Resilience & Stress Management

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.

Why organisations work with Chloe Morgan She has lived the dual-career argument that organisations now ask of high performers: practising as a personal injury solicitor at Irwin Mitchell while playing in goal for Tottenham, Arsenal, and Crystal Palace. Her inclusion content carries weight that policy slides do not: she is a Football Black List honouree, DIVA Sports Star of the Year, and a Pride Power List entrant, recognised by the named bodies in those communities. She speaks to LGBTQ and BAME representation from inside elite sport, not as a commentator on it, which gives senior teams a credible voice for inclusion work that has lost traction since 2020. She runs She’s a Baller, the UK’s largest independent women’s football publisher and creative agency, and brings a working operator’s view of where brand and inclusion narratives still come apart. Biography highlights Former goalkeeper for Tottenham Hotspur Women, Arsenal Women, and Crystal Palace Women across an eight-year elite career. Qualified solicitor (University of Leeds law graduate); civil litigation lawyer at Irwin Mitchell during her playing career. Cyrille Regis Players Award winner, Football Black List 2020. DIVA Sports Star of the Year, 2021; Pride Power List, 2021. Co-host of “Upfront”, the women’s football podcast on the Football Ramble network. Head of She’s a Baller, the UK’s largest independent women’s football publisher and creative agency. Biography Most inclusion programmes were built for an audience that has now moved on. The reputational risk has shifted, the public mood is harder to read, and the people inside the organisation can tell the difference between a values statement and a working environment. The question senior teams now ask is narrower and more practical: what does inclusion look like once the press release has gone out. This is the territory Chloe Morgan speaks from. She played eight seasons at the top of the women’s game, in goal for Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, and Crystal Palace, including Tottenham’s promotion campaign into the Women’s Super League. She did it while qualifying as a solicitor and working as a civil litigation lawyer at Irwin Mitchell, a dual career that is unusual at any level of professional sport and almost unheard of at the elite end. Her inclusion work is recognised by the bodies that matter in the relevant communities. She received the Cyrille Regis Players Award on the Football Black List in 2020, was named DIVA Sports Star of the Year in 2021, and entered the Pride Power List the same year. She speaks as an openly gay Black athlete who has been inside the dressing rooms, boardrooms, and law firms in question, not as a commentator standing outside them. Since retiring in 2022 she has moved into media and operating roles. She co-hosts “Upfront” on the Football Ramble network and now leads She’s a Baller, the UK’s largest independent women’s football publisher and creative agency, where she works with brands on the gap between women’s football marketing and the actual culture of the women’s game. Key speaking topics Inclusion in elite performance environments LGBTQ representation in sport and professional services Race and representation in women’s football Dual-career discipline and high performance Resilience in male-dominated workplaces Women’s sport as a brand and commercial category Leadership lessons from the goalkeeping position Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads rebuilding inclusion programmes after the post-2020 retreat Brand and marketing teams investing in women’s sport sponsorships and partnerships Employee resource groups, particularly LGBTQ and Black professional networks Leadership audiences interested in dual-career performance and resilience Audience outcomes A clearer view of what inclusion looks like in environments with measurable performance pressure, not only in policy. Specific reference points from elite women’s football and a UK law firm, drawn from one career rather than secondhand. A more honest read on where brand activity in women’s sport lands well with players and fans, and where it misfires. Confidence that resilience and dual-career performance can be discussed with substance, not slogans.

Why organisations work with Serena Guthrie She has the rare credential of captaining a national team in the cycle immediately after its biggest win, with the specific leadership problem of defending a standard rather than chasing one. Her playing record is decided in the strongest leagues in the sport: Team Bath in England, Northern Mystics in New Zealand, Giants Netball in Australia, where she was named club MVP for the 2017 season. She speaks credibly about the captain’s role inside a high-performance system, including how a senior player holds a dressing room when the head coach is making selection calls that hurt teammates. An MBE for services to netball and a continuing role as Performance Lead at Jersey Netball mean her authority sits in current practice, not retired commentary. Biography highlights 110 senior caps for England; captain of the Vitality Roses from November 2018 to retirement in March 2022. Gold medal, 2018 Commonwealth Games, with the England Roses. Bronze, 2019 Netball World Cup, as captain. Three Netball World Cups (2011, 2015, 2019) and two Commonwealth Games (2014, 2018). Club career across the three strongest leagues in the sport: Team Bath, Northern Mystics, Giants Netball. Giants club MVP, 2017. MBE, 2020 New Year Honours, for services to netball. Performance Lead, Jersey Netball; founder of Legacy Netball; accredited executive coach; business coaching work with Humanise Solutions. Biography England had never won a major netball title before April 2018. When the Roses came home with Commonwealth gold, the team that had spent forty years finishing behind Australia and New Zealand was suddenly the one being chased. Seven months later, Serena Guthrie was named captain. The captaincy she took on was the difficult one. The first World Cup cycle after a defining win is the cycle in which a team has to prove the result was not a peak. Guthrie led the Roses to bronze at the 2019 World Cup in Liverpool under head coach Tracey Neville’s final campaign, and stayed in the role through the next three years of restructure, coaching change, and a pandemic that interrupted the international calendar. She retired in March 2022 with 110 caps and 28 as captain. Her club career sits alongside that international record. She played at Team Bath in the Vitality Netball Superleague, moved to Northern Mystics in New Zealand’s ANZ Premiership, and then to Giants Netball in Australia’s Suncorp Super Netball, the strongest domestic league in the sport, where she was named club MVP in her first season. That is a player who tested her standards in the environments her opponents came from. What she offers corporate audiences now is the substance of the captain’s role inside a high-performance system. She is direct about the gap between leading on the court and managing the room around selection decisions made by someone else; about how senior players hold standards when results turn; and about what defending a benchmark feels like compared with chasing one. Her current work as Performance Lead at Jersey Netball, founder of Legacy Netball, and an accredited executive coach with Humanise Solutions keeps that material in active practice. Key speaking topics Captaincy and senior leadership inside high-performance teams Holding standards after a defining win Team culture under public pressure and scrutiny Selection, accountability, and the senior player’s role Resilience and composure in decisive moments Talent development and the long arc of an elite career Ideal for Executive teams operating under the pressure to repeat or defend a recent result HR and talent leaders working on captaincy, succession, and senior player roles inside teams Women’s leadership programmes and senior development cohorts Sales and commercial leaders running through a defined competitive cycle Audience outcomes A concrete account of what a senior captain does inside a high-performance system when selection calls are not theirs to make A working reference point for holding team standards after a result everyone now expects you to repeat Honest perspective on the personal weight of leading peers, including senior teammates, through public results A usable model of long-career resilience across three of the most competitive leagues in a global sport

Why organisations work with Keira Walsh She has held the central midfield role in two winning European finals for England, including as Player of the Match at Wembley in 2022, which is a specific position about reading risk and keeping a team in shape under pressure. Her career carries the weight of a world-record transfer fee, which is a useful frame for any leader being asked to perform after a step-change in expectation, scrutiny or investment. She offers an inside account of an elite team culture, the Lionesses under Sarina Wiegman, that has now won back-to-back European Championships and reached a World Cup final. Her move from Barcelona to Chelsea in January 2025 is a recent, deliberate case study in choosing environment and ambition over comfort, told first-hand. Biography highlights MBE in the 2026 New Year Honours for services to association football. UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 final Player of the Match; UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 winner with England. World-record transfer fee in women’s football when Barcelona signed her from Manchester City in September 2022. Two UEFA Women’s Champions League titles with FC Barcelona. Chelsea midfielder since January 2025 on a four-and-a-half-year deal. Over 100 senior England caps; ever-present in Sarina Wiegman’s midfield through two winning European Championship campaigns. Biography Holding midfield in a winning international final is, in football terms, the most exposed leadership job on the pitch. It is the role that connects defence to attack, absorbs pressure when the opposition raises tempo, and decides which risks the team can afford in the last twenty minutes. Walsh has now done that job twice, at Euro 2022 and Euro 2025, in the two most scrutinised matches in the women’s game. The 2022 final at Wembley was the case study. England were level with Germany when Walsh produced the assist for Ella Toone’s opening goal and was named Player of the Match. UEFA’s technical observers noted that she “balanced the team throughout the game” and rarely lost possession. Three years later she was back in the starting line-up for the Euro 2025 final in Basel, helping England retain the title in a penalty shoot-out against Spain. Her club career has carried a comparable weight of expectation. Barcelona paid a reported 400,000 pounds for her in September 2022, a world record in women’s football, and she went on to win two UEFA Women’s Champions League titles and a domestic continental quadruple. In January 2025 she returned to England with Chelsea on a four-and-a-half-year contract, signed explicitly to help the club convert domestic dominance into European success. For corporate audiences, the substance is composure under exposure. Walsh is a working professional who has been the named senior player in a unit twice asked to win a continental final, and a transfer asset twice priced at the top of her market. The MBE awarded in the 2026 New Year Honours marks the public record. The more useful material is the operating detail behind it. Key speaking topics Composure and decision-making under pressure Elite team culture and cohesion Resilience after setback and injury Performing after a step-change in expectation Women’s sport and the commercial reset of the game Leadership in the holding role Ideal for Leadership teams preparing for a high-scrutiny year: post-IPO, post-acquisition, new mandate CHROs and culture leads building cohesion in senior teams under sustained pressure Conference audiences in sport, media and consumer brands engaging with the growth of women’s football Employee and partner events where the brief is human performance rather than technical content Audience outcomes A first-hand picture of how a winning international squad makes decisions in the final twenty minutes of a closely fought match. A working definition of composure that is usable by senior leaders, not motivational language. A concrete example of what changes when an individual is priced and expected to operate at the very top of their market. An honest account of leaving a winning environment for a harder one, and the reasoning behind it.

Why organisations work with Demi Stokes A first-hand voice from the England squad that won UEFA Women’s Euro 2022, the most commercially significant moment in English women’s football. Nine seasons at the top of the Women’s Super League with Manchester City, including a WSL title, three FA Cups and three League Cups, plus a return to first-team football after the premature birth of her son. A current player and Newcastle United captain, which gives event audiences access to a live insider perspective rather than a retrospective career story. A credible advocate on premature birth and neonatal care through her Pampers UK ambassadorship with Bliss and UNICEF, suited to wellbeing, parental-leave and ERG-focused events. Biography highlights Member of the England squad that won UEFA Women’s Euro 2022; 69 senior caps between 2014 and 2023. Won the FA Women’s Super League, three FA Women’s Cups and three League Cups with Manchester City between 2015 and 2024. Named in the PFA WSL Team of the Year in 2018 and 2019. Captained Team GB to gold at the 2013 Summer Universiade in Kazan and represented Team GB at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Signed for Newcastle United Women in July 2024 and named club captain ahead of the 2025/26 season. Pampers UK ambassador for the #PampersforPreemies campaign with Bliss and UNICEF. Biography Most elite athletes peak inside a single environment. Demi Stokes built her career across four of them. Sunderland gave her a first-team debut at sixteen and an FA Cup final in 2009. A scholarship to the University of South Florida added four years of US college football. A summer at Vancouver Whitecaps in the USL W League followed before Manchester City signed her in January 2015. What she built at City is the substance of the speaking story. Nine seasons, more than 100 first-team appearances, the 2016 FA WSL title, three FA Women’s Cups and three League Cups. Two PFA WSL Team of the Year selections, in 2018 and 2019. A senior England debut in 2014, and a place in the squad that won UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 at Wembley, the most commercially important moment in English women’s football. The personal layer runs alongside the career. Stokes was born ten weeks premature herself, and her son Harlen spent time in a neonatal unit after a difficult pregnancy that included pre-eclampsia. She has spoken openly about that period in interviews with Grazia and Mother & Baby, and works with Pampers UK on the #PampersforPreemies campaign in partnership with Bliss and UNICEF. The throughline that audiences hear is how a senior international footballer sustains performance through events that most workplaces still struggle to talk about. She left Manchester City in May 2024, signed for Newcastle United Women in July, and was named club captain ahead of the 2025/26 season. The story she brings to a room is current, not archived. Key speaking topics Lionesses and UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 Women’s football and the professionalisation of the game Return to elite performance after a difficult pregnancy Premature birth, neonatal care and family advocacy Leadership in a dressing room and team identity Long-career resilience across clubs, countries and codes Ideal for Internal events tied to International Women’s Day, parental-leave policy launches or working-parent ERGs. Wellbeing, EDI and culture programmes looking for a credible voice on resilience and identity rather than a clinical specialist. Sport-sponsorship activations, hospitality nights and awards dinners where a current Lioness presence is the brief. Audience outcomes An inside account of the England squad that won UEFA Women’s Euro 2022, told by a senior squad member. A direct view of how a top-flight athlete returns to performance after a high-risk pregnancy and a premature birth. A useable reference point for managers thinking about how to support employees through major personal events. A current-player perspective on dressing-room leadership and the demands of being a club captain.

Why organisations work with Dean Ashton A first-person account of how an elite career ends without warning, and what it takes to construct a credible second one from scratch in a watched, public arena. Direct experience of performing under scrutiny, from Premier League football and an FA Cup final to live broadcast on talkSPORT, Sky Sports, ITV and Quest, is useful to leaders whose own work has become more publicly observed. A grounded, unvarnished voice on mental health, injury and identity loss, drawn from being told at 26 that the work he had trained his life for was over. An after-dinner presence that lifts the energy of a room, with material a sports-literate UK audience recognises immediately: Crewe academy, Norwich, the £7.25m move to West Ham, the 2006 cup final, the England debut against Trinidad & Tobago. Biography highlights Capped by England at the senior level; made his debut against Trinidad & Tobago on 1 June 2008. Signed by West Ham United from Norwich City in January 2006 for a then club-record £7.25m fee. Scored in the 3-3 FA Cup final against Liverpool in May 2006. Career ended in December 2009 at age 26 following a long-term ankle injury sustained in England training in August 2006. Product of the Crewe Alexandra academy under Dario Gradi; scored 74 goals in 177 appearances for the club. Now a pundit and co-commentator across talkSPORT, Sky Sports, ITV, Premier League TV and The EFL Show on Quest. Biography Ashton was a £7.25m centre-forward, an FA Cup final scorer, and an England international by the time he was 24. By 26, he was retired. The ankle injury sustained in an England training session in August 2006 never fully healed, and in December 2009, West Ham confirmed publicly what he had been trying to outrun for three years. The interesting part of the story for organisations is what came next. The default path for a player in that position is a quiet drift out of public life. Ashton instead built a second career inside the same scrutiny he had been performing in as a player, this time as a broadcaster, working as a pundit and co-commentator across talkSPORT, Sky Sports, ITV, Premier League TV and The EFL Show on Quest. That arc is the substance of his speaking work. The material is not abstract resilience theory. It is a specific account of identity loss at 26, the practical mechanics of rebuilding professional credibility in a new field, and the discipline of performing under live scrutiny when the result is judged in public. He talks honestly about mental health, public pressure and the version of yourself you have to construct when the original plan is gone. For a UK corporate audience, Ashton sits at the intersection of after-dinner sports speaker and credible voice on dealing with career shock. The football material gives the room an immediate point of entry. The reinvention material is what a leadership audience actually takes away. Key speaking topics Resilience after career-ending shock Reinvention and second careers Performing under public scrutiny Mental health and identity in elite performance environments Team culture and high performance in professional sport After-dinner sports speaking and Premier League punditry Ideal for HR, leadership and wellbeing conferences where the brief calls for an honest first-person voice on resilience and mental health. Sales kick-offs, awards dinners and partner events are looking for a UK sports-literate after-dinner speaker with substance behind the anecdotes. Internal leadership offsites addressing change fatigue, role loss after restructure, or the reset that follows a strategic shock. Audience outcomes A grounded sense of what resilience looks like in practice when the original plan is no longer available. A more honest internal vocabulary for talking about mental health, identity and pressure at senior levels. A reference point for thinking about career reinvention as a deliberate, constructed process rather than a recovery story. An engaged, sports-literate room, set up well for the rest of the agenda.

Why organisations work with Ade Oladipo He brings live broadcast craft to corporate events: DAZN Boxing, talkSPORT and Amazon Prime Premier League coverage are all built on holding a live audience under pressure, which is exactly what large internal conferences and award nights demand. His career is a documented case of breaking a colour barrier in UK sports media, becoming the first Black presenter of a live Premier League match in December 2023. That is concrete material, not abstract DEI commentary. His speaking themes (adversity, mental health, working in media) are grounded in his own route through fostering, East London, sports trials and a non-traditional path into journalism, which gives the content specificity rather than slogans. He is equally credible as keynote speaker, panel moderator and awards host, which makes him useful for clients who need one booking to cover the whole evening. Biography highlights Lead presenter for DAZN Boxing and host of “The DAZN Boxing Show”, covering Anthony Joshua, Canelo Alvarez, Gervonta Davis and KSI fights. First Black presenter of a live Premier League match in the UK, anchoring Amazon Prime’s coverage of Crystal Palace v Bournemouth in December 2023. Presenter across the talkSPORT network, including “The Social” on talkSPORT 2 and pundit work on “Kick Off Added Time”. Winner of the 2021 Audio Production Awards “Best New Voice”. Co-host of the 2023 ARIAS-nominated podcast “The Men’s Room”. Prior credits include Sky Sports News (Premier League and EFL transfer reporting), ESPN, Fox Sports and Arise News. Biography Live boxing on DAZN, Premier League football on Amazon Prime, weekly radio on talkSPORT. Three different audiences, three different production cultures, one presenter holding the room when the broadcast is live and the script has gone. That is the working life Ade Oladipo has built, and it is the material he brings into the corporate room. In December 2023 he became the first Black presenter of a live Premier League match in the UK, leading Amazon Prime’s coverage of Crystal Palace against Bournemouth. The story behind that night runs through Brighton foster care, East London, Essex football and athletics, a Tottenham Hotspur Academy trial, and an entry into sports journalism in 2015 at Arise News. None of it was the standard route. His speaking work draws on that route directly. The themes are adversity, mental health, and what it takes to keep doing the work when you are the only person in the room who looks like you. Awards include the 2021 Audio Production Awards “Best New Voice” and a 2023 ARIAS nomination as co-host of “The Men’s Room” podcast, evidence that the craft holds up alongside the story. For corporate clients his most direct value is hosting craft: keynote, Q&A, awards, panel moderation, all delivered with the calm of someone who presents live boxing for a living. The keynote on adversity and mental health is the additional offer when the brief calls for it. Key speaking topics Mental health and resilience in high-pressure work Adversity and non-linear career paths Race and representation in UK media Sports broadcasting and live presenting Event hosting and panel moderation Awards night MC Ideal for Corporate event organisers needing a host who can carry a full evening: keynote, panel, awards. Internal CHRO and DEI leads commissioning content on lived experience rather than policy. Sports, media and entertainment industry conferences. Employee Resource Group events, particularly those focused on Black professionals in white-majority industries. Audience outcomes A clear sense of what sustained mental health practice looks like for someone working under public scrutiny. A specific story of breaking into and breaking through a closed industry, used as material for their own career conversations. A sharper view of what genuine inclusion feels like from inside, beyond the slide deck. An event held together by a presenter trained on live broadcast, not a corporate stage.

Why organisations work with Aoife Mannion She has rebuilt her career twice from ACL ruptures, including a 16-month layoff after a Champions League injury, and can describe the rehab discipline that goes with it without losing the room. Her mental-health work is institutional rather than personal commentary: she sits on FIFPRO’s Mental Health Taskforce, the global players’ union body that shapes player welfare standards. She holds back-to-back PFA WSL Team of the Year selections from her Birmingham City years, a peer-voted credential rather than a media one. She represents the Republic of Ireland after a long youth career in the England system, and can speak credibly to identity, belonging and late-career reinvention without trading on clichés. Biography highlights Centre-back for Newcastle United Women and the Republic of Ireland senior squad Former Manchester United, Manchester City, Birmingham City, and Aston Villa player 2024 Women’s FA Cup winner with Manchester United PFA WSL Team of the Year 2017-18 and 2018-19 Member of FIFPRO Mental Health Taskforce Senior Ireland debut on 22 February 2023 versus China Biography Recovery from a serious ACL injury takes around twelve months on a clean run, longer when the second one arrives before the first is fully behind you. Aoife Mannion has done both. The first rupture came during a 2019 Champions League tie against Atletico Madrid and kept her out for sixteen months. The second came in March 2022, eight months into her Manchester United contract. She was a peer-voted selection for the PFA WSL Team of the Year in two consecutive seasons at Birmingham City, then won the Women’s FA Cup with Manchester United in 2024 after that second comeback. She now plays for Newcastle United Women in the WSL2 and the Republic of Ireland senior squad, having made her international debut in February 2023 after a long youth career inside the England system. The mental health work is structural. Mannion sits on FIFPRO’s Mental Health Taskforce, the global players’ union body that sets welfare standards across professional football, and has spoken through FIFPRO on what long injury layoffs do to identity and to a person’s relationship with the work that defines them. The argument she makes to corporate audiences is the one she had to make to herself twice: composure is a discipline you build before you need it, and the conversation around the setback is the part that reduces the suffering. She speaks for organisations dealing with people in long, uncertain recoveries of their own, whether after restructure, after public failure, or after the kind of personal setback that does not respect the working week. Key speaking topics Resilience after a serious setback Rehabilitation discipline and the long return Mental health in high-performance environments Self-leadership under prolonged pressure Identity, belonging and dual nationality Feedback and honest performance conversations Ideal for CHROs and people leaders building resilience programmes that go beyond wellbeing branding Executive teams and leadership offsites where the brief is composed under sustained adversity Organisations in or after restructure where the workforce is dealing with prolonged uncertainty Networks for women in sport, performance and corporate leadership Audience outcomes A clearer language for what real recovery from a setback looks like over months, not weeks A practical view of how mental health support works inside elite teams, drawn from FIFPRO’s policy work Honest reference points for separating identity from role when the role is interrupted Reasons to take rehabilitation, recovery and feedback seriously as leadership disciplines, not soft skills