Resilience & Stress Management

Why organisations work with Rose Eskafi Combines an MSc in Mindfulness and Compassion with a BSc in Psychology, so the work is grounded in clinical evidence, not generic wellness language Brings trauma-informed practice into corporate settings, which most workplace wellbeing providers are not trained to do Has built and run wellbeing for a working organisation as Head of People and Wellbeing at gal-dem, so understands the operational reality of HR teams, not just the content Track record delivering for consumer brands including LUSH, Snapchat, and Nike, where workforce demographics, creative pressure, and identity questions all sit on the table at once Biography highlights Founder, Still Chill, a workplace wellbeing consultancy focused on mindfulness, compassion, and trauma-informed culture Former Head of People and Wellbeing, gal-dem MSc in Mindfulness and Compassion; BSc in Psychology Delivered programmes for LUSH, Snapchat, and Nike Teaches in line with the UK Network for Mindfulness-Based Teachers’ good practice guidelines Listed expert with Canvas8 Biography Most workplace wellbeing offers are pitched at the wrong layer. They sit between perk and content and rarely touch the conditions that produce burnout, disengagement, or attrition. Rose Eskafi’s work starts at that deeper layer, where stress regulation, identity, and culture meet. She is the founder of Still Chill, a consultancy that designs mindfulness, compassion, and trauma-informed programmes for corporate teams. Clients have included LUSH, Snapchat, and Nike. The approach pairs an MSc in Mindfulness and Compassion with a BSc in Psychology, so the practical tools are anchored in clinical evidence rather than wellness language. Before Still Chill, she was Head of People and Wellbeing at gal-dem, where she ran the people function for a working organisation rather than consulting from the outside. That operating background shapes the work. Programmes are designed to fit how HR and people teams actually deliver, not as set-piece talks that leave the room when the speaker does. She teaches in line with the UK Network for Mindfulness-Based Teachers’ good practice guidelines and is trained in self-compassion and racial trauma, which gives her a clearer line on the questions corporate wellbeing usually avoids: how identity, pressure, and belonging interact for the people sitting in the room. Key speaking topics Workplace mindfulness and stress regulation Self-compassion and emotional regulation Trauma-informed approaches to corporate wellbeing Authentic and mindful leadership Neuroinclusion and neurodiversity at work Imposter syndrome and the inner critic Culture, identity, and belonging in organisations Ideal for CHROs and Heads of People building or re-platforming a wellbeing programme that has lost credibility DEI and ERG leads where identity, belonging, and mental health intersect Founders and creative leadership teams in consumer, media, and design organisations Learning and development leads commissioning content for high-pressure or high-attrition functions Audience outcomes A clearer working definition of wellbeing that goes beyond perks and resilience training Practical mindfulness and self-compassion tools usable inside the working day A frame for how trauma-informed practice changes the way managers run conversations Language for talking about identity, belonging, and pressure without defaulting to compliance scripts A sharper view of where the organisation’s current wellbeing offer is doing real work and where it is not

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

Why organisations work with Kwame Onwuachi He has built an inclusive kitchen at the top of fine dining, an industry structurally hostile to it, and can speak to the practical mechanics of who gets hired, who gets mentored, and who stays. His entrepreneurial track record is concrete: multiple restaurant openings, public failure with Shaw Bijou, and the rebuild that produced Tatiana, named #1 in New York by The New York Times two years running. The Family Reunion, his annual hospitality industry summit with Salamander and Sheila Johnson, gives him standing as a convenor of the diversity conversation in food, not just a participant in it. Two best-selling books with Penguin Random House, a James Beard Rising Star Chef award, and a Food & Wine executive producer role mean his narrative is documented and credible to a corporate audience. Biography highlights James Beard Foundation Rising Star Chef of the Year, 2019. Chef and owner of Tatiana at Lincoln Center, named #1 Restaurant in New York by The New York Times in 2023 and 2024, and “One to Watch” by World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Author of “Notes from a Young Black Chef” (2019) and “My America: Recipes from a Young Black Chef” (2022) with Penguin Random House. Founder of The Family Reunion, an annual hospitality diversity event in partnership with Salamander Hotels & Resorts. Contributing executive producer at Food & Wine; named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs. Trained at The Culinary Institute of America, Per Se, and Eleven Madison Park; Top Chef finalist. Biography The fine-dining industry has spent decades discussing diversity without changing very much about who runs its kitchens. Onwuachi is one of the few chefs operating at the top of that industry who can describe, from the inside, why that gap exists and what it takes to close it. Tatiana, his Lincoln Center restaurant, has been named the number one restaurant in New York by The New York Times for two consecutive years. His route there was not linear. He sold candy on subway platforms in the Bronx to fund a catering business, cooked on a boat serving the Deepwater Horizon clean-up crews, trained at the Culinary Institute of America, and worked the line at Per Se and Eleven Madison Park. His first solo restaurant, Shaw Bijou in Washington DC, closed within months. The James Beard Foundation named him Rising Star Chef of the Year in 2019, the year his memoir “Notes from a Young Black Chef” was published. The substance of his corporate work sits in what he built next. The Family Reunion, his annual industry event with Salamander Hotels & Resorts, brings together chefs and hospitality leaders to address representation in food. His cookbook “My America” reframes the question of what American cuisine actually is by tracing the Caribbean, African, and southern Black culinary lineages that produced it. As a Food & Wine contributing executive producer, he sits inside the editorial conversation rather than outside it. For a corporate audience, the value is specific. He has hired, trained, and retained an unusually diverse senior team in an industry where attrition for those workers is severe. He talks about the operational decisions that produced that outcome, not the ideology behind it. Key speaking topics Inclusion and culture in fine dining and hospitality Entrepreneurship through failure and recovery The food of the African Diaspora as American cuisine Storytelling, identity, and brand Building creative teams in exclusionary industries Ideal for CHROs and DEI leads facing pressure to move beyond programmatic inclusion Hospitality, food, and consumer brand leadership teams Founder and entrepreneur audiences working through scale and reinvention Off-sites and conferences seeking a credible voice on culture without corporate framing Audience outcomes A concrete account of what inclusive hiring and retention look like inside a high-pressure operating environment A founder’s view of public failure and the discipline required to rebuild A more honest reading of what American food culture actually is and who built it Renewed appetite for cultural specificity as a commercial asset, not a compliance category

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

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

Why organisations work with Stacey Ashley Direct experience coaching sitting CEOs on the personal practice of leadership, not the org-chart mechanics around it. A seven-book body of work on leadership published into the executive market, with each title addressing a specific capability gap rather than restating a single thesis. A coach-training programme, The Coaching Leader, that gives client organisations a way to scale her approach beyond the keynote. Recognition from credible third parties: 14 International Stevie Awards, Gold for Thought Leader of the Year at the 2023 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, twice on LinkedIn Top Voices, and Thinkers360 Global Top Voice in 2025. Holds the senior credentials of both the coaching and speaking professions: PCC with the International Coaching Federation and CSP with Professional Speakers Australia. Biography highlights Author of seven Amazon #1 best-selling leadership books, including Confluence, Big Leadership, First Lead Yourself, and The New Leader. 14 International Stevie Awards, including Gold for Thought Leader of the Year, Stevie Awards for Women in Business, 2023. LinkedIn Top Voices, 2018 and 2021; Thinkers360 Global Top Voice and APAC Top Voice, 2025. Professional Certified Coach with the International Coaching Federation; Certified Speaking Professional with Professional Speakers Australia; Fellow of CPA Australia and the Institute of Managers and Leaders. Founder of The Coaching Leader, a coach-training programme used to embed coaching capability inside client organisations. Has worked with leadership teams across organisations including ABC, ASX, Accor, Atlassian, Boeing Defence Australia, CSIRO, Engie, Hilton Hotels and SAAB. Biography Most CEOs are not short of advice. They are short of a structured place to think about how they lead, especially when the demands of the role keep expanding. Ashley’s coaching practice is built around that gap. Her core proposition, future proofing CEOs, treats senior leadership as a capability that has to be deliberately developed, not a status that follows from the job. The work has produced a body of writing rather than a single book. Confluence argues that the supply of real leaders is no longer keeping pace with what organisations need from them. Big Leadership extends the case into the CEO role itself. First Lead Yourself focuses on self-leadership as the foundation. The New Leader addresses the move from team member to people leader. You’re On Mute and Power Up cover visible leadership in distributed settings and the energy and wellbeing required to sustain senior roles. Each title is positioned at a specific point in the leadership journey, from individual self-leadership through to the macro question of where the next generation of leaders comes from. Recognition has come from coaching and speaking bodies that screen on substance: 14 International Stevie Awards, Gold for Thought Leader of the Year at the 2023 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Professional Certified Coach designation from the International Coaching Federation. The Coaching Leader, her coach-training programme, gives organisations a way to extend the approach into their own management cohorts. What makes Ashley useful in a board or executive setting is that she works the practical edge of leadership: the meetings, the conversations, the decisions, the moments when composure becomes a strategic variable. The frameworks are built for application, and the writing is structured to be picked up by someone with twenty minutes between meetings. Key speaking topics Future proofing CEOs Self-leadership and executive presence Coaching as a leadership capability Leading through change and transformation Leadership energy, wellbeing and sustainability Visible and credible leadership in hybrid settings Building high-performing executive teams Ideal for CEOs and managing directors moving into larger or more complex portfolios C-suite teams and direct reports working through restructure or transition CHROs and chief people officers building a coaching capability inside the organisation Senior leadership cohorts on executive development programmes Audience outcomes A clearer view of what senior leadership actually requires of them, beyond the job description A practical method for self-leadership under sustained pressure The vocabulary and habits of a coaching leader, not just a directing one A sharper read on personal credibility and presence in senior settings A starting point for embedding coaching capability across their own teams

Key speaking topics Suicide prevention Mental health awareness Human connection and isolation Lived experience of depression and recovery Mental health education and training-informed practice Psychological safety and supportive conversations Ideal for Corporate leadership and management teams HR and people function leaders Healthcare and community organisations Education institutions Audience outcomes Clearer understanding of the role of connection in mental health. Practical insight into recognising and responding to signs of distress. Greater confidence in having supportive conversations. Increased awareness of suicide prevention principles. Why organisations work with David Woods Bartley Combines lived experience with recognised mental health training. Addresses suicide prevention and wellbeing in a direct, accessible way. Supports organisations seeking to strengthen mental health awareness and connection. Brings experience speaking to a range of organisational audiences. Biography David Woods Bartley is a US-based mental health speaker and educator specialising in suicide prevention, connection and mental wellbeing within organisations. He works with corporate, public sector and community audiences to address one of the most urgent challenges facing modern workplaces: how to recognise distress, respond appropriately and foster meaningful human connection. His work is grounded in both lived experience and formal training. Having experienced severe depression and a suicide attempt, David brings a perspective that is direct, credible and focused on practical understanding rather than theory alone. He combines this personal insight with recognised training including Mental Health First Aid (Adult and Youth), safeTALK and QPR. David has delivered two TEDx talks distributed on TED/TEDx platforms, extending his reach to global audiences and reinforcing his authority as a communicator on connection and suicide prevention. His contribution to mental health advocacy has also been recognised by the Steinberg Institute, where he was named a Mental Health Champion. Organisations engage David to open constructive conversations around mental health, reduce stigma and strengthen awareness at every level of the workforce. His approach helps leaders, HR teams and frontline managers better understand the impact of isolation, the power of connection and the role each individual can play in creating safer, more supportive environments.

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

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

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

Why organisations work with Adam Markel Author of Change Proof (McGraw-Hill, 2022) and the Wall Street Journal bestseller Pivot, giving leadership audiences a researched framework rather than a personal story repurposed as advice. Co-Founder and Chief Researcher of WORKWELL, where his work translates resilience research into measurable cultural inputs for senior teams. Operator credibility from 18 years as a trial attorney and a multi-year run as CEO of a professional training business; senior buyers get someone who has run a P&L, not only studied one. Track record with operating businesses under pressure, including Medtronic and Jack in the Box, working with leadership audiences rather than only HR and L&D. Biography highlights Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Pivot: The Art and Science of Reinventing Your Career and Life Author of Change Proof, published by McGraw-Hill in 2022 Co-Founder and Chief Researcher, WORKWELL Host of The Change Proof Podcast TEDx speaker Former CEO of Peak Potentials/New Peaks, a professional training enterprise; previously an 18-year trial attorney Biography Most senior leaders do not have a resilience problem in the wellness sense. They have a decision-quality problem. Repeated restructures, AI rollouts, and cost programmes compound, and the cost shows up in slower judgement long before it shows up in attrition. That is the gap Adam Markel’s work addresses. His framework, set out in Change Proof (McGraw-Hill, 2022), treats resilience as a capacity that organisations build into how leaders work, not a personal trait. The earlier Pivot, a Wall Street Journal bestseller, traced the same logic across career and business reinvention. Both books sit on top of his research practice at WORKWELL, where he is Co-Founder and Chief Researcher. The credibility comes from a layered career. Eighteen years as a trial attorney, a multi-year run as CEO of the professional training business Peak Potentials, and several seasons as an ocean lifeguard before any of it. Senior audiences respond to the operator content; they have heard the resilience speech before, and what they recognise here is someone who has run a real enterprise through pressure. The Change Proof Podcast and a steady stream of corporate engagements with operating businesses, Medtronic and Jack in the Box among them, keep his material tested against current leadership briefs rather than older keynote material. Key speaking topics Leadership resilience under sustained change Change Proof: building organisational capacity for uncertainty Workplace culture and engagement Leading through restructure and reinvention Burnout prevention in senior teams Trust and connection in distributed workforces Ideal for CEOs and executive committees facing repeated change cycles CHROs and people leaders responsible for senior-team resilience Leadership offsites and annual conferences for operating businesses Transformation and change leads owning multi-year programmes Audience outcomes A working definition of resilience as an operating capacity, not a personal trait A diagnostic for where change fatigue is degrading senior decision quality Specific practices for recovery and renewal that fit inside a leader’s working week A frame for translating resilience research into culture and engagement decisions Language to use with their own teams about why this matters now

Why organisations work with Robert O’Neill Operation Neptune Spear is its own category in the speaker market. No other corporate keynoter has placed themselves on that target floor with public corroboration from the mission commander, Admiral William McRaven. Sixteen years inside elite US special operations, including a team leader role at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, give audiences a concrete reference for what disciplined decision-making looks like when the cost of failure is absolute. Translates military operational frameworks into language that lands with senior commercial teams. Repeat bookings include sales conferences and leadership meetings at companies including Builders FirstSource, Ansys, GuideWell, and USHealth Advisors, with documented standing ovations. Substance behind the headline. Decorated 52 times, including two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars with Valor, three Presidential Unit Citations, and a Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor. The record is independently documented through US Navy citations and verified press accounts. Biography highlights Sixteen years as a United States Navy SEAL (1996 to 2012). Retired at the rank of senior chief petty officer, having served as a team leader at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU), known as SEAL Team Six. Participated in Operation Neptune Spear in May 2011. Identified by mission commander Admiral William McRaven in a 2020 CNN interview as the SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden, an attribution disputed in some published accounts. Decorated 52 times, including two Silver Stars, four Bronze Stars with Valor, three Presidential Unit Citations, and a Joint Service Commendation Medal with Valor. New York Times bestselling author of The Operator: Firing the Shots that Killed Osama bin Laden and My Years as a SEAL Team Warrior (Simon & Schuster, 2017). Co-author with Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer of The Way Forward: Master Life’s Toughest Battles and Create Your Lasting Legacy (HarperCollins, 2021), a national bestseller. Co-founder of the Special Operators Transition Foundation (formerly Your Grateful Nation), supporting special operations veterans moving from active service into civilian careers. Biography Operation Neptune Spear had no margin for error. On 2 May 2011, a small Navy SEAL team flew into Abbottabad, Pakistan, to find Osama bin Laden. Robert O’Neill was the senior chief petty officer who walked up the stairs and engaged bin Laden in his bedroom. Mission commander Admiral William McRaven later identified him in a 2020 CNN interview as the SEAL who fired the shots, an attribution that other public accounts have disputed. The headline mission is one operation in a 16-year career inside the apex of US special operations. O’Neill enlisted in the Navy in 1996 and rose to team leader at the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known as DEVGRU. He held combat leadership roles in more than 400 missions across four theatres of war and was decorated 52 times. Among other operations, he was part of the team that supported the rescue of Marcus Luttrell in Afghanistan and the unit that freed Captain Richard Phillips from Somali pirates. For corporate audiences, the operational frame he carries matters more than the headline mission. He explains how teams that cannot afford to fail prepare, and how they decide when the cost of being wrong is absolute. His 2017 memoir, The Operator, was a New York Times bestseller and reads as a study of how a particular environment produces a particular kind of decision-maker. The Way Forward, co-written with Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer in 2021, takes the same material into the territory of personal performance and resilience. His corporate keynote work has reached audiences at Builders FirstSource, Ansys, GuideWell, and USHealth Advisors, among others. The substance he brings to those rooms is operational rather than motivational: how preparation and accountability function in environments where the cost of being wrong is absolute. Outside speaking, he co-founded the Special Operators Transition Foundation, which provides individualised support for special operations veterans moving into civilian careers. He served as a Fox News contributor from 2015 to 2021. Key speaking topics High-stakes decision-making Leadership under pressure Team performance in elite units Resilience and recovery Accountability in high-consequence environments Lessons from special operations Veteran transition to civilian leadership Ideal for Leadership conferences and senior management offsites where the agenda turns on decision-making in high-stakes situations Sales kickoffs and incentive events that need to galvanise commercial teams around accountability and execution Boards and executive teams preparing for transformation, crisis response, or other moments where the cost of being wrong is significant Veteran-focused organisations and events linked to special operations, defence, or military transition Audience outcomes A firsthand account of how elite military teams plan and decide when the cost of being wrong is absolute, drawn from named operations including the bin Laden raid. Working perspective on accountability and team trust, drawn from 16 years inside US special operations, that translates into commercial settings. A reference point for what high-stakes execution actually looks like, useful for teams about to enter a transformation or a launch they cannot get wrong. A galvanising opening or close to a major commercial event, supported by a track record of standing ovations from senior corporate audiences.