Resilience & Stress Management

Why organisations work with Tye Caldwell He built a venture-backed marketplace inside an industry with almost no tech infrastructure, took it to more than 1,000 cities, and exited it. The arc is rare and instructive. He pairs 26 years as a working salon operator with the founder seat, giving him operator credibility that pure tech founders cannot replicate. He has been through the full investor cycle, accelerators including Google for Startups, the EY Entrepreneurs Access Network, accelerator wins, growth pressure, and an acquisition under strain. The lessons are first-hand. He addresses economic mobility and the practical mechanics of creating earning opportunities in underserved markets, drawn from a marketplace that did exactly that for independent stylists and barbers. He is comfortable in front of corporate audiences and small business audiences, having spoken at Google, on Rolling Stone Culture Council panels, and at continuing education events where his book is part of the curriculum. Biography highlights Cofounder and former Chief Strategy Officer, ShearShare, acquired November 2024 Winner, Judges’ Favorite, Google Demo Day 2018 (first Texas startup to win) 2024 EY Entrepreneurs Access Network cohort member Pitchbook Black Founder to Watch 2023; Power 100 Business Leaders of Color 2023 Author, “Mentored by Failure: A 5-Point Guide to Long-Term Success in the Beauty & Style Industry,” used in continuing education curricula 26 years as a master barber-stylist and former owner of an award-winning Dallas salon Biography ShearShare started not as an app but as a workaround. Caldwell, running an award-winning Dallas salon, noticed that stylists and barbers wanted day leases rather than long contracts. He spent three years manually matching cosmetologists to empty chairs before building the platform. By the time the company won Judges’ Favorite at Google Demo Day 2018, the operating model had already been pressure-tested by a working salon owner. The company went on to reach more than 1,000 cities, secured a corporate partnership with JC Penney’s salon network, and was selected for the 2024 EY Entrepreneurs Access Network cohort. In November 2024, ShearShare was acquired by a strategic buyer in the industry and the Caldwells exited. The full arc, identification of an underserved category, accelerator traction, growth capital, partnership wins, and an acquisition under financial strain, gives Caldwell unusual range as a commentator on what scale actually costs. He pairs that founder track with 26 years inside the industry he disrupted. He is a master barber-stylist, an educator, an advisory board member for beauty schools, and the author of “Mentored by Failure,” a #1 bestselling guide used in continuing education curricula. Operator credibility runs through the work, not as a marketing line but as the source of the thesis. His most cited talks address how to lead a startup when the seat is peerless, how to translate operator expertise into a tech founder’s commercial vocabulary, and how marketplaces can be designed to move earnings into underserved communities. He has been recognised as a Pitchbook Black Founder to Watch and a Power 100 Business Leader of Color, and his work has been profiled in Fast Company, the New York Times, Forbes and TechCrunch. Key speaking topics B2B marketplace founding and scaling Operator-to-tech-founder transition Economic mobility through platform design Startup CEO resilience and decision-making Co-founder partnerships and founder relationships Accelerator and venture capital experience Small business growth in the beauty and services industry Ideal for Founders, scale-up CEOs, and venture-backed leadership teams Corporate innovation, marketplace and platform business unit leads Diversity and supplier development teams sourcing operator-credible voices Industry associations and continuing education programmes in beauty, barbering and services Audience outcomes A founder account of building a marketplace inside a low-tech, fragmented industry The operational reality of moving from owner-operator to venture-backed CEO Specifics on how accelerators, corporate partnerships and capital cycles played out across one company’s arc A practitioner view of how marketplace design can create earnings access in underserved markets Direct lessons from an acquisition under financial pressure, not a polished exit narrative

Why organisations work with Britteny Floyd-Mayo She built a recognised consumer wellness brand, Trap Yoga Bae®, that reaches audiences who feel ostracised by standard wellness content. That gives her credibility with employees who tune out the corporate version. Her work sits at the intersection of wellbeing and inclusion, two budgets that increasingly need to be defended together. She speaks to both without separating them. She delivers in formats most wellness speakers cannot: a 45-minute movement and music-led experience as comfortably as a keynote or workshop. That makes her useful for offsites, conferences, and ERG events where a talk alone would not move the room. She has been programmed alongside mainstream consumer brands (Lululemon, Eventbrite, Essence Festival), which signals she can hold a corporate stage without softening the cultural specificity that makes the work distinctive. Biography highlights Founder of Trap Yoga Bae®, a trademarked inclusive wellness brand combining yoga, hip-hop culture, and self-care. Studied Positive Psychology and Social Behavioral Studies at Dillard University and Holy Names University. Certified in Vinyasa yoga in India. Named in Forbes among the top 8 Black Wellness experts to watch. Featured in Issa Rae’s HBO Max series Sweet Life. Speaker and featured artist for Lululemon, Eventbrite, Brit + Co, Black Girls Code, Black Joy Parade, and the 25th Annual Essence Festival. Biography Most corporate wellness and inclusion programming is built for a default employee. The people it most needs to reach, those who already feel like outsiders in the room, are the ones who quietly opt out. Britteny Floyd-Mayo built her brand inside that gap. Trap Yoga Bae® started as a response to feeling unwelcome in standard yoga studios. It grew into a trademarked wellness movement that pairs yoga and meditation with hip-hop, cultural specificity, and direct language. The work is taken seriously enough that Forbes has named her among the top Black wellness experts to watch, and that Issa Rae cast her in the HBO Max series Sweet Life. The educational backbone is real. She studied Positive Psychology and Social Behavioral Studies at Dillard University and Holy Names University, and trained for Vinyasa certification in India. That foundation is why the talks travel beyond the yoga mat into burnout, boundary-setting, and the working conditions that shape mental health for women and employees of colour. For organisations, the practical question she answers is uncomfortable but useful. Why are the people your wellbeing and inclusion programmes were designed for the ones most likely to disengage from them, and what does a version look like that they would actually choose? She has built a partnership list (Lululemon, Eventbrite, Black Girls Code, Essence Festival) that suggests the answer travels. Key speaking topics Inclusive wellbeing and self-care Burnout prevention for women founders and leaders Boundary-setting at work Mental health and resilience Cultural relevance in DEI and wellness programming Entrepreneurship and personal brand-building Employee Resource Group (ERG) keynotes and experiences Ideal for Heads of DEI, ERG leads, and culture teams running inclusion or wellbeing programming for Black employees and other under-served groups. CHROs and benefits leaders looking to refresh wellbeing offerings that have stopped landing. Women’s leadership networks and founder communities focused on burnout and boundary-setting. Conference and offsite programmers needing an experiential keynote rather than a panel discussion. Audience outcomes Practical language for setting boundaries without apology, drawn from her No Is A Full Sentence framework. A different reference point for what inclusive wellbeing looks like in practice, not in policy. Specific tools from the From Pain to Paradise method for processing setback and burnout. An experience employees describe afterwards as theirs, not the company’s, which is the test most wellbeing programmes fail.

Why organisations work with Sir Gareth Southgate His England management tenure is the subject of a published case study at Harvard Business School – one of the few occasions in sport where a coaching approach has been formally codified as an executive leadership model. He rebuilt a national team culture from a position of public failure and sustained performance across four consecutive major tournaments. That track record gives his thinking on culture change and sustained delivery a foundation most leadership authors lack. Dear England: Lessons in Leadership (Sunday Times instant bestseller, 2025) sets out the specific reasoning behind his decisions under pressure – on accountability, psychological safety, selection, and standing behind unpopular choices – in a form directly applicable to organisational leadership. He led through personal, very public failure – the Euro ’96 penalty miss that defined a decade of his public identity – and through two consecutive tournament final defeats. His account of resilience starts from having lived the worst-case scenario, not from having studied it. During intense national debates on race, identity, and protest, he articulated a values position publicly and held a diverse squad together through that pressure. Organisations navigating social or political tension inside teams get a practitioner account of what that demands in practice. Biography highlights England men’s senior manager 2016-2024; 102 matches, 61 wins – more major tournament games won than any other England manager in history Only the second England manager to reach a major tournament final, after Sir Alf Ramsey in 1966; reached consecutive European Championship finals in 2021 and 2024 Knighted in the King’s New Year Honours 2025; previously appointed OBE in 2019 Visiting lecturer at Harvard Business School; his England tenure is the subject of a published HBS leadership case study Author of Dear England: Lessons in Leadership (Cornerstone, 2025) – an instant Sunday Times bestseller; delivered the 2025 BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC One, joining Bill Gates, Christine Lagarde, and the Prince of Wales as past speakers in the series Two-time BBC Sports Personality of the Year Coach Award (2018 and 2021); playing career spanning over 500 appearances for Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, and Middlesbrough, with 57 England caps Biography When Gareth Southgate took charge of England in 2016, the national team had just been knocked out of the Euros by Iceland. Public confidence was at a low. Over eight years and four major tournaments, he rebuilt the team’s culture entirely. The result was consecutive European Championship finals and a record for the most major tournament games won by any England manager. His approach is now the subject of a case study taught at Harvard Business School. The method was deliberate cultural architecture rather than tactical adjustment. Southgate prioritised psychological safety, shared values, and a team identity that held under pressure. His open letter to England fans during COVID-19 inspired the award-winning West End play Dear England. It demonstrated how he treated transparency and personal vulnerability as leadership tools, not liabilities. Southgate delivered the 2025 BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC One, joining Bill Gates, Christine Lagarde, and the Prince of Wales as previous speakers in the series. Dear England: Lessons in Leadership became an instant Sunday Times bestseller; the Guardian described it as articulating a moral vision that went beyond the reach of contemporary British politics. He was knighted in the King’s New Year Honours 2025 for services to association football. The fractured starting point, intense public accountability, and need to build individual and collective performance simultaneously – these are not challenges unique to sport. His insights are drawn from eight consecutive years at the sharp end of that problem, not from theory. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained public scrutiny Culture transformation and team identity Values-based accountability Resilience and performance through failure Psychological safety and trust in high-stakes teams Inclusive leadership and diversity of thought Decision-making in high-pressure environments Ideal for Senior leadership teams and C-suite executives navigating cultural or strategic transformation CHROs and people leaders working on team culture, inclusion, and performance under pressure Board-level and executive leadership development programmes Organisations in high-scrutiny sectors – financial services, public institutions, large consumer-facing businesses – where leadership decisions carry public accountability Audience outcomes A concrete model for building values-led culture that outlasts individual results cycles First-hand perspective on decision-making under public pressure: how values, not tactics, determine outcomes over time Practical insight into what psychological safety looks like in a high-accountability, high-visibility environment A framework for holding team identity together through failure, scrutiny, and competing stakeholder demands An honest account of how personal and public setback can become the foundation of leadership credibility rather than a liability

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

Why organisations work with Tom Coleman He brings clinical sleep science into operational contexts where it actually changes behaviour, including shift-working teams, elite sport and high-pressure corporate environments. His client base spans nine of the top ten pharmaceutical companies along with Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Roche, Deloitte and Samsung, demonstrating that the content lands across regulated, industrial and consumer-facing workforces. He works with institutional partners that most wellbeing speakers do not, including An Garda Siochana on officer resilience and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on shift-working nurses. His framing treats burnout and recovery as biology, not motivation, which gives senior leaders a defensible language for investment decisions on workforce health. Biography highlights Honours Degree in Public Health and qualified health scientist. Resident sleep expert for Bauer Media, with regular contributions to Newstalk and Today FM. Consultant to An Garda Siochana on health and resilience strategy for serving officers. Collaborator with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on educational material for shift-working healthcare staff. Corporate clients include Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Roche, Deloitte, Samsung, eBay, PayPal, AIB, Dropbox, DHL and Irish Rail. Has worked with Olympic and elite athletes on sleep analytics and recovery. Biography Most wellbeing programmes treat sleep as a personal problem. Coleman treats it as an operating risk. His work translates clinical sleep science into inputs that organisations can actually manage, including shift schedules, recovery protocols and executive workload. The grounding is academic and applied. An Honours Degree in Public Health, qualification as a health scientist, and over a decade of consulting with corporate and elite-sport clients give him a base most wellness speakers cannot match. He has worked with Olympic athletes on recovery analytics, with An Garda Siochana on officer resilience, and with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland on educational content for shift-working nurses. The corporate footprint is substantial. Nine of the top ten pharmaceutical companies have used his programmes, alongside Coca-Cola, Pfizer, Roche, Deloitte, Samsung, eBay, PayPal, AIB, Dropbox and Irish Rail. The work is consistent across very different operating models, which is what gives senior buyers confidence that this is a scalable intervention rather than a single-keynote topic. As Bauer Media’s resident sleep expert in Ireland, he is the voice most regularly consulted by Newstalk and Today FM on sleep and recovery. That media role keeps the content sharp, current and accessible to non-specialist audiences, which matters when the brief is a board offsite or an all-hands rather than a clinical seminar. Key speaking topics Sleep science in the workplace Burnout prevention and recovery Shift work and circadian performance Recovery for high-pressure roles Stress, fatigue and decision quality Health and longevity for executives Ideal for CHROs and heads of wellbeing redesigning health and resilience strategy Operations leaders accountable for shift-working populations in healthcare, manufacturing, logistics or emergency services Executive teams under sustained workload pressure where recovery is the bottleneck Talent and engagement leaders looking to move beyond mindfulness app procurement Audience outcomes A clear separation between fatigue, stress and burnout, with different organisational responses for each Specific behavioural inputs that improve sleep quality, applicable to executives and shift workers alike A defensible business case for recovery as a performance variable rather than a benefits line item Practical structures for managers responsible for high-pressure or round-the-clock teams

Why organisations work with Zahaan Bharmal He sits inside Google at senior level, shaping how the company communicates AI to enterprise and policy audiences across EMEA. Boards get an insider’s read on where AI is actually heading, not a consultant’s deck. His book The Art of Physics gives him a developed framework for using ideas like uncertainty, entropy and chaos to interrogate strategic decisions. Audiences leave with a vocabulary for thinking, not a slide of takeaways. He founded YouTube Space Lab, the international science competition run with NASA, ESA and JAXA, and holds NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. That is a credential almost no other corporate keynote speaker carries. He moves between physics, AI, government and frontier industry, advising the commercial space station company Vast. The result is a speaker who can talk to a board about AI strategy and to a STEM audience about scientific curiosity without changing register. Biography highlights Senior Director at Google, London, with seventeen years at the company across strategy, marketing and communications, including work with Google DeepMind. Author of The Art of Physics: Eight Elegant Ideas to Make Sense of Almost Everything (2024), published in the UK by Hodder and in North America by Greystone Books. Founder of YouTube Space Lab, run with NASA, ESA, JAXA and Lenovo, reaching students in over eighty countries. Recipient of NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. Physics graduate of the University of Oxford and Fulbright Scholar with an MBA from Stanford University. Regular contributor on physics and space to The Guardian; advisor to commercial space station company Vast. Biography Frontier AI is being deployed inside organisations faster than most boards can build the judgement to govern it. The hard question is not what the technology can do. It is how to make defensible decisions when the underlying system is changing every quarter and the available evidence keeps shifting. That is the territory Zahaan Bharmal works in. As a Senior Director at Google with seventeen years at the company, he has led strategy and communications across marketing, operations and Google DeepMind, focused on how AI is understood and adopted by enterprise and policy audiences in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He brings boards an insider’s view of how a frontier AI organisation actually thinks about deployment, risk and credibility. His book The Art of Physics, published in 2024 by Hodder in the UK and Greystone in North America, sets out eight ideas from physics, including uncertainty, entropy and chaos theory, and uses them to interrogate everyday decision-making. The argument carries weight because of where he sits: a physicist by training who has spent a career inside one of the companies building the systems that now sit on every executive agenda. Before Google, Zahaan studied Physics at Oxford, worked as a management consultant and then as a UK Government policy adviser, before winning a Fulbright Scholarship to Stanford for an MBA. He founded YouTube Space Lab with NASA, ESA and JAXA, the largest international school space science competition, for which he received NASA’s Exceptional Public Achievement Medal. He writes on science for The Guardian and advises Vast, the private company building commercial space stations. Key speaking topics Artificial intelligence and the practical limits of corporate decision-making Ideas from physics applied to leadership under uncertainty Science communication and public trust in AI Curiosity, complexity and innovation Resilience and composure in fast-moving systems The future of space and frontier industries Ideal for Board and executive committee sessions on AI strategy and responsible adoption Senior leadership audiences in regulated industries grappling with frontier technology decisions CHRO, CSO and transformation leads working on decision quality under uncertainty Innovation, R&D and STEM audiences inside scientific and engineering organisations Audience outcomes A clearer mental model for making decisions when the evidence base is moving Specific physics-derived heuristics for thinking about uncertainty, entropy and chaos in commercial contexts An insider’s view of how AI is being built, deployed and communicated inside a frontier technology company Renewed appetite for scientific curiosity as a leadership trait, not a soft skill

Why organisations work with Georgie Frost A finance voice employees already trust. Frost reaches a mainstream UK audience every week through This is Money and Times Money Mentor, which makes her credible to a workforce that tunes out internal benefits messaging. A 2016 Headline Money Financial Broadcast Journalist of the Year award and a decade of national radio and TV work, so the credibility is external and verifiable, not bureau marketing. A live event operator. She has hosted from COP, Cannes Lions and Mobile World Congress, which means she can hold a complex commercial agenda on stage, not only deliver a keynote. A first-person story about debt, chronic pain and rebuilding a career that gives financial wellbeing sessions emotional substance without slipping into motivational territory. BBC sports broadcasting background and an MA in Political Communications from Goldsmiths, which together explain why she can translate technical finance into language a non-specialist audience will sit with. Biography highlights Host, This is Money podcast Editor-at-large, Times Money Mentor (The Times) Headline Money Financial Broadcast Journalist of the Year, 2016 Regular contributor, Times Radio, BBC national and regional stations, TalkRadio Event host at COP, Cannes Lions Festival, Mobile World Congress MA Political Communications, Goldsmiths; PGDip Broadcasting; BA History, University of Bristol Biography Personal finance is the most widely discussed and least well taught subject in British public life. Employees read about inflation, mortgage rates and pension changes every day, but most of them still describe themselves as financially anxious. Internal benefits communication rarely closes that gap. This is the territory Frost has worked in for more than a decade. As host of the This is Money podcast and editor-at-large at Times Money Mentor, she sits inside two of the largest mainstream personal finance audiences in the UK. Her weekly job is to make consumer finance, household economics and policy change legible to people who do not work in financial services. She moved into finance after a back injury in 2008 ended a decade of BBC sports broadcasting and pushed her into serious debt. An NHS pain management programme in 2014, followed by an MA in Political Communications at Goldsmiths and qualifications in consumer law and personal finance, was the route back. That biography is part of why her financial wellbeing work lands: she is talking about money from inside the problem, not above it. Outside the studio she has hosted live events at COP, Cannes Lions and Mobile World Congress, on briefs spanning climate, AI and marketing. Headline Money named her Financial Broadcast Journalist of the Year in 2016. Organisations book her to host a complex commercial agenda, to moderate finance and consumer panels, or to deliver a keynote on financial wellbeing where credibility with a non-specialist audience is the brief. Key speaking topics Financial wellbeing in the workplace Personal finance and consumer affairs Financial inclusion and engagement Women and money Resilience through health and financial setback Conference hosting and panel moderation Business of sport Ideal for CHROs and reward leaders designing financial wellbeing programmes Internal communications teams briefing employees on pay, pensions and benefits Financial services brands running customer or partner events Conference organisers needing a host across finance, consumer, sustainability or technology agendas Audience outcomes A clearer read on why financial wellbeing programmes fail to engage employees, and what changes the dynamic Language and framing that makes money conversations land with a non-specialist workforce A first-person account of rebuilding financial life after debt, injury and chronic pain A finance and consumer agenda chaired with the cadence of a live broadcast, not a corporate script

Why organisations work with David Allen He speaks from inside the experience, not about it. A person describing decades of OCD, severe health anxiety and depression in their own words does work that a clinician or a policy lead cannot do. He is a trained Lived Experience Practitioner, formally accredited to use personal recovery to support others, and a People’s Champion with Champions for Change, the volunteer movement that succeeded the Time to Change campaign run by the charity Mind. The mental health talk, “Living with OCD: A Survivor’s Guide”, is autobiographical and practical at the same time: it covers triggers, daily impact and the coping strategies he has built, rather than general awareness messaging. He also offers researched social-history talks on Victorian England and storytelling travel sessions, which makes him a flexible choice for community groups, member associations and after-dinner programmes that want a single speaker for a varied evening. Biography highlights Lived Experience Practitioner working through Champions for Change, the volunteer movement that succeeded the Time to Change campaign of the mental health charity Mind. Holds the People’s Champion designation within that movement. Around 15 years as a professional public speaker, with festival appearances at Buxton, Edinburgh Fringe and Latitude. Member of the Dickens Fellowship, with a research focus on Victorian social and criminal history. Trained as a solicitor and as a primary school teacher before moving into full-time speaking. Regular speaker on the UK community-association circuit: U3A, Rotary, WI, Townswomen’s Guilds, Probus and 41 Clubs across the south east of England. Biography OCD is one of the most misunderstood common mental health conditions in the workplace. It is treated as a punchline about tidiness, when in clinical reality it is an anxiety disorder that can take hours out of a person’s day. Allen has lived with it since childhood, alongside depression and severe health anxiety, and has built a public talk out of that experience rather than out of theory. The credential that sits behind the talk is specific. After the pandemic, he trained as a Lived Experience Practitioner, the formal route by which people with their own history of mental illness are accredited to support others in recovery. He volunteers as a People’s Champion with Champions for Change, the local volunteer network that took over from the national Time to Change campaign run by Mind in 2022. That gives the OCD talk a grounding in something more than personal disclosure. The wider speaking career runs alongside that work. Allen trained as a solicitor and then as a primary school teacher before going full-time on the speaking circuit, where he has now been for around fifteen years. He is a member of the Dickens Fellowship and writes and performs researched talks on Victorian England, on Charles Dickens specifically, and on his own bicycle and hitchhiking journeys across Europe and North Africa. He has performed at Buxton Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe and Latitude. For a corporate audience, the value is narrow and specific: a first-person account of severe OCD, delivered by someone who has spent years working out how to talk about it in a room of strangers. For community associations, member groups and festival programmes, the range widens into Victorian history and travel storytelling. Key speaking topics Living with OCD and severe health anxiety Lived-experience mental health advocacy Stigma and mental illness in everyday life Victorian social history Charles Dickens and his world Long-distance bicycle and hitchhiking travel Ideal for Employee wellbeing programmes, mental health awareness weeks and stigma-reduction events inside large employers Healthcare and nursing audiences looking for a lived-experience voice alongside clinical content U3As, Rotary Clubs, WIs, Probus groups, 41 Clubs and similar community associations Literary festivals, history societies and after-dinner programmes booking storytelling sessions Audience outcomes A concrete understanding of what OCD looks like from the inside, beyond the cultural shorthand Specific coping strategies that one person has developed over decades of living with anxiety Permission to talk about mental health more openly inside teams and families For history audiences, a researched and entertaining window into Victorian social life

Why organisations work with Katie Hilborn She built and ran a frontline humanitarian organisation across Nepal, Uganda, Bolivia, Tanzania, and Vietnam, so her account of leading under pressure is operational, not anecdotal. Her “Impact Architect” and “Change Compass” sessions translate that field experience into a usable model for leaders trying to hold culture together through restructure. She is a credible voice on purpose-led leadership for buyers who are tired of generic inspirational keynotes; the proof points are specific programmes, named countries, and measured outcomes at Compass Rose International. Recognition includes a Silver Anthem Award for Humanitarian Leader of the Year in the same cycle as the Dalai Lama and Jane Goodall, multiple Telly Awards, and The President’s Call to Service Award. She works as effectively with student and emerging-leader audiences as with executive groups, which gives her range across all-hands events, ERG summits, and leadership offsites. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Compass Rose International (formerly Global Orphan Prevention), a nonprofit operating mental wellness and girls’ education programmes including the Girls INpowerment Centers in Nepal. Led 13 aid missions in Nepal after the 2015 earthquake; uncovered and reported a child trafficking ring during relief operations. Silver Anthem Award, Humanitarian Leader of the Year, recognised in the same cohort as the Dalai Lama and Jane Goodall. Multiple Telly Awards; The President’s Call to Service Award; member of the Forbes Nonprofit Council. B.A., Colorado Mesa University (Mass Communications, Public Relations, Political Science); M.Ed., Grand Canyon University; certified secondary teacher (English Language Arts and Social Studies). Featured in New York Magazine, NBC Denver, and ABC Chicago; speaker at the Global Family Office Investment Summit, Northern Illinois University, and the 100th Annual PTA Convention. Biography The 2015 Nepal earthquake collapsed entire villages within minutes. Katie Hilborn flew in without an organisation behind her, ran 13 aid missions across remote districts, and in the process uncovered an active child trafficking ring operating under cover of disaster response. The work that followed became Compass Rose International, a nonprofit running mental wellness and girls’ education programmes across Nepal, Uganda, Tanzania, Bolivia, and Vietnam. That field record is the substance behind her keynote work. Hilborn talks about purpose-led leadership because she has had to operationalise it under conditions where the wrong call has immediate human cost. Her two flagship sessions, Impact Architect and The Change Compass, translate that experience into a working model for senior teams trying to hold culture together through restructure, integration, or strategic reset. Her credentials sit on top of that operating record rather than substituting for it. She is a Silver Anthem Award winner for Humanitarian Leader of the Year, a recipient of The President’s Call to Service Award, a Forbes Nonprofit Council member, and holds an M.Ed. alongside teacher certification. Compass Rose International itself carries the Guidestar Platinum Seal of Transparency. For corporate audiences, the value is a leader who has built and run something real, can speak with conviction about why purpose holds when the strategy shifts, and offers a structured way to think about heart-led decisions without sliding into the soft register that senior buyers usually push back on. Key speaking topics Purpose-driven culture and leadership Heart-centric leadership through change Resilience and decision-making under pressure Social entrepreneurship and impact at scale Intuition and leadership judgment Employee engagement and meaning at work Humanitarian leadership lessons for business Ideal for CHROs and people leaders rebuilding engagement after restructure or mission drift CEOs and executive teams setting culture through integration, transformation, or strategic reset Foundations, family offices, and impact investors framing purpose for portfolio leadership teams All-hands and emerging-leader audiences where the brief is conviction and resilience, not content depth on a technical topic Audience outcomes A working definition of purpose that survives contact with budget, headcount, and reorganisation decisions A specific lens, drawn from frontline humanitarian operations, for making heart-led decisions that still hold up to scrutiny Renewed belief among leaders that conviction is a strategic asset, not a soft skill, with examples to back it up A vocabulary for talking about meaning at work that does not collapse into cliche when senior leaders use it Practical takeaways from Compass Rose’s operating record on building and sustaining mission-led teams

Why organisations work with Jesse Israel He has run mass meditations for arena-sized audiences, including stops on Oprah Winfrey’s 2020 Vision tour with WW. Few speakers can hold the attention of 15,000 people in silence; he can, and that capability translates directly into all-hands and conference settings. His Amplified Quiet Framework gives leaders a usable structure for cutting through external, mental and physical noise, rather than a generic “mindfulness 101” overview. He bridges cultural credibility and corporate utility: Audible distribution, collaborations with Deepak Chopra, and a roster of corporate clients including Google, American Express, Aetna, Ford and Charles Schwab. He came to meditation from inside a high-pressure commercial career (Cantora Records, MGMT), which gives him a language senior teams accept: performance, focus, recovery, output. Biography highlights Founder of The Big Quiet, a mass meditation movement that has run sold-out arena gatherings and global virtual events. Personally invited by Oprah Winfrey to keynote her 2020 Vision: Your Life in Focus arena tour with WW. Co-host of virtual mass meditation broadcasts with Deepak Chopra. Five-time Audible bestseller through a worldwide distribution deal with Audible Originals under The Big Quiet imprint. Co-founded Cantora Records at NYU in 2005, the independent label that signed MGMT and released Time to Pretend. Corporate keynote clients include Google, American Express, Aetna, Ford and Charles Schwab; work covered in The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, The New York Times and AdWeek. Biography The hardest thing to deliver inside a high-performing organisation right now is not information. It is attention. Workforces are saturated with input, and the cost shows up as burnout, shallow thinking and meetings that leave teams more depleted than aligned. Jesse Israel built a career around fixing exactly that. He founded The Big Quiet, a mass meditation movement that has filled arenas with thousands of people sitting in silence together, and he was personally invited by Oprah Winfrey to keynote each stop of her 2020 Vision arena tour with WW, where he led roughly 15,000 people through guided meditations per show. His Amplified Quiet Framework is the version of that work designed for leadership teams. It treats stillness as a performance practice: a way of quieting external noise, mental noise and physical noise so that judgement, presence and recovery can return. Through a worldwide deal with Audible, five of his Big Quiet originals have become Audible top 10 bestsellers, and he has co-hosted global meditations with Deepak Chopra. What makes him different from most wellbeing speakers is the route in. He co-founded Cantora Records out of an NYU dorm room in 2005, signing MGMT and helping launch their breakout release Time to Pretend. He built and ran that label for nine years before turning to meditation, and corporate clients including Google, American Express, Aetna, Ford and Charles Schwab now book him to bring that same operator’s lens to wellbeing inside their organisations. Key speaking topics Mindfulness and meditation in the workplace Mental performance and resilience under pressure Leadership presence and attention Burnout, stress and recovery Designing large-scale shared experiences Career reinvention and personal change Ideal for CHROs and heads of wellbeing designing the next iteration of their mental health and resilience strategy Leadership teams and senior offsites looking for a high-credibility wellbeing intervention rather than a clinical one All-company conferences and town halls where a calm, focused collective moment is part of the design Sales and high-performance teams under sustained pressure to perform through uncertainty Audience outcomes A working framework for quieting external, mental and physical noise that leaders can apply the same week A direct experience of guided meditation at scale, often the first time senior audiences have tried it in a work setting Sharper language for talking about attention, focus and recovery as performance issues, not soft topics Practical entry points for embedding short stillness practices into team routines, offsites and large gatherings

Why organisations work with Alison Levine A leadership curriculum tested in two unforgiving classrooms: the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Leadership at West Point, and the death zone above 8,000 metres on Everest. A bestseller, On the Edge, with a substantive thesis on decision-making under uncertainty, endorsed by Mike Krzyzewski and named 800-CEO-READ Best Business Book in the leadership category. A board seat at the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke, which gives her direct line of sight into how the most-studied executive teams in sport and business actually behave under stress. A track record across the Seven Summits, both Poles, and a 600-mile West Antarctic traverse, which lets her speak about cohesion and risk from inside the conditions, not as commentary on them. Biography highlights Team captain, first American Women’s Everest Expedition. Completed the Adventure Grand Slam: Seven Summits plus skiing to both Poles. Fewer than forty people have done it. Adjunct professor for four years at the United States Military Academy at West Point, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Leadership. Board member and former Senior Fellow, Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics, Duke University. MBA, Duke. New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme Environments, foreword by Mike Krzyzewski. Executive producer of Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest (2022), which screened at 45 festivals and won 20 awards. Biography The orthodox leadership playbook still assumes a degree of environmental stability that most senior leaders no longer recognise from their own week. Conditions change before plans land. Information is partial, teams are tired, and the cost of a wrong call rises while the time to make it shrinks. This is the territory Levine has spent twenty years in, first on expedition and later in a West Point classroom. She served as team captain of the first American Women’s Everest Expedition, has summited the highest peak on each continent, skied to both Poles, and in 2008 completed a 600-mile traverse across West Antarctica hauling a 150-pound sled. She did all of this while managing Raynaud’s disease and the aftermath of three heart surgeries. The expeditions are not the message. They are the laboratory. For four years she taught leadership at the United States Military Academy at West Point, in the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Leadership, before transitioning to the Thayer Leader Development Group. She sits on the board of the Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics at Duke, where she earned her MBA, and was a Senior Fellow there. On the Edge, her bestseller, distils what holds and what fails when teams operate at the edge of capacity, and was named Best Business Book of the Year by 800-CEO-READ in the leadership category. What buyers get is a serious operator with a serious classroom record, who can describe the precise mechanics of decision-making, team cohesion, and the strategic use of fear in conditions where being wrong is final. Pasang: In the Shadow of Everest, the documentary she executive-produced about Nepal’s first female Everest summiter, sits alongside the rest of the work as evidence that her interest in leadership extends beyond her own expeditions. Key speaking topics Leadership under uncertainty Decision-making in extreme environments Team cohesion under pressure Risk, fear, and ego in senior leadership Resilience and recovery from setback Inclusive and values-based leadership Personal performance under physiological constraint Ideal for Boards and executive committees navigating sustained volatility Senior leadership offsites for operating teams in regulated, safety-critical, or capital-intensive sectors Military, law enforcement, emergency services and first-responder leadership programmes CHROs and learning leaders building leadership development curricula Audience outcomes A working model for making sound decisions when information is incomplete and conditions are deteriorating. A clearer view of how high-performing teams hold cohesion under fatigue, fear and disagreement. Specific tools for separating useful fear from career-limiting risk aversion. A reframe of setbacks and physical limitations as data, not as identity. Confidence that leadership lessons from the death zone translate into board-level decision practice, not metaphor.

Why organisations work with Simon T. Bailey Original research on workforce resilience. His State of Working America: Thriving in Resilience and Brilliance study surveyed over 1,000 US workers and underpins his keynotes with current data rather than received wisdom. A customer experience playbook rooted in operational reality. His SPARK methodology distils what he learned as Sales Director of the Disney Institute into practices that frontline teams can apply. Award-winning published work. Resilience@Work won both the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Independent Press Award, signalling editorial credibility beyond bureau-circuit hype. Reach that translates into recognition inside client organisations. His 14 LinkedIn Learning courses have reached more than 400,000 professionals, so audiences often arrive already familiar with the material. Biography highlights Founder and CEO, Brilliance Institute, Inc. Former Sales Director, Disney Institute (seven years as a Disney cast member). Author of 11 books, including Release Your Brilliance (HarperCollins), ranked No. 17 by 800-CEO-Read among the top 100 books being read by corporate America. Resilience@Work recipient of the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Independent Press Award. Named to Success magazine’s Top 25 thought leaders alongside Brené Brown, Tony Robbins, and Oprah Winfrey. 14 LinkedIn Learning courses with a combined audience of 400,000+ professionals. Executive MBA, University of East London; three honorary doctorates, most recently a Doctorate of Science in Business Administration from Cleary University. Biography Disney spent decades teaching the world that service is a system, not a personality trait. Bailey was inside that system as Sales Director of the Disney Institute, and his work since has carried that operating discipline into the wider corporate world. The premise of his current research is straightforward. Engagement scores plateaued during the pandemic and have not recovered. His State of Working America: Thriving in Resilience and Brilliance report, drawn from over 1,000 US workers, gives leaders an evidence base for why and what to do about it. Resilience@Work, the book built on that research, won the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Independent Press Award. The intellectual through-line across his 11 books is the connection between how people feel about their work and what customers experience at the other end. Release Your Brilliance, published by HarperCollins, was ranked among the top 100 books being read by corporate America. His SPARK methodology turns that thesis into operating practice for frontline teams. His reach inside organisations is unusual for a keynote author. 14 LinkedIn Learning courses have placed his material in front of 400,000+ professionals, which is why Success magazine listed him among its Top 25 thought leaders, in the company of Brené Brown, Tony Robbins, and Oprah Winfrey. Key speaking topics Workforce resilience Employee engagement and retention Customer experience and service culture Leadership development Personal and professional brilliance Inclusive and values-based leadership Ideal for CHROs and chief people officers rebuilding engagement after sustained workforce fatigue Customer experience and service leaders translating brand promise into frontline behaviour Sales and commercial leadership teams looking to renew energy and conviction HR and L&D summits, organisational town halls, and customer-facing field events Audience outcomes A current evidence base, drawn from Bailey’s State of Working America research, on what is driving disengagement and what restores it. The SPARK service framework, translated into specific behaviours frontline teams can adopt the following week. Renewed conviction in the link between how employees feel and what customers experience. A vocabulary leaders can use to talk about resilience and brilliance without slipping into wellness platitudes.