams under real pressure rather than after-dinner inspiration. His range is unusually wide for the format: the same content has landed with corporate audiences in the United States and United Kingdom and with rural community programmes in South Africa, which forces the ideas to be portable rather than context-dependent. Two TEDx talks at the University of Chester and the University of York give a public, watchable proof of how his material plays to a serious audience. Biography highlights Two-time TEDx speaker: TEDxUniversityofChester and TEDxUniversityofYork Former international rugby player for Barbados Has worked as a strategic and programme director across the United States, United Kingdom and South Africa Led U.S. federally funded youth and community development programmes in the American Midwest Conducted a year-long research project across 13 European countries on fulfilment and career meaning Currently runs volunteer development programmes in rural South Africa Biography Most workplace conversations about purpose end up too abstract to act on. Clarke’s work starts in the opposite place. He teaches people to answer one specific question at the end of a working day, then builds outward from that into how individuals define success, evaluate feedback, and decide what to do next. The material is shaped by an unusual working life. Born in Barbados, Clarke played international rugby for the country, then spent years running development programmes in the American Midwest funded by U.S. federal grants, working as a strategic director in the United States and United Kingdom, and leading volunteer programmes in rural South Africa. A year-long research project took him through 13 European countries interviewing people about what made their lives and careers feel worthwhile. Out of that came a small set of named frameworks: Define, Strive, Achieve, Share as the broad arc; the Cycle of Success through Intentional Action for the day-to-day; the Spectrum of Joy for what to do with achievement once it arrives. The frameworks are the spine of two TEDx talks, “What Now? What Next?” at the University of Chester and “How was your day today?” at the University of York. For an organisation, the value is practical. Clarke gives employees and leaders a way to talk about intention, setbacks and fulfilment that sits inside the working day rather than alongside it, and a vocabulary that holds up whether the audience is a corporate summit in the United States or a rural classroom in South Africa. Key speaking topics Self-defined success Intentional action Navigating uncertainty Feedback evaluation Personal fulfilment at work Cultural competency and cross-context storytelling Purpose and engagement Ideal for HR, learning and development leaders designing engagement and purpose programmes Internal conferences and leadership offsites focused on resilience and renewal Early- and mid-career talent populations being invested in by their employer Mission-driven organisations and NGOs working across cultural contexts Audience outcomes A short, repeatable daily checklist for evaluating progress against self-defined goals A working method for treating setbacks as feedback rather than failure Language for distinguishing between bliss, happiness and contentment, and why that matters at work A framework, Define / Strive / Achieve / Share, that maps onto how employees actually move through goals Renewed intent to act, grounded in two equations Clarke teaches: Passion plus Intention equals Purpose; Time plus Energy plus Money equals Purpose

Why organisations work with Mayara Magri A first-hand account of operating at the top of one of the most ranked, publicly scrutinised performance institutions in the world, where every promotion is earned in front of an audience and a critical press. A decade-plus inside a single company, from corps to Principal, gives her unusual authority on what sustained high performance actually requires of an individual inside a team that does not change around them. Career story carries credentials that buyers recognise without explanation: Youth America Grand Prix Senior Gold, Prix de Lausanne, Principal at The Royal Ballet. The proof points do the work of the bio for her. Brings the Brazilian-trained, London-based performer perspective on adapting to a different culture, language, and working method without losing identity, useful for global mobility, integration, and inclusion conversations. Biography highlights Principal Dancer, The Royal Ballet, since 2021 Trained at The Royal Ballet School after early scholarship training in Rio de Janeiro Senior Age Division Gold Medal, Youth America Grand Prix Prix de Lausanne Scholarship and Audience Prize, 2011 Created the role of Rosaura in Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate Ambassador for The Fonteyn 2025 Brazil, Royal Academy of Dance Biography The Royal Ballet promotes from inside its own ranks. A dancer who joins the Company at seventeen and reaches Principal a decade later has done so while performing publicly several nights a week, in front of the same critics, alongside the same colleagues, with no role hidden from view. Mayara Magri made that journey between 2012 and 2021. She arrived in London from Rio de Janeiro on the back of two of the strongest results in the international ballet competition circuit: the Senior Age Division at the Youth America Grand Prix and the Prix de Lausanne Scholarship and Audience Prize in 2011. The Royal Ballet School then a Company contract followed. Promotions to First Artist, Soloist, First Soloist and Principal came in 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2021. Her repertoire covers most of the senior classical canon, from Odette/Odile and Juliet to Aurora, Kitri and Cinderella, with created roles including Rosaura in Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate. Outside the company she has taken on ambassador work, including for the Royal Academy of Dance’s Fonteyn 2025 Brazil. For organisations, the relevant material is the working life behind the credits. Sustained performance inside a ranked institution, the discipline of preparing roles that will be judged the same night they are danced, and the long arc of building a career inside a single company rather than across many. Key speaking topics Sustained performance inside elite institutions Composure and preparation under public scrutiny Long-career discipline and reinvention Cross-cultural adaptation in global organisations Inclusion and representation in high-performance environments Resilience as a working practice Ideal for Leadership offsites and senior team gatherings looking for a credible high-performance voice outside the standard sport-speaker pool HR, talent and L&D programmes on resilience, sustained performance and career-long development Diversity and inclusion programmes seeking authentic perspectives on representation inside elite, traditional institutions Brand, marketing and CSR audiences working with arts, culture or sustainability narratives Audience outcomes A working performer’s view of what sustained high performance asks of an individual over a decade, not a single peak moment A concrete picture of how elite institutions absorb new talent, and what that demands of the person joining A reference point for resilience that is grounded in a working career, not a recovery story A perspective on representation and adaptation drawn from a Brazilian dancer’s path into one of Britain’s oldest cultural institutions

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

Why organisations work with Max Biaggi A first-hand account of what it takes to win at world-championship level across three different categories of motorcycle racing, from 250cc Grand Prix to MotoGP to Superbike. Lived experience of comeback under the hardest possible conditions: returning to competition after a near-fatal training crash and winning a second world title at 41, the oldest champion in WorldSBK history. A studied perspective on rivalry, public scrutiny, and team management, drawn from two decades at the front of a sport where margins are measured in tenths of a second. Credential weight that opens conversations with audiences who respect achievement: MotoGP Legend, FIM Road Racing Legend, joint record-holder for 250cc world titles. Biography highlights Four-time 250cc World Champion (1994, 1995, 1996, 1997), joint record with Phil Read. Two-time Superbike World Champion (2010, 2012) with Aprilia. Inducted as a MotoGP Legend at Mugello in 2022; named FIM Road Racing Legend in 2020. Won on his 500cc premier-class debut, a result no rider has repeated. 42 Grand Prix victories, 111 GP podiums, 56 pole positions; 21 WorldSBK wins and 71 podiums. Oldest rider to win the Superbike World Championship, at age 41 in 2012. Biography Winning a world title once is luck stacked on talent. Winning across three different categories of motorcycle racing, separated by more than fifteen years, is something else. Biaggi took four consecutive 250cc world championships between 1994 and 1997, three with Aprilia and one with Honda, equalling Phil Read’s all-time record. He then moved to the premier class and won on debut, a feat still unrepeated. The MotoGP years were unfinished. Three runner-up seasons (1998, 2001, 2002), 13 premier-class wins, persistent rivalries with Rossi and the press. By the time he left Grand Prix racing he had accumulated 42 victories, 111 podiums and 56 pole positions, putting him among the most accomplished riders never to take the premier-class title. He moved to World Superbikes in 2007 and rebuilt. Champion in 2010, again in 2012, at 41 years old. No older rider has won the Superbike crown. A near-fatal training crash in 2015 took him out of competition; he returned to selected races afterward, then to coaching and mentoring. In 2020 the FIM named him a Road Racing Legend, and in 2022 he was inducted as a MotoGP Legend at Mugello. For senior audiences the value sits in the texture of how an elite competitor manages the parts of performance that are not talent: recovery from physical and reputational damage, the discipline of preparation when the field is closing on you, the management of rivalry without losing focus. It is a specific perspective, told by someone who lived it across three decades at the front of the sport. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Recovery from setback Competitive focus and discipline Team dynamics in high-stakes environments Long-career reinvention Decision-making at speed Ideal for Senior leadership teams and board offsites focused on composure and resilience Sales and commercial leadership conferences where competitive intensity is the theme Programmes for newly promoted executives stepping into high-visibility roles Audiences who respond to athlete-led narratives anchored in named achievement Audience outcomes A concrete view of how elite competitors prepare, recover, and re-enter after failure Language for talking about composure as a trained capability, not a personality trait A reference point for the discipline behind sustained high performance over decades Perspective on managing rivalry, scrutiny and public criticism without losing focus

Why organisations work with Jean Alesi A decade at the front of Formula One with Tyrrell, Ferrari, Benetton, Sauber, Prost and Jordan, racing wheel to wheel with Senna, Prost and Schumacher. The reference points are first-hand, not researched. A record that names the exact problem leaders are buying for: 32 podiums and one Grand Prix win from 201 starts, including the joint F1 record for most podiums before a first victory. Composure across years of near misses, not a single highlight reel. Operated inside Ferrari from 1991 to 1995, one of the most scrutinised high-performance environments in sport. Useful for leaders dealing with intense external pressure, internal politics and constant public judgement. Continued at elite level after F1 across the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Indianapolis 500. A practical case study in reinventing a career when the original platform ends. Knight of the Legion of Honour (France, 2006) and Pirelli ambassador since 2013. Credible to senior European audiences without needing translation. Biography highlights 201 Formula One Grand Prix starts between 1989 and 2001 for Tyrrell, Ferrari, Benetton, Sauber, Prost and Jordan. Winner of the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix for Ferrari; 32 career podiums; joint F1 record holder for most podium finishes before a first win. 1989 International Formula 3000 Champion with Eddie Jordan Racing; 1987 French Formula Three Champion. Five race wins in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters with Mercedes between 2002 and 2006. Knight of the Legion of Honour, awarded by the French Republic in 2006. Pirelli ambassador since 2013 and co-founder of the Jean Alesi Esports Academy with Matteo Bobbi. Biography Most public-facing roles are evaluated on outcomes that are obvious to outsiders. Formula One is one of the few where the audience watches the process in real time, every fortnight, for years on end. That is the discipline Jean Alesi grew up inside. Alesi raced 201 Grands Prix between 1989 and 2001 for Tyrrell, Ferrari, Benetton, Sauber, Prost and Jordan. He took one victory, at the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix for Ferrari, alongside 32 podiums. He also holds the joint Formula One record for most podiums before a first win. Read together, those numbers describe a long career of being a few decisions or a few seconds short of the result, and continuing to perform at the front anyway. The Ferrari years gave him something most speakers on resilience do not have: five seasons inside one of the most scrutinised teams in professional sport, in an era that included Senna, Prost and Schumacher. The work was not only driving. It was holding personal performance steady inside a public organisation under constant internal change and external judgement. After Formula One he won races in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters with Mercedes, returned to Le Mans with AF Corse, and entered the 2012 Indianapolis 500. France made him a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 2006. Today, as a Pirelli ambassador and co-founder of the Jean Alesi Esports Academy, his focus is on developing the next generation of competitors, which is the same problem senior leaders face when their job moves from doing the work to building the people who will. Key speaking topics Performance under sustained competitive pressure Composure and decision-making at the limit High-performance team dynamics inside elite organisations Recovery from public setback and near miss Career reinvention after a defining role ends Mentoring and developing next-generation talent Ideal for C-suite and board audiences responsible for the tone of an organisation under scrutiny Sales leadership and commercial teams operating against measurable competitors High-performance environments inside automotive, sport, luxury and engineering Talent and leadership development programmes focused on succession and reinvention Audience outcomes A first-person account of operating at the front of Formula One across the Senna, Prost and Schumacher era A clear view of how elite teams hold composure when results do not come on the expected timeline Specific reference points for handling external pressure, internal change and public judgement at once A working model for moving from individual performance to building the next generation of performers

Why organisations work with Giancarlo Fisichella Rare double credential: three Formula One Grand Prix wins across 14 seasons and two LMGTE Pro class victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Very few speakers have won at the front of both disciplines. First-hand experience of seven F1 constructors, from Minardi at the back of the grid to Ferrari, which gives a practical read on how resources, culture and leadership translate into on-track performance. Lived the shift from single-lap qualifying to 24-hour endurance racing, which makes him useful for audiences thinking about short-cycle intensity and long-cycle stamina in the same business. Delivers talks in English and Italian, which widens his reach for automotive, engineering and industrial audiences across Europe. Still an active Ferrari Competizioni GT ambassador, so his material is current rather than retrospective. Biography highlights 229 Formula One starts, three Grand Prix victories, four pole positions, 19 podium finishes between 1996 and 2009. F1 race wins at Brazil 2003 (Jordan), Australia 2005 (Renault) and Malaysia 2006 (Renault). Contributed to Renault’s back-to-back Constructors’ Championships in 2005 and 2006; career-best fourth in the 2006 Drivers’ Championship. Drove Force India to its first pole position and first podium at the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix. Two LMGTE Pro class wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans (2012 and 2014) with AF Corse, partnered with Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander. Ambassador Driver for Ferrari Competizioni GT and founder of Fisichella Motor Sport, which competed in GP2 from 2006 to 2009. Biography Formula One teams are built on thousands of decisions that never reach a television screen. The lap time is the visible output. Giancarlo Fisichella spent fourteen seasons inside that machine across seven different constructors, which is an unusually wide sample of how high-performance organisations actually operate. He won his first Grand Prix at Interlagos in 2003, in a Jordan, after a five-day timekeeping review handed him a result that had initially gone to someone else. Two further wins followed at Renault in 2005 and 2006, alongside Fernando Alonso, during the period when the team took consecutive Constructors’ Championships. At Force India in 2009 he delivered the team’s first pole and podium, at Spa, in a car that had been at the back of the field a year earlier. The second act has been Ferrari GT machinery at endurance level. He has twice won the LMGTE Pro class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with AF Corse, in 2012 and 2014, with Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander. He remains an Ambassador Driver for Ferrari Competizioni GT, which keeps his point of view current rather than nostalgic. The useful material for a business audience is what sits underneath those results: how a driver and a team stay honest about performance when a rival is faster, how trust inside a small group gets built over a season, and what happens to confidence when the car or the circumstances turn against you. Fisichella has lived all three, at the Minardi end of the grid and at the front with Renault and Ferrari. Key speaking topics Formula One and elite motorsport performance Competing under pressure at decisive moments Team dynamics in high-performance environments Endurance racing and long-cycle competition Recovery after setbacks and results loss Italian motorsport and the Ferrari Competizioni GT programme Ideal for Automotive, engineering and industrial audiences planning leadership offsites Sales and commercial teams operating in competitive, measurable environments Corporate events with an Italian or European audience where bilingual delivery is valuable Boards and leadership teams examining how elite teams sustain performance across multi-year cycles Audience outcomes A concrete view of how F1 teams prepare for decisive moments and what that looks like away from the racetrack A sharper sense of the difference between short-cycle intensity, such as a qualifying lap, and long-cycle stamina, such as a 24-hour race Specific examples of how trust is built inside a small, high-pressure team across a season A first-hand account of winning and losing at the highest level of a sport where margins are tenths of a second