Resilience & Stress Management

Why organisations work with Leah Williamson She has captained the same team to two consecutive major international titles, a result that puts her in a category of one in English senior football and gives her a direct view of how a leadership group sustains performance across cycles, not just peaks. Her leadership story is built around a specific event with a public outcome: the Euro 2022 final at Wembley and the Euro 2025 final in Switzerland. She can talk about preparation, pressure, and decision-making with reference to moments the audience watched. She has led through serious setback, including a long-term ACL injury that ruled her out of the 2023 World Cup. The recovery and return to captaincy is a credible reference point on resilience that most sports speakers cannot match. Her platform extends beyond the pitch into authorship and advocacy. Her book “You Have the Power” with Pan Macmillan and her public stance on social issues during Euro 2022 give her a broader voice than a standard athlete keynote. She holds an OBE and a CBE for services to football, recognition from a credible national honours body that anchors her credibility outside the sport itself. Biography highlights Captain of the England senior women’s team since 2022, lifting the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 and Euro 2025 trophies. Named in the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 Team of the Tournament, leading the competition for ball recoveries and completed passes. Arsenal Women defender since her senior debut in 2014, with FA Women’s Super League and multiple domestic cup honours. Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), 2023 New Year Honours; Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), 2026 New Year Honours. Author of “You Have the Power: Find Your Strength and Believe You Can,” published by Pan Macmillan with co-writer Suzanne Wrack. Long-term Nike athlete, with brand partnerships that include Gucci and Mastercard. Biography The Euro 2022 final at Wembley was the moment English women’s football changed its commercial and cultural standing. Leah Williamson was the captain who lifted the trophy, and three years later she was the captain who lifted it again in Switzerland at Euro 2025. No other England senior football captain, women’s or men’s, has done that. What sits underneath the result is more useful to a corporate audience than the result itself. Williamson took the armband from Sarina Wiegman in 2022 having spent more than a decade inside Arsenal’s system, from the Centre of Excellence at age nine to the senior squad in 2014. Her leadership is built on a long apprenticeship and a clear professional standard, not on charisma alone. The story is not a clean line. An ACL rupture in 2023 ruled her out of a World Cup that England reached the final of, and the comeback to fitness, form, and captaincy is the reference point she draws on when the topic is resilience under public scrutiny. Her advocacy work, from the rainbow armband at Euro 2022 to her writing for younger readers in “You Have the Power” with Pan Macmillan, places her in a small group of athletes who use the platform deliberately rather than reactively. For a senior audience, the value is specific. Williamson can describe how a captaincy group sets standards, how a team holds its nerve in the back half of a tournament, and how a leader recovers personal authority after a setback that takes them out of the room. Her two OBE and CBE honours sit alongside the trophies as a public marker that the contribution is taken seriously beyond the sport. Key speaking topics Captaincy and team leadership under pressure Building and sustaining a winning team culture Resilience and recovery from setback High-performance preparation Women in sport and the business of women’s football Purpose and platform in elite sport Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and leadership-team development sessions All-hands events tied to a major performance moment, transformation milestone, or annual kick-off Audiences focused on team culture, captaincy, and high-performance habits, including HR, talent and L&D leaders Events centred on women in leadership, sport, or business Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a captaincy group prepares for, and holds together through, the highest-pressure moments of a tournament. A credible reference point on returning to leadership after a serious setback, drawn from her ACL recovery and return to the England captaincy. A clearer view of what separates a high-performing team culture from a high-talent group that underdelivers. A view of how a public-facing leader uses platform with intent, including the choices behind her advocacy work.

Why organisations work with Jason Roberts He is the named architect of the 2012 player boycott of the Kick It Out campaign, which produced the PFA’s six-point plan and a UK Rooney Rule for coaching appointments. He can speak to inclusion as institutional reform, not as awareness work. He runs football development across CONCACAF’s forty-one member associations, including the Coaching Convention and the Pro Licence, which gives him a working operator’s view of talent pathways and governance at scale. He built and still leads the Jason Roberts Foundation, active since 2007 across the UK and Grenada, with a documented record of programme delivery rather than badge philanthropy. His MBE was awarded for services to sport in both Grenada and London, recognition of cross-jurisdiction social impact, not single-country celebrity endorsement. He has a long broadcast track record (BBC 5 Live 606, Match of the Day 2, Sky Sports), so he handles audience and conversation with the fluency of a working presenter. Biography highlights Chief Football Development Officer, CONCACAF, leading coaching education and grassroots infrastructure across forty-one member associations. MBE, 2010 New Year Honours, for services to sport in Grenada and London. Founder and chair, Jason Roberts Foundation, established 2007, operating in the UK and Grenada. Premier League career across West Bromwich Albion, Wigan Athletic, Blackburn Rovers and Reading; full Grenada international. Director, West Bromwich Albion Football Club Limited (board appointment, April 2026). Broadcaster for BBC Radio 5 Live (606), Match of the Day 2 and Sky Sports. Biography In October 2012, a group of Premier League players refused to wear the Kick It Out t-shirt at the weekend’s fixtures. The protest had a named leader. Roberts, then at Reading, had written publicly that the campaign was under-resourced and that the league’s anti-racism work was failing the players it was meant to protect. The fallout produced concrete reform. The PFA published a six-point plan that included tougher sanctions for racial abuse and an English version of the NFL’s Rooney Rule for coaching interview opportunities. Inclusion in English football moved, however briefly, from communications campaign to procedural change. That is the through-line of his career: refusing the symbolic version of an institutional problem and pushing for the operating version. That instinct now runs at confederation scale. As Chief Football Development Officer at CONCACAF, he leads coaching education, the Pro Licence, and grassroots infrastructure across forty-one member associations from Canada to Caribbean micro-states. The work is structural. It is about who gets coached, by whom, to what standard, in which country. The credentials on paper, MBE for services to sport in Grenada and London, a Premier League career of nearly five hundred appearances, broadcast roles at BBC 5 Live and Sky, and the foundation running since 2007, are real. They matter most as evidence that the inclusion argument and the development work are not separate tracks. They are the same job done from different positions. Key speaking topics Inclusive leadership and institutional reform Race equality in elite sport and corporate parallels Talent pathways and development systems Governance and culture change in high-performance organisations Social impact through sport Leadership and resilience in competitive environments Ideal for CHROs, DEI leads and culture transformation executives examining the gap between inclusion narrative and operating change. Board and executive committees responsible for governance reform in legacy institutions. Talent and learning leaders rebuilding development pathways and progression systems. Sport, broadcast and entertainment organisations facing reputational and structural inclusion pressure. Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what it takes to convert an inclusion problem into a procedural reform with measurable obligations. A working view of how confederation-scale development systems are structured, useful by analogy for any federated organisation. Honest assessment of the personal and reputational cost of leading reform from inside a powerful institution. A grounded perspective on social impact programmes that survive past the initial press cycle.

Why organisations work with Tracey Neville She has the rare credential of turning a chronically second-tier national team into a major-tournament winner inside one Games cycle, against opponents with deeper systems and bigger budgets. She speaks credibly about selection, the hardest part of senior leadership, because she made the call to drop senior England players whose form had slipped, and held the room through it. Her coaching record holds up to scrutiny: Superleague titles at Manchester Thunder, three Netball Europe Open Championships, World Cup medals at both ends of her England tenure, and gold at the Commonwealth Games. An MBE for services to netball and a continuing senior coaching role in Australia’s Super Netball mean her authority is current, not retrospective. Biography highlights Head Coach, England Netball, 2015 to 2019. Gold medal, 2018 Commonwealth Games. Bronze medals, 2015 and 2019 Netball World Cups, as Head Coach. Head Coach, Manchester Thunder; Netball Superleague champions, 2012 and 2014. MBE, 2016, for services to netball. 81 senior caps for England as a player; bronze at the 1998 Commonwealth Games and 1999 World Championships. Sky Sports netball pundit; Vitality ambassador; current senior coaching role in Australia’s Super Netball. Biography England had never beaten Australia or New Zealand to win a major netball title. In April 2018, on the Gold Coast, the team Tracey Neville had taken over three years earlier as an interim appointment beat Australia in the final by a single goal. That result reset the order of a sport that two countries had owned for forty years. The job she walked into in 2015 was a programme that had earned bronzes and lost finals. Neville had a Superleague pedigree from Manchester Thunder, where she had won the domestic title twice, and 81 England caps as a player, but no senior international head coaching record. She made the appointment permanent inside six months by taking England to bronze at the 2015 World Cup, then spent the next two years rebuilding selection, fitness standards, and the squad’s tolerance for being told it was not yet good enough. What she offers corporate audiences is the substance of how that rebuild was done. The recognisable parts of high-performance coaching, marginal gains and culture work, sit underneath harder questions about who plays, who is dropped, who is told the truth about their form, and how a head coach holds the room when those decisions are unpopular. She is direct about the cost of those calls, including her own, which gives senior leaders a usable account of selection and accountability rather than a motivational set piece. Her authority is also current. After leaving England in 2019 she moved into senior coaching roles in Australia’s Super Netball, the strongest domestic league in the sport, which is the same competitive environment she beat at the Commonwealth Games. She holds an MBE for services to netball and continues as a Sky Sports pundit on the international game. Key speaking topics High-performance team building under competitive pressure Selection and accountability in senior leadership Leading through transition and interim mandates Resilience and composure in decisive moments Inclusive team culture in elite environments Succession and bench strength Ideal for Executive teams rebuilding standards after a period of underperformance HR and talent leaders working on selection, succession, and bench depth Sales and commercial leaders running through a major competitive cycle Women’s leadership programmes and senior development cohorts Audience outcomes A concrete account of how a head coach makes and communicates hard selection decisions A working model of building winning culture without abandoning standards under pressure Honest perspective on the personal cost of accountability at the top of a programme Practical reference points for leading a team through a defined competitive cycle

Why organisations work with Emma Hayes She has built two elite teams from different starting points: a Chelsea side she took from mid-table to seven Women’s Super League titles, and a US national team she led to Olympic gold within ten matches of taking charge. Her leadership thesis is published and tested. A Completely Different Game sets out a working method built around team, staff and standards, not personality. She speaks from a current operational seat, not a retired one. Buyers get a working head coach describing live decisions under pressure, not retrospective career narrative. Named The Best FIFA Women’s Coach (2021) and winner of the inaugural Johan Cruyff Trophy (2024); the formal recognition tracks the operational record. She is fluent in the language of senior business audiences from regular broadcast and conference work, including Sky and BBC punditry and the Leaders in Sport platform. Biography highlights Head Coach, United States Women’s National Team, 2024 to present. Manager, Chelsea FC Women, 2012 to 2024; seven WSL titles, five FA Cups, five domestic doubles. Olympic gold medal with the USWNT, Paris 2024. The Best FIFA Women’s Coach, 2021; inaugural Johan Cruyff Trophy, 2024. OBE (2022) and MBE (2016) for services to football. Author, A Completely Different Game: My Leadership Playbook (2024), expanded from the Audible Original Kill the Unicorn. Biography Chelsea FC Women were a mid-table side in 2012. By the time Emma Hayes left in 2024, they had won seven Women’s Super League titles, including five in a row, alongside five FA Cups and multiple League Cups. The rebuild was not the result of a single tactical idea. It was the product of how she organised the staff around her, the standards she held, and the way she handled players, ownership and scrutiny over twelve seasons. The work translated directly. Appointed Head Coach of the United States Women’s National Team in 2024, she led the side to Olympic gold in Paris in her tenth match in charge, winning every knockout game 1-0. The body of evidence sits across two contexts, club and country, with very different constraints. The leadership method travelled. Her book, A Completely Different Game: My Leadership Playbook, sets out the underlying argument. Published in 2024 as the print expansion of the Audible Original Kill the Unicorn, written with Michael Calvin, it dismantles the idea of the lone great leader. Sustained performance, she argues, is built by the staff around the leader and the culture the leader is willing to enforce. The book is grounded in operational practice, not theory. Formal recognition has followed the record. She was named The Best FIFA Women’s Coach in 2021, won the inaugural Johan Cruyff Trophy for the best women’s coach in the world in 2024, and was appointed OBE in 2022 after an MBE in 2016. She continues to coach at the top of the international game, which is what gives her speaking work its weight: the material is live, not retrospective. Key speaking topics Building high-performance teams Leadership through sustained change Culture and standards in elite organisations Decision-making under pressure Women in leadership Coaching as a leadership discipline Ideal for CEOs, COOs and executive teams rebuilding performance after underperformance or restructure CHROs and chief people officers working on leadership development and high-performance culture Boards and senior leadership offsites focused on standards, accountability and team design Audience outcomes A working model for how senior leaders set and hold standards through cycles of pressure A clear view of how culture is built deliberately, not absorbed by accident Concrete examples of decisions made under scrutiny, with the trade-offs named A reframing of leadership away from individual heroics towards staff, team and system design

Why organisations work with Dion Dublin A first-hand account of returning to elite performance after a life-threatening broken neck in 1999, with the medical and professional detail that gives the story credibility beyond inspiration. Twenty years inside top-flight football dressing rooms at Manchester United, Coventry, Aston Villa and the England squad, used as material for senior-team conversations on cohesion and standards. A working portfolio career that few sports speakers can match: BBC daytime presenter on Homes Under the Hammer since 2015, regular pundit on Match of the Day and Final Score, and inventor of the Dube percussion instrument used by Stevie Wonder. Comfortable on stage as host, panel chair or interviewer, drawn from a decade of live broadcast work, which makes him useful for full event hosting rather than only keynote slots. Biography highlights Premier League Golden Boot, 1997-98 season, shared with Chris Sutton and Michael Owen on 18 league goals. Four senior England caps; clubs included Manchester United, Coventry City, Aston Villa, Norwich City, Leicester City and Celtic. Returned to top-flight football within months of a broken neck sustained playing for Aston Villa in December 1999; helped the club to the FA Cup final the following April. Presenter on BBC One’s Homes Under the Hammer since 2015; pundit for BBC Football Focus, Match of the Day and Final Score. Inventor of the Dube, a four-sided percussion instrument used by Stevie Wonder and the Official England Supporters Band. Board member of Cambridge United F.C. since July 2021. Biography A broken neck in December 1999 should have ended a football career. Dion Dublin ran headfirst into a Sheffield Wednesday defender playing for Aston Villa, fractured three vertebrae and underwent surgery in which part of his pelvis was used to replace a crushed bone in his neck. He was back in the Villa side within months and helped the club to the FA Cup final the following April. He still plays with a titanium plate in his neck. That recovery sits inside a career that began at Cambridge United, took in Manchester United, Coventry City, Aston Villa, Norwich City, Leicester City and Celtic, and produced the Premier League Golden Boot in 1997-98, shared with Chris Sutton and Michael Owen. Four England caps followed. The material he uses with senior teams is drawn directly from that period: how high-performing dressing rooms hold each other to a standard, how players manage themselves through long injuries, and what happens to identity when the playing career ends. The post-playing career is unusual. Since 2015 Dublin has been a regular presenter on BBC One’s Homes Under the Hammer and a pundit on BBC Football Focus, Match of the Day and Final Score. He invented the Dube, a four-sided wooden percussion instrument that has been bought by Stevie Wonder and the Official England Supporters Band. In July 2021 he joined the board of Cambridge United, the club where he started. He finished fourth on Celebrity MasterChef in 2021. For corporate audiences the practical value is twofold. He speaks credibly on resilience and team performance from inside the experience rather than as commentary on it. He also hosts well, with a decade of live broadcast practice behind him, which makes him a strong fit for award nights, conference plenaries and panel sessions where a recognisable presence carries the room. Key speaking topics Resilience after acute setback High-performance team dynamics Career reinvention Mental and physical recovery Leadership under pressure Event hosting and panel facilitation Ideal for Sales and commercial teams running annual kick-offs and awards nights Senior leadership offsites focused on team standards and recovery from disruption Conference organisers needing a recognisable broadcast presence for hosting or interview formats Audience outcomes A grounded account of what elite team standards actually look like day to day A concrete recovery story they can map onto their own organisational setbacks A view of career reinvention drawn from three working chapters: sport, broadcast and product invention A confident, recognisable presence on stage that lifts the room

Why organisations work with Danny Webber He played professionally across four divisions, from Manchester United’s youth setup through Premier League football with Sheffield United to non-league title-winning sides at Salford City. He has lived the full spectrum of elite team environments, not one rarefied tier of it. He has reinvented himself twice since retiring as a player: as a pundit and co-commentator working regularly across BBC Sport, Sky Sports, MUTV, ITV and talkSPORT, and as founder and CEO of his own sports agency, Autograph Sports Management. Through Autograph he mentors young athletes on building professional and personal brands, which gives him a current operator’s view of talent development, not retired-player nostalgia. His broadcast career means he can hold a room, run a Q and A, and host a panel without external moderation, which materially expands how he can be used at an event. Biography highlights Former professional footballer for Manchester United, Watford, Sheffield United, Portsmouth, Leeds United (loan), Accrington Stanley and Salford City. Helped Sheffield United win promotion to the Premier League in the 2005-06 season. England Under-20 international. Northern Premier League Division One North champion (2014-15) and Premier Division play-off winner (2016) with Salford City. Pundit and co-commentator for BBC Sport, Sky Sports, MUTV, ITV Sport, talkSPORT and BBC 5 Live. Founder and CEO of Autograph Sports Management, a sports and commercial agency representing players and building athlete brands. Biography A teenager scoring 16 goals in 11 youth appearances for Manchester United is normally on a single track. Webber turned down a three-year contract at Old Trafford at the end of the 2002-03 season to chase senior football elsewhere. The decision shaped everything that followed: a deliberate move toward first-team minutes over reputation. What came next was a Premier League career built around adaptability. Watford, where he scored 21 goals across 72 games. Sheffield United, where his goals contributed to promotion to the Premier League in 2005-06. Portsmouth, Leeds United and Accrington Stanley followed, then a title-winning run with Salford City in the Northern Premier League. Few players cover that range of clubs and divisions inside one career. The second act has been the harder one. After retiring he built a media presence as a pundit and co-commentator across BBC Sport, Sky Sports, MUTV, ITV and talkSPORT, and founded Autograph Sports Management, a player representation and brand-building agency. He now mentors young athletes through the same career decisions he made himself. That is the substance he brings to a corporate audience. Not the highlight reel, but the working knowledge of how elite teams hold together, what reinvention costs when the first career ends, and how to keep performing when the conditions keep changing. Key speaking topics Performance and resilience in elite team environments Career transition and reinvention after a defined first chapter Building and mentoring young talent Mindset and motivation under pressure Personal brand and reputation in public-facing careers Leadership lessons from professional sport Ideal for Sales, commercial and high-performance teams running annual conferences or kick-off events. Talent, learning and graduate development leads designing mentoring and early-career programmes. Sport, broadcast and entertainment organisations briefing on athlete welfare and career-after-career questions. Hosts of leadership or after-dinner formats wanting a sports speaker who can also moderate or interview. Audience outcomes A grounded view of what performance in elite team environments actually requires day to day. A first-hand account of career reinvention, including the periods that do not work. Practical reflections on mentoring younger talent through high-pressure decisions. A useable read on how reputation and personal brand are built in public-facing careers.

Why organisations work with Andy Cole A Premier League Hall of Fame career inside one of football’s most demanding dressing rooms, used to ground sessions on standards, feedback and accountability with detail rather than slogan. Five Premier League titles and the 1999 Champions League final, including a goal tally of 121 for Manchester United, give his team-performance material the weight of evidence. Personal authority on resilience through a 2017 kidney transplant and the founding of the Andy Cole Fund with Kidney Research UK, used in sessions on recovery, mental health and the cost of carrying on. Active Manchester United Ambassador and broadcast pundit, comfortable in moderated panels, post-dinner Q and A and corporate hospitality formats where the audience expects fluency under questioning. Biography highlights Premier League Hall of Fame inductee (2024). 187 Premier League goals; Premier League Golden Boot winner 1993/94 with 34 goals in a 42-game season. Five Premier League titles, FA Cup honours and the 1999 UEFA Champions League with Manchester United. 15 senior England caps; PFA Young Player of the Year, 1994. Author of “Fast Forward: The Autobiography”, Hodder & Stoughton, 2020. Founder of the Andy Cole Fund with Kidney Research UK, launched 2020 with a personal pledge of £250,000. Biography The 1999 Manchester United dressing room is the most studied team environment in English football. Andy Cole spent six years inside it, scoring 121 goals and winning five league titles, an FA Cup and the Champions League final that completed the Treble. The standards inside that group, and the cost of meeting them, are the raw material he draws on when he speaks to senior teams. His Premier League career produced 187 goals across Newcastle, Manchester United, Blackburn, Fulham, Manchester City and others, the Golden Boot in 1993/94 with 34 goals in a 42-game season, and induction into the Premier League Hall of Fame in 2024. The numbers matter for credibility, but the more useful content is what they describe: a working life judged in public, every week, for nineteen years. In 2015 he was diagnosed with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. By 2017 his kidney function had fallen to seven per cent and his nephew donated the organ that saved his life. He has since spoken openly about the mental health collapse that followed, founded the Andy Cole Fund with Kidney Research UK, and pledged £250,000 of his own money toward research into transplants and patient wellbeing. His 2020 autobiography “Fast Forward” set out the same arc in print: standards, friction, recovery. For corporate audiences, the offer is reflective rather than instructional. He works best in conversation, in moderated panels, and in after-dinner formats where senior leaders want a serious account of performance and recovery from someone who has lived both. Key speaking topics Elite team performance and standards Resilience and recovery after serious illness Mental health in high-pressure careers Manchester United, the Treble and the Premier League era Motivation and team spirit Mentorship and life after sport Ideal for Sales and commercial leadership conferences seeking a credible voice on standards, accountability and team performance. HR, wellbeing and employee engagement events where a personal account of recovery and mental health adds weight to internal programmes. Corporate hospitality, awards dinners and partner events tied to sport, sponsorship or Manchester United audiences. Charity, healthcare and patient-experience events on kidney health, transplant and donor advocacy. Audience outcomes A close-range account of what high standards inside a championship-winning team feel like in practice, not in theory. A direct view of the mental and physical cost of carrying on after a major health shock, told without hedging. A reset on what resilience actually means for individuals working under sustained scrutiny. A confident, honest Q and A with a senior leader who has lived the material on stage and in print.

Why organisations work with Rachel Brown-Finnis A first-person account of a workforce professionalising in real time. She joined the England set-up before central contracts existed and was still playing when the FA introduced them in 2009; few speakers can describe an industry rebuilding itself from inside the dressing room. Lead-level broadcast craft. She co-commentated the BBC’s Euro 2025 final between England and Spain alongside Robyn Cowen, on top of long-standing punditry on Football Focus, The Women’s Football Show, BBC 5 Live and BT Sport, which transfers directly to corporate hosting, panels and fireside interviews. The goalkeeper’s perspective on team pressure. The position carries a particular discipline around isolation, recovery from visible error, and the cost of a single mistake; that is useful content for high-stakes corporate teams, not a metaphor. A practitioner voice on women entering male-coded industries, drawn from a 17-year senior international career, two World Cups, three European Championships, and an Olympic Games, not from secondary research. Biography highlights 82 senior England caps from a debut at 16 against Germany in 1997 through to international retirement in 2014. First-choice England goalkeeper at the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup and UEFA Women’s Euro 2009; Team GB squad member at the London 2012 Olympics. FA Women’s Cup winner with Everton in 2010; FA Women’s Cup finalist with Liverpool in 1996 at the age of 15. One of the first female players awarded a central contract by The Football Association in 2009. Co-commentator on the BBC’s Euro 2025 final coverage and long-standing pundit across BBC Sport, BT Sport and BBC 5 Live. Sports Science degree, University of Pittsburgh, where she held the Panthers’ single-season record for fewest goals conceded; subsequent PE teaching qualification at Liverpool John Moores University. Biography Women’s football was an amateur sport when Rachel Brown-Finnis made her senior England debut at 16 against Germany in 1997. It was a professional, broadcast-funded industry by the time she retired from international football in 2014. She played through every stage of that transition: 82 caps, two World Cups, three European Championships, the 2012 Olympics, and the introduction of the first FA central contracts for women in 2009, which she was part of. The playing career was built on a goalkeeping discipline familiar to anyone who has worked in a high-visibility role. The position rewards composure, an honest read of risk, and recovery from public error. She held the first-choice England jersey through the 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup and UEFA Women’s Euro 2009. At club level she won the FA Women’s Cup with Everton in 2010 after reaching her first final at 15 with Liverpool. The broadcast career has tracked the commercial expansion of the women’s game. She is a fixture on BBC Football Focus, The Women’s Football Show, BBC 5 Live and BT Sport, wrote a weekly Guardian column through the 2019/20 WSL season, and co-commentated the BBC’s coverage of the Euro 2025 final between England and Spain. The skill set is live broadcast craft: read the room, structure the conversation, manage the interview, hold the line under pressure. When she speaks from the stage, the material is grounded in that experience rather than imported from a framework. Team culture inside elite environments. The texture of being one of very few women in a high-performance system that was not designed for her. The economics and identity of a workforce that has had to build itself in public. The story is specific, recent, and difficult to outsource. Key speaking topics Team culture and trust in high-performance environments Women in male-coded industries Resilience and composure under public pressure The economics and evolution of women’s professional sport Live broadcast hosting, interview craft and on-stage moderation Lessons from a goalkeeping career: isolation, error recovery, and the cost of a single moment Ideal for Leadership teams in financial services, engineering, energy and other historically male-coded sectors running inclusion or women-in-leadership programmes. Sponsors and partners of the Premier League, The FA, WSL and the wider football ecosystem programming hospitality, conferences and awards. Corporate event organisers commissioning a broadcast-trained host or panel moderator rather than a celebrity name. High-performance organisations using sport as a credible reference point for team culture, recovery from error, and pressure management. Audience outcomes A first-person account of a workforce professionalising in real time, with the structural and cultural detail intact. Working language for women in male-coded industries that resists slogan and connects to operational reality. A goalkeeper’s mental model for high-visibility error: how teams should treat the person who carries the moment. Live interview and hosting craft when she takes the stage rather than the keynote slot, applied to panels, fireside conversations and awards.

Why organisations work with Willie Kirk He has done the work that most leadership speakers describe. Four head-coach appointments across the women’s professional game, each with a different brief: build, promote, contend, restructure. He speaks from inside the professionalisation of women’s football, one of the fastest organisational transitions in modern sport. The lessons on growth without losing coherence are first-hand, not theoretical. He won a domestic cup in his first full season at Hibernian and was named Scottish Women’s Football Manager of the Year in 2013, which is a useful early signal that the results travel with him. He took Everton Women to a 2020 FA Cup Final from a position outside the elite tier, the kind of overperformance that buyers want to understand mechanically, not anecdotally. Biography highlights UEFA Pro Licence coach with over 15 years in senior management Former head coach of Hibernian, Bristol City, Everton and Leicester City Women Scottish Cup winner and Scottish Women’s Premier League Cup winner with Hibernian Scottish Women’s Football Manager of the Year, 2013 FA Women’s Super League Manager of the Month, November 2019 (Everton) 2020 FA Cup finalist as Everton head coach Current head coach, Djurgardens IF Women, Swedish Damallsvenskan Biography Bristol City Women had just been relegated from the Women’s Super League when Willie Kirk took the job in 2015. A year later they were promoted back. That sequence, inheriting a side at its lowest point and returning it to the top flight, is the pattern that has defined the rest of his career. He is a turnaround manager who arrives where the standards have slipped and the dressing room has stopped believing in itself. He had done it earlier at Hibernian Women, where his first season produced a Scottish Cup and where he was later named Scottish Women’s Football Manager of the Year. He did it again at Everton, reaching the 2020 FA Cup Final with a club that had been a long way off that conversation, and picking up a WSL Manager of the Month award in the process. The work is repeatable because the method is repeatable. What organisations get from him is the operating detail of that method. How to read a room of senior performers who have stopped trusting each other. How to set standards that hold under pressure rather than collapse on the first hard week. How to grow a function quickly without losing the discipline that made it work in the first place, which is the live problem facing any business scaling a high-performing team. His career has run alongside the most rapid professionalisation any sport has seen in a generation. Women’s football has gone from semi-professional to broadcast asset inside his coaching lifetime. He speaks from inside that change, with the credibility of someone who has had to manage talent, expectations and infrastructure all at once. Key speaking topics Turnaround leadership in underperforming teams Building team culture under scrutiny High performance and accountability Talent development in fast-growing organisations Resilience and composure for senior leaders Standards-setting and behaviour in elite environments Ideal for CEOs and executive teams inheriting underperforming functions HR and talent leaders responsible for performance culture Sales leadership and commercial teams under quota pressure Leadership development programmes for mid-to-senior managers Audience outcomes A clear picture of what high-performance culture actually requires in practice, not in slogan The specific behaviours a leader uses to reset standards without losing the team A working sense of how elite coaches manage performance, recovery and pressure across a season Permission to lead with clarity in environments where ambiguity has become the default

Why organisations work with Jonathan Morgan He took Leicester City Women from a regional fourth tier into the FA Women’s Super League, a multi-season programme of promotion and culture change that maps directly onto how organisations actually move performance. He carries the LMA Championship Manager of the Year award for the 2020–21 season, a peer-judged recognition from the body that governs professional football management in England. He speaks from the manager’s chair rather than the player’s, which is unusual in the sport-to-business category and more useful to executives running teams of their own. His media work for BBC Radio Leicester and Sky Sports has trained him to deliver tactical analysis in plain language to non-specialist audiences, which carries directly into corporate stages. Biography highlights Head coach, Sheffield United Women (2023–2024). Head coach, Burnley Women (2022–2023); team unbeaten for the first 16 league matches of the season. Head coach, Leicester City Women (2014–2021); led the club from FA Women’s Midlands Division One into the FA Women’s Super League for 2021–22. LMA Championship Manager of the Year, 2020–21. UEFA A Licence holder; UEFA Pro Licence candidate. Co-commentator for BBC Radio Leicester and pundit work for Sky Sports. Biography Leicester City Women were a regional side outside the top three tiers of English football when Jonathan Morgan took over as head coach in 2014. Seven seasons later they were in the FA Women’s Super League for the first time, with Morgan named LMA Championship Manager of the Year for the 2020–21 promotion campaign. That arc is the substance of what he carries into a business room. Building a senior team across a long programme of promotions, in a sport where budgets, scrutiny and the public scoreline all move at the same time, is closer to what most executives are trying to do than a single championship-winning season tends to be. He has held head coach roles since at Burnley Women, where his side began the 2022–23 campaign on a 16-match unbeaten league run, and at Sheffield United Women. Alongside the coaching career he has worked as a co-commentator for BBC Radio Leicester and as a Sky Sports pundit, which shapes the way he speaks on stage: a manager’s read of the game in language a non-specialist can follow. The corporate brief he handles best is leadership under pressure: how to hold a group together through losing periods, how to absorb scrutiny without losing the room, and how to plan a multi-year build when the league table will not wait for you. Key speaking topics Leadership under pressure Building a high-performing team from a low base Culture and standards inside elite sport Managing scrutiny and external noise Decision-making in losing periods Long-cycle programmes and promotion campaigns Communication and man-management Ideal for Sales and operational leaders running teams through long performance cycles. Executive offsites and conferences where leadership is the headline theme. After-dinner audiences at sector conferences and customer events. HR and people directors examining culture-building inside high-pressure teams. Audience outcomes A working picture of how an elite coach handles losing weeks, public criticism and squad morale at the same time. Specific examples from an FA Women’s Super League promotion campaign, with the decisions and trade-offs named. A usable language for talking about standards and culture inside a team, rather than as a slogan on a wall. A view of leadership from the manager’s seat, not the player’s, that translates more directly to the audience’s own roles.

Why organisations work with Laura Bassett A named, public case study in recovering from a single career-defining moment. The 2015 World Cup semi-final against Japan is one of the most replayed individual incidents in English football. Few speakers can talk about composure after public failure from inside that kind of footage. Sixty-three England caps and five major tournaments over fourteen years, which gives weight to anything she says about sustained performance, selection pressure, and team dynamics under scrutiny. A specific perspective on the women’s game at the point it professionalised. Bassett was among the first 17 players given central FA contracts in 2009, which makes her a credible voice on what changes when an environment moves from amateur to professional standards. Active broadcast presence with BBC, Sky Sports, TNT Sports and DAZN, which means a current public profile and a delivery style trained by live television, not by the speaking circuit. Biography highlights 63 senior England caps between 2003 and 2017. Bronze medallist, 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Captained England at UEFA Women’s Euro 2017. One of the first 17 women awarded FA central contracts (May 2009). 2015 FA WSL Players’ Player of the Year; PFA WSL Team of the Year 2014/15. Pundit and co-commentator for BBC, Sky Sports, TNT Sports and DAZN, including the 2019 and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cups. BSc Sport and Exercise Sciences; UEFA Level 3 coaching qualification. Biography The own goal happened in stoppage time of a World Cup semi-final, on live television, in front of a global audience. England lost to Japan 2 to 1. The footage is still in circulation a decade later. Three days afterwards, Bassett was back on the pitch playing for the bronze medal, which England won. That episode is the obvious headline, but the more useful credential is what surrounds it. Sixty-three England caps across fourteen years. Five major tournaments. A starting place in a team that progressed from semi-professional to one of the most-watched national sides in English sport. Bassett was among the first 17 players given FA central contracts in 2009, which placed her at the front of the professional era of the women’s game. The clubs read as a working defender’s CV rather than a marketing one: Birmingham City, Arsenal, Leeds, Chelsea, Notts County, Canberra United in the Australian W-League. In 2015 her peers voted her FA WSL Players’ Player of the Year. In 2017 she captained England against Portugal at the Euros. The body of work is unusually consistent for an athlete known to the public for a single moment. Since retiring in 2019 she has worked across BBC, Sky Sports, TNT Sports and DAZN as a co-commentator and analyst, including both the 2019 and 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cups. For an organisation that wants someone to talk credibly about composure, recovery and team performance under public scrutiny, the case material is on the record. Key speaking topics Composure and recovery after public failure High-performance team dynamics Sustained performance over a long elite career Women’s elite sport and its professionalisation Resilience under public scrutiny Leadership through tournament cycles Ideal for Senior leadership teams preparing for or recovering from a visible setback or crisis moment HR, talent and people functions running resilience, inclusion or high-performance programmes All-staff conferences and leadership offsites looking for a credible sports-keynote anchor Organisations marking moments in the women’s game, including sponsors, governing bodies and partner brands Audience outcomes A concrete reference point for what composure looks like in the hours and days immediately after a high-stakes public failure A working view of what changes when an environment moves from amateur standards to fully professional ones A first-hand account of team behaviour around setbacks at international tournament level Renewed perspective on individual identity versus single-moment definition in a senior career

Why organisations work with Claire Rafferty Lived experience of operating at the top of two unrelated industries simultaneously, elite international football and investment banking at Deutsche Bank, where most speakers offer one or the other. A specific, named recovery story. Two anterior cruciate ligament injuries during her career, including a second in 2011, followed by a return to international football and a starting place at a World Cup semi-final. A current operating role in the football industry through TransferRoom, where she works on global transfer activity, plus a board seat at Lewes FC, the only professional club paying its men’s and women’s teams equally. Audiences hear someone still inside the commercial mechanics of the sport, not retired from it. Practised broadcast presence across BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT and ITV News, which translates into clean delivery on stage and confidence under live questioning. Biography highlights 18 senior caps for England between 2010 and 2017, including starting left-back at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup where England finished third. 2012 Team GB Olympian at the London Games. 101 senior appearances for Chelsea FC across eleven seasons; FA WSL champion in 2015 and 2017 to 18, FA Women’s Cup winner in 2014 to 15 and 2017 to 18. Economics degree, Loughborough University, 2011; analyst at Deutsche Bank from 2012, held in parallel with her playing career. Senior Customer Success Manager, TransferRoom; Non-Executive Director, Lewes FC. Regular pundit and contributor across BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT, BBC 5 Live and ITV News. Biography Two anterior cruciate ligament injuries can end a career. Claire Rafferty came back from one as a teenager at Millwall Lionesses, then from a second in 2011 to win starting selection for England’s run to third place at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. The story sits at the centre of her speaking content because she has not stylised it. Recovery is presented as long, dull, repeatable work, not a redemption arc. Her career also broke a common pattern in elite sport. Through most of her playing years at Chelsea, where she made 101 appearances and finished as the club’s longest-serving player, Rafferty worked as an analyst at Deutsche Bank. The dual track was not a sponsored side project; it was a deliberate choice to keep a professional identity outside football, made before women’s full-time contracts were standard in the English game. Since retiring from West Ham at the end of the 2018 to 19 season, she has stayed inside the commercial machinery of the sport. At TransferRoom she works on global transfer activity across men’s and women’s football. At Lewes FC, on the board since January 2020, she sits inside the only professional club paying its men’s and women’s first teams from a single equal budget. Both roles give her current material, not retrospective material. The broadcasting work runs alongside this. Rafferty contributes to BBC, BT Sport, Sky Sports News, talkSPORT and ITV News, and covered the 2019 Women’s World Cup on multiple platforms. The cumulative effect for an audience is a speaker who can speak about pressure, recovery and parallel careers from the inside of two industries that rarely overlap. Key speaking topics Resilience after physical and professional setback Parallel careers in elite sport and the City Performing under sustained competitive pressure Women in football and equal pay in professional sport Career transition after a defined competitive peak Team performance and high-trust environments Ideal for Leadership offsites and conferences seeking a voice on resilience grounded in elite competition rather than executive theory. Financial services audiences, where the Deutsche Bank parallel career is directly recognisable. Sports business, federation and broadcast audiences working on women’s football, commercialisation and equal-pay structures. ERG and Women in Leadership programmes, particularly those addressing dual-career pressure and recovery from setback. Audience outcomes A concrete account of recovery from career-threatening injury, told in operational rather than motivational terms. A working model for sustaining two professional identities at the same time, drawn from football and investment banking. A current view of the commercial and structural state of women’s football from inside the industry, not from the press box. Renewed credibility for the claim that competitive performance and equal investment can coexist, evidenced by the Lewes FC model.