Resilience & Stress Management

Why organisations work with Adam Thomas Two decades of broadcast presence on ITV and BBC primetime, including Emmerdale, Waterloo Road, I’m a Celebrity and Strictly Come Dancing, which translates directly into stage warmth in front of corporate audiences. A working founder’s perspective on consumer brand building, drawn from operating Oh My Glaze through retail at the Trafford Centre and surviving the public liquidation of a sister hospitality venture. Public, named experience of leading and performing while managing rheumatoid arthritis, a credible point of view for audiences interested in chronic illness and high-output careers. Comfort across awards hosting, panel moderation, fireside Q&A and after-dinner formats, with the broadcast pacing that those formats need. Biography highlights Played Adam Barton in ITV’s Emmerdale from 2009 to 2018, one of the longest single-character runs of his generation on the soap. Played Donte Charles in BBC’s Waterloo Road from 2006 to 2009, returning for the 2023 BBC reboot. Third-place finalist on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here in 2016, later co-host of the companion show I’m a Celebrity: Extra Camp. Strictly Come Dancing 2023 contestant, finishing in eighth place while publicly managing a recent rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis. Co-host of ITV’s 99 To Beat in 2025 with his brother Ryan Thomas. Founder of consumer hot sauce brand Oh My Glaze, with a flagship retail unit at the Trafford Centre in Manchester. Won Best Soap Newcomer at the 2010 TV Choice Awards. Biography Most consumer founders pitch their story after the win. Oh My Glaze sits in a less tidy place. The hot sauce brand is trading through a Trafford Centre flagship and grocery channels, while a sister hospitality business, the Manchester restaurant The Spinn, ended in voluntary liquidation. Running both at once, in public, is the substance of what Adam Thomas brings to a corporate stage on entrepreneurship. The platform underneath that is two decades of British primetime. Emmerdale carried him through almost a decade as Adam Barton from 2009. Waterloo Road framed his early career as Donte Charles and brought him back for the BBC reboot in 2023. I’m a Celebrity put him in front of a peak ITV audience and earned him a third-place finish in 2016, followed by co-hosting on Extra Camp. Strictly Come Dancing in 2023 added a live-broadcast performance credit while he was managing a recent diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, a condition he now discusses publicly on Good Morning Britain and This Morning. For corporate buyers, that record translates into a specific kind of stage product. He hosts awards, opens conferences, runs fireside panels and closes evenings. The broadcast training shows. Where the brief calls for it, he can speak to the founder track and to the experience of leading visible work through chronic illness. Key speaking topics Consumer brand building and founder operations Retail and hospitality entrepreneurship Television and broadcast careers Resilience while managing chronic illness Reality television and live performance Awards and event hosting Ideal for Corporate awards nights, gala dinners and team celebrations seeking a recognisable broadcast host Founder communities and SME audiences interested in consumer brand operations Retail, hospitality and FMCG events looking for a working-founder voice Workplace wellbeing audiences exploring chronic illness and high-output careers Audience outcomes A grounded view of what running a consumer hot sauce brand actually involves through retail and grocery stores An honest reading of what happened around the closure of The Spinn and what a founder takes from a public liquidation A first-person account of competing on Strictly Come Dancing with a recent rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis A warmer, looser room than a standard keynote slot, with broadcast-paced Q&A

Why organisations work with Glenn Marsden In his hands, mental health becomes a business conversation that senior leaders take responsibility for, grounded in lived experience of body dysmorphia and the loss of a close friend. He has built and scaled a global advocacy platform from zero, the Imperfectly Perfect Campaign, which gives him direct evidence of what changes when people in positions of influence speak openly about their own pressure. His keynote treats wellbeing as a leadership issue, connecting how senior people hold identity and performance under change to the cultural cost of silence at the top. His content travels: a published book series, the ImperfectlyPerfect Podcast, and hundreds of public-figure interviews give audiences a body of work to carry on with long after the keynote. Biography highlights Founder, Imperfectly Perfect Campaign, launched 2018, a global mental wellbeing advocacy movement. Author of the Imperfectly Perfect Campaign book series, with Volume 3 released January 2026. Host of the ImperfectlyPerfect Podcast on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, interviewing public figures on mental health and wellbeing. Has delivered speaking engagements across Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Dubai, Thailand, and Japan. Biography The cost of mental health pressure inside organisations is now showing up where it used to stay hidden. It sits with the people running them. Glenn Marsden built the Imperfectly Perfect Campaign in 2018 to make that conversation possible, starting with a question senior leaders rarely answer in public: what does it actually cost you to keep up appearances? The campaign was founded after the suicide of a close friend and Marsden’s own struggle with body dysmorphia. What began as a single advocacy project has grown into a content platform with a published book series, the ImperfectlyPerfect Podcast, and a long roster of public-figure interviews. The argument that runs through all of it is simple: when people in positions of visibility speak openly about their own pressure, the social permission for everyone else to do the same expands. What audiences get is a working argument, made by someone who has spent years getting senior people to say in public what they say to each other in private: that perfectionism is expensive, silence at the top sets the tone for the rest of the organisation, and the leaders who name the pressure first are the ones who change the culture. Key speaking topics Mental health and the cost of perfectionism Identity and self-worth through change Resilience under sustained pressure Authentic leadership and lived experience Building advocacy platforms from zero Storytelling and public influence Ideal for CHRO and chief people officer audiences setting the mental health agenda Executive leadership offsites where wellbeing is treated as a strategy issue Senior leadership development programmes addressing perfectionism and burnout in high performers Conferences on workplace wellbeing, culture, and mental health where lived experience adds credibility to the data Audience outcomes A direct, founder-led account of how mental health pressure operates at senior levels and why it stays hidden. Words for naming perfectionism and silence inside organisations, without the wellness clichés. A map of how identity loss works after disruption, and how people find direction again, drawn from what the campaign has surfaced across cultures and industries. Evidence, from the Imperfectly Perfect Campaign and the hundreds of public-figure conversations it has gathered, of what changes when people in positions of influence speak openly.

Why organisations work with Karen Carney She chaired the UK Government’s Independent Review into Women’s Football, a policy artefact whose recommendations were accepted by Government and now sit behind professionalisation standards across the WSL and Women’s Championship. That is named institutional credibility, not generalised sport authority. She speaks from 144 international caps and a 14-year career across Arsenal, Birmingham City, Chicago Red Stars and Chelsea, which gives her the right to talk about composure, recovery and team alignment with leaders who have heard the sport-to-business analogy too many times. She has worked publicly through depression, online abuse and the consequences of injury, which gives the mental health and resilience content specific personal reference points rather than generic advocacy. As lead female analyst across Sky Sports, ITV and TNT Sports, she is rehearsed in live communication under scrutiny, which is a useful asset for a moderator or panel chair as well as a keynote. Biography highlights 144 England caps, third-most capped Lioness; four FIFA Women’s World Cups and four UEFA Women’s Championships. Olympian, Team GB, London 2012. Chair, Future of Women’s Football Review for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, 2022 to 2023; recommendations accepted by Government. MBE 2017 for services to football; OBE 2024 King’s Birthday Honours for services to association football. Inductee, National Football Museum Hall of Fame, 2021. Lead female football analyst, Sky Sports, ITV and TNT Sports; winner, Strictly Come Dancing 2025. Biography Most organisations talk about high performance and mean motivation. Elite sport means something more specific: a set of daily operating habits that hold up when the team is tired, beaten, or in public view. Karen Carney spent 14 years inside those habits at the top of international football and has spent the years since explaining what they actually consist of. She earned 144 caps for England between 2005 and 2019, making her the third-most capped Lioness of all time, with appearances at four World Cups, four European Championships and the London 2012 Olympics. Her club career took her through Arsenal’s 2006 to 2007 quadruple-winning side, Birmingham City, Chicago Red Stars and a Chelsea captaincy that ended in an FA Women’s Cup win. The work that has done most to shape her current credibility is the Future of Women’s Football Review, which she chaired for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Published in July 2023, the review set out professionalisation standards for the Women’s Super League and Women’s Championship, covering minimum operating conditions, mental and physical health provision, parental care and transition support. The Government accepted the recommendations and announced a 30 million pound investment to follow. She works the same material as a broadcaster. As lead female football analyst across Sky Sports, ITV and TNT Sports, she is on screen weekly through Premier League, WSL and major tournament coverage; in late 2025 she won Strictly Come Dancing, becoming the first footballer to do so. Her honours, MBE in 2017 and OBE in 2024, sit alongside induction to the National Football Museum Hall of Fame. Key speaking topics High-performance culture in elite sport and its operating analogues in business Leadership under public scrutiny Mental health and recovery in performance environments Inclusion and the commercial case for women’s sport Governance and professionalisation of women’s football Team alignment under fatigue and setback Ideal for Executive teams and boards working through cultural change, performance reset or post-restructure alignment HR, talent and DEI leaders building substantive inclusion strategy rather than messaging Sport, media, sponsorship and consumer brands engaging with the commercial growth of women’s sport Conference moderation and panel chairing where live broadcast discipline is an asset Audience outcomes A concrete picture of what elite-sport operating discipline looks like day to day, not as metaphor Language for talking about mental health and recovery in performance environments without slipping into wellness generalities A clearer read of the commercial and governance trajectory of women’s sport, drawn from her own review work A sharper view of how senior leaders hold composure when results, scrutiny or fatigue are working against them

Why organisations work with Jake Mazulewicz He has run the work, not just studied it. As HPI Lead for a 3,500-person business unit at Dominion Virginia Power, he applied the same frameworks he now teaches to lineworkers, system operators, and executives. His Near Miss Library generated more than 150 voluntary reports inside one utility, the kind of disclosure rate most safety programmes never achieve, and it carries endorsements from both executives and union leadership. His Scan & Focus model and Four Levels of Decision Making are tools field foremen and substation crews actually use, not concepts that work only in a classroom. He speaks the language of pilots, paratroopers, firefighters, and lineworkers because he has worked alongside them. Audiences in technical industries treat him as one of their own, which is rare for a keynote speaker on safety. His book, Seven Practical Steps, gives senior leaders a defensible operating playbook for human reliability that can be cited inside the business after the keynote ends. Biography highlights Ph.D. in Education, University of Virginia Former Human Performance Improvement Lead, Dominion Virginia Power, 3,500+ person business unit Founder and Director, JMA Human Reliability Strategies Author of Seven Practical Steps and the HOP Handbook for Leaders, the latter with 7,000+ hardcopies sold Published in The Sentinel, the magazine of the International Institute of Risk & Safety Management (IIRSM) 250+ client teams across energy, manufacturing, healthcare, and government; named clients include the US Department of Energy, Fermilab, NERC, Chevron, BNSF Railway, and Princeton Plasma Physics Lab Biography The instinct in most safety cultures is to chase zero. Zero incidents, zero errors, zero near misses. The most reliable industries figured out long ago that this target produces the opposite of safety. It produces silence. People stop reporting what they see, the organisation stops learning, and the next failure looks exactly like the last one. Jake Mazulewicz has worked inside that contradiction for his whole career, including a decade in the safety function of a Fortune 500 electric utility. As Human Performance Improvement Lead for a 3,500-person business unit at Dominion Virginia Power, he led the work of analysing more than 300 incidents, ran root cause analyses on transmission-level switching errors, and built a Near Miss Library that drew more than 150 voluntary reports from a workforce that had every reason not to volunteer them. His Ph.D. in Education from the University of Virginia underpins the teaching method, but the credibility is operational. Lineworkers, system operators, and executives all recognised the same person in the room. In 2015 he founded JMA Human Reliability Strategies and has since worked with more than 250 teams across utilities, manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and government. Named clients include the US Department of Energy, Fermilab, NERC, Chevron, BNSF Railway, Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, and Energy Safety Canada. Audiences have logged more than 4,700 reviews across 125 engagements since 2023. Two books codify the method. The HOP Handbook for Leaders has sold over 7,000 hardcopies, and Seven Practical Steps sets out a learning-based posture, psychological safety as a working condition rather than a slogan, and After Action Reviews treated as a craft. His six-step event review approach was published in The Sentinel, the magazine of the International Institute of Risk and Safety Management, in April 2025. What separates him from other safety speakers is biography. He has served as a firefighter, an emergency medical technician, a wilderness search and rescue field team leader, and a military paratrooper. When he tells a technical audience that errors are signals, not character flaws, the room hears it from someone who has had to act on that belief in conditions where being wrong has consequences. Key speaking topics Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) High-reliability team practice in high-hazard industries Psychological safety in technical teams After Action Reviews and event learning Situational awareness and decision-making under pressure Safety culture and human error reduction Just culture and incident investigation Ideal for CEOs, COOs, and operations leaders in utilities, energy, manufacturing, and other high-hazard sectors Heads of HSE, safety directors, and chief safety officers responsible for organisational reliability HR and people leaders responsible for psychological safety and frontline team culture Field operations leadership: plant managers, station managers, fleet leaders, frontline supervisors Audience outcomes A working definition of psychological safety that survives contact with a unionised, technical workforce The Scan & Focus model as a usable situational awareness tool, applied to their own operating context A practical method for running After Action Reviews that produce learning rather than blame The Four Levels of Decision Making framework, mapped from novice to expert in their environment A reframing of error as a system signal, with the operating implications for how leaders respond to incidents

Why organisations work with Luke Donald A live, repeatable case study in winning team leadership: back-to-back Ryder Cup victories as captain in 2023 and 2025, the second at Bethpage Black against a hostile American gallery, with a third captaincy confirmed for 2027. Operational specifics on selection, pairings, and communication inside a high-stakes team built from elite individuals, drawn from a role he has done at the top of his sport, not adapted from a different career. A rare combination on the speaker market: a former World Number One with 56 weeks at the top, and the first player to win both the PGA Tour and European Tour money lists in the same year, who has since proven himself in the captain’s seat as well as the player’s. A working insight on doing things differently to win. Donald’s playing career was built on precision rather than power; his captaincy has been built on detail and preparation rather than rhetoric. Both translate cleanly into how serious organisations compete without the biggest budget in the room. Biography highlights Former World Number One in the Official World Golf Ranking, with 56 cumulative weeks at the top. First golfer to win both the PGA Tour money list and the European Tour Race to Dubai in the same season (2011); first Englishman to be named PGA Tour Player of the Year. European Ryder Cup winning captain in 2023 (Rome) and 2025 (Bethpage Black); confirmed for a third captaincy in 2027 at Adare Manor. Played in four Ryder Cups, on the winning side every time, including the 2012 “Miracle of Medinah”. MBE for services to golf (2012); honorary life member of the European Tour. Won the 1999 NCAA Division I Men’s Golf Championship at Northwestern, breaking the scoring record previously held by Tiger Woods. Biography Bethpage Black was set up to make Europe lose. The gallery was loud, the course was American, the run of home wins stretched back over a decade. Europe won 15 to 13. The captain was Luke Donald, doing the job for the second time in two years. The first time was Rome in 2023, a 16.5 to 11.5 win against a United States team many had favoured. The combination, Rome then Bethpage, made Donald the first European captain since Tony Jacklin in the 1980s to win consecutive Ryder Cups. In March 2026 he accepted a third captaincy for 2027 at Adare Manor, with the chance to become the first captain ever to win three in a row. The playing record behind the captaincy is its own argument for the depth of the content. Donald reached World Number One in 2011 after winning the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth and held the ranking across a cumulative 56 weeks. The same year he became the first golfer to top both the PGA Tour money list and the European Tour Race to Dubai, was named PGA Tour Player of the Year, and won the Vardon Trophy. He was appointed MBE in 2012. Before all of that, in 1999, he won the NCAA individual championship at Northwestern, breaking a scoring record held by Tiger Woods. What organisations get on stage is the working content of leading elite individuals through a short, public, high-stakes window. Selection. Pairings. The decisions captains make at 6am and at midnight. The detail behind a result that looks, from the outside, like inevitability. Key speaking topics Building and sustaining high-performance teams from elite individuals Leadership and decision-making under pressure Selection, pairings, and the mechanics of team composition Continuous improvement and competing without the biggest physical advantage Strategy and preparation in short, public, high-stakes windows Captaincy lessons from back-to-back Ryder Cup wins Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and conferences where the brief is performance, composure, and team execution Boards and executive teams entering a defining short-window moment such as integration, launch, or campaign Sales kick-offs and commercial leadership events where competing against a larger incumbent is the strategic reality Major corporate dinners and anniversary moments requiring a recognisable, current, on-brief keynote presence Audience outcomes A direct account of how a captain turns elite individuals into a team that performs in a hostile environment Specific, named decisions behind two consecutive Ryder Cup wins, including selection and pairings logic A working view on the role of preparation, detail, and composure when the stakes are short, public, and binary A practical case for competing on precision and preparation rather than raw advantage

Why organisations work with Christie Watson Two decades on hospital wards, including paediatric intensive care and resuscitation roles at Great Ormond Street, St Mary’s Paddington, and Guy’s and St Thomas’, give her a direct authority on care under pressure that consultants and academics cannot replicate. The Language of Kindness reached number one in the Sunday Times list and stayed in the top ten for five months, evidence that her articulation of care work resonates well beyond a clinical audience. A Costa First Novel Award winner and a UEA professor, she translates the texture of frontline experience into language that lands with senior, sceptical audiences. She offers a serious counterweight to wellness-industry framing: a vocabulary for compassion, moral injury, and staff burnout that is grounded in lived practice, not vendor messaging. Biography highlights Author of eight books across fiction and memoir, including Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, The Language of Kindness, The Courage to Care, and Moral Injuries. Costa First Novel Award winner for Tiny Sunbirds Far Away (2011). Sunday Times number one bestseller for The Language of Kindness, with translations in 23 languages. Professor at the University of East Anglia, holding appointments associated with creative writing and medical and health humanities. Honorary Doctor of Letters, University of East Anglia. Patron of the Royal College of Nursing Foundation; contributor to The Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Telegraph, and TEDx. Biography The hardest work in any organisation is usually the work that involves caring for other people, and it is also the work most likely to be reduced to a slogan. Christie Watson spent twenty years inside that reality as a nurse, in paediatric intensive care and as a resuscitation officer at Great Ormond Street, St Mary’s Paddington, and Guy’s and St Thomas’. Her writing started inside that experience and has stayed there. The Language of Kindness drew on those two decades and reached number one on the Sunday Times list, where it stayed in the top ten for five months. It has been translated into 23 languages and adapted for theatre. Her debut novel, Tiny Sunbirds Far Away, won the Costa First Novel Award in 2011. Later books, including The Courage to Care and the novel Moral Injuries, continue to sit at the meeting point of medicine, ethics, and ordinary human life. She is a professor at the University of East Anglia, where she completed her own MA in creative writing and was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters in 2018. She is a patron of the RCN Foundation and a contributor to The Times, Sunday Times, Guardian, Telegraph, and TEDx. Her standing inside nursing and outside it is unusual and gives her a hearing in rooms that rarely listen to the same voice. For senior audiences, she offers something specific. A way of talking about compassion, moral injury, and staff wellbeing that does not rely on borrowed corporate framing, and a sense of what care actually costs the people who provide it. Key speaking topics Compassion and care in high-pressure organisations Moral injury and burnout in frontline workforces Storytelling as a tool for organisational understanding Mental health and wellbeing beyond the wellness industry The lived reality of healthcare and caring professions Kindness as an institutional discipline Ideal for CHROs, chief people officers, and wellbeing leads in organisations with frontline or caring workforces Healthcare boards, NHS leadership, and clinical executive teams Conferences on workplace mental health, employee experience, and the future of work in human-intensive sectors Universities, professional bodies, and membership organisations addressing the future of caring professions Audience outcomes A more honest vocabulary for compassion, moral injury, and burnout, grounded in twenty years of frontline practice A sharper sense of why standard wellbeing programmes underperform with fatigued workforces An authentic, first-person account that senior audiences remember and quote afterwards A reframing of care as a serious institutional practice, not a soft attribute

Why organisations work with Tim Campbell A founder’s view of what early-stage capital, mentoring and access actually do for people who do not start with networks, drawn from supporting more than 750 start-ups through the Bright Ideas Trust A senior commercial perspective on inclusion that connects diversity to talent acquisition and business outcomes, informed by his strategic adviser work in global recruitment Public recognition that opens doors at executive and audience level: MBE for Services to Enterprise Culture, two decades of broadcast presence on The Apprentice, and a seat on the Windrush Commemoration Committee A practitioner’s read on what makes a small business survive its first three years, codified in his co-authored book with Paul Humphries published by Headline Biography highlights Winner of the first series of BBC’s The Apprentice in 2005, hired by Sir Alan Sugar as Project Director of Amstrad’s Health and Beauty division Co-founder of the Bright Ideas Trust, which raised over GBP 3m and supported more than 750 start-ups from disadvantaged backgrounds Appointed MBE in 2012 for Services to Enterprise Culture Co-author of “What’s Your Bright Idea? The Journey to Starting Your Own Business” (Headline, 2010) Member of the UK Government’s Windrush Commemoration Committee Returned to The Apprentice as Lord Sugar’s permanent advisor from Series 18 onwards Biography The Apprentice in 2005 was the first time most British viewers had watched a hiring decision broadcast as entertainment. Tim Campbell, a senior planner at London Underground, won the series and took the GBP 100,000 job at Amstrad as Project Director of a new Health and Beauty division. The interesting work began two years later. In 2007 Campbell co-founded the Bright Ideas Trust with Paul Humphries and Richard Morris. The model was specific: equity-style early-stage capital and structured mentoring for 16 to 30 year olds who could not raise money through conventional networks. By the time the trust had matured, it had raised more than GBP 3m and supported over 750 start-ups. The work earned an MBE in 2012 for Services to Enterprise Culture and a co-authored book with Humphries, “What’s Your Bright Idea?”, published by Headline. The second arc of his career moved that founder perspective into large organisations. Campbell has held senior roles in talent acquisition and inclusion strategy, advising on diversity, equity and social mobility inside global recruitment, and sits on the UK Government’s Windrush Commemoration Committee. He returned to The Apprentice as Lord Sugar’s aide and now holds the role permanently from Series 18. The throughline is the gap between organisational claims about entrepreneurial culture and inclusion, and what actually happens to people inside the business and outside it. Campbell has worked both sides of that gap, as a founder building a vehicle for capital flow into underrepresented entrepreneurs, and as a senior adviser inside companies that have to decide whether their inclusion language is reflected in who gets hired, funded and promoted. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and early-stage business Inclusive talent acquisition and social mobility Resilience in a founder’s career Diversity and inclusion as commercial strategy Leadership through change Personal and organisational reinvention Ideal for Boards and executive teams reviewing the commercial logic of their inclusion strategy CHROs and talent leaders rethinking pipelines into underrepresented communities Founders, scale-up leaders and intrapreneurs inside corporate environments Audiences at staff conferences and ERG events seeking a credible voice on enterprise and inclusion Audience outcomes A clearer view of what early-stage entrepreneurial support looks like when it is built around access, not just funding A practical sense of how diversity commitments translate into hiring, promotion and supplier decisions A founder’s perspective on resilience, drawn from a public career and a charity built and run for over a decade A reframing of inclusion as a commercial discipline tied to talent and growth, not a separate values conversation

Why organisations work with Elizabeth Day A single, named thesis built over hundreds of long-form interviews on How to Fail, applied to the specific cultural problem of how teams talk about setbacks. Journalistic credibility from a decade at The Observer and a Young Journalist of the Year award, which gives her the interviewing range to draw substance out of senior internal speakers and panel guests. Literary authority confirmed by a Royal Society of Literature fellowship and a Sunday Times No. 1 bestseller, which lifts her above the standard wellbeing-speaker field. A direct corporate track record with Google, Facebook, HSBC, JP Morgan, Netflix and Barclays, so the material has been tested on senior commercial audiences. Equally strong as keynote, fireside interviewer, or awards host, which makes her useful for events that need one trusted voice across multiple formats. Biography highlights Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, elected 2024. Host and creator of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, with guests including Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Kate Winslet, Malcolm Gladwell and Gloria Steinem. Winner, Rising Star Award, British Podcast Awards 2019. Winner, Young Journalist of the Year, British Press Awards 2004; Highly Commended Feature Writer, 2012. Author of How to Fail, Failosophy, Friendaholic and Magpie, with Friendaholic entering the Sunday Times charts at No. 1. Host of BBC Radio 4’s Open Book since 2021; co-host of Sky Arts Book Club Live. Biography Most workplaces still treat failure as an event to be hidden. Elizabeth Day has spent years arguing, in print and on air, that the more useful question is what setbacks teach the people who admit to them. How to Fail, the podcast she launched in 2018, has built that argument into one of the most listened-to interview shows in the UK. Her credibility for the topic is not motivational. It is journalistic. She trained on the Evening Standard’s Londoner’s Diary, moved to The Sunday Telegraph as a news reporter, and won Young Journalist of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. From 2007 to 2016 she was a feature writer at The Observer, picking up a commendation in the Feature Writer category at the 2012 Press Awards. The literary record sits alongside the broadcasting one. Her novel Scissors Paper Stone won the Betty Trask Award; The Party became a Richard and Judy Book Club pick; Friendaholic entered the Sunday Times charts at No. 1. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024 and hosts BBC Radio 4’s Open Book. For corporate audiences, the value is the translation. Google, Facebook, HSBC, JP Morgan, Netflix and Barclays have booked her to put failure, friendship and candour onto the table as workplace concerns rather than personal anecdotes. The interviews have produced a working vocabulary that senior teams can actually use when something goes wrong. Key speaking topics Failure as a method for learning and recovery Workplace candour and psychological safety Storytelling and interview craft for senior leaders Friendship, connection and the social fabric of teams Vulnerability as a professional capability Resilience after setback Women, work and visibility Ideal for CHROs and people leaders rebuilding engagement and trust after restructure or underperformance. Communications and internal events teams looking for a host who can interview senior leaders on the record without flattening them. Leadership development programmes for high-potential cohorts working on candour, feedback and self-awareness. Awards evenings and flagship conferences that need one credible voice across keynote, panel and host roles. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for naming and discussing setbacks at work without defensiveness. Specific, repeatable interview and conversation techniques drawn from years of long-form journalism. A clearer view of how candour and vulnerability function as team capabilities, not personality traits. Permission, modelled from named public figures, to treat early-career mistakes as data rather than damage.

Why organisations work with Emil Dobrovolschi He is a working airline captain and EASA-certified examiner, so the discipline he teaches around briefings, checklists and crew coordination is the discipline he is held to in the cockpit. Co-author of Dark Cockpit with Octavian Pantis, a published thesis that gives leaders a shared vocabulary for a calm, fully functioning operating state and the behaviours that produce it. Three decades inside a national flag carrier, including time as Director of Flight Operations, give him a frank view of what command, accountability and quiet discipline look like in a regulated organisation. The pilots he has trained as a Type Rating Instructor have gone on to fly as captains for at least twelve international airlines, evidence that his teaching method travels and holds up under examination. The aviation material is concrete. Audiences leave with named behaviours, not metaphors: how a brief is structured, how a challenge is raised, how a captain hands over control. Biography highlights Captain, instructor and examiner at TAROM since 1994, across Antonov 24, ATR 42/72, Airbus A320 and A310. Former Vice President and Director of Flight Operations, TAROM. EASA-certified Type Rating Examiner; Type Rating Instructor since 2001. Commander of special flights for the Romanian President and government officials. Co-author of Dark Cockpit: How to Communicate, Lead, and Be in Control at All Times Like an Airline Captain (with Octavian Pantis). TEDx speaker (TEDxBaiaMare, “Gata de decolare”). Biography A commercial flight deck is one of the few corporate settings where bad communication is logged, debriefed and corrected by regulation. Aviation does not assume good leaders happen. It produces them through briefings, checklists, standard calls and a regulated training cycle. Emil Dobrovolschi has spent his career inside that system. He joined TAROM, the Romanian flag carrier, in 1994 and worked through every rank from Antonov 24 co-pilot to Airbus A320 and A310 captain, instructor and examiner. As a Type Rating Instructor since 2001 and an EASA-certified examiner, he has trained pilots who now hold left-seat command at twelve or more international carriers. Inside TAROM he served as Vice President and Director of Flight Operations, and as commander of special flights for the Romanian President and government officials. The corporate work grew out of that. With consultant and author Octavian Pantis he co-wrote Dark Cockpit: How to Communicate, Lead, and Be in Control at All Times Like an Airline Captain. The dark cockpit is the aviation term for the state in which no caution lights are on, the aircraft is functioning, and the crew can do its job. The book translates that into a leadership thesis: the conditions for clarity, command and trust are designed in, not improvised when something goes wrong. In keynotes, that translation is concrete. He shows how a captain runs a pre-flight brief, how a junior officer is trained to challenge a senior one, and what changes when control is formally handed over. Senior teams use the material to look at their own briefings, escalation paths and quiet failures of communication. The authority behind it is straightforward: he is still the captain in the room. Key speaking topics Leadership and command in high-stakes environments Communication and crew resource management Decision-making under pressure Teamwork, hierarchy and the freedom to speak up Crisis management and recovery Building professional standards inside an operating culture Ideal for Executive teams and boards reviewing how decisions are taken when the situation tightens CHROs and leadership development leads designing programmes for newly senior managers Operations, safety and risk leaders in regulated industries (energy, healthcare, financial services, transport) Corporate offsites and leadership weeks looking for an external voice with operational credibility, not consulting language Audience outcomes A vocabulary borrowed from the cockpit (brief, checklist, challenge, handover) that makes everyday leadership behaviours explicit. A clearer view of where their own organisation tolerates ambiguous communication that aviation would not. Specific practices for raising a concern up a hierarchy and for receiving one. A working definition of composure under pressure as a trained behaviour, not a personality trait. A frame for distinguishing routine operations from genuine crisis, and for behaving differently in each.

Why organisations work with James Benson-King He has tested resilience claims under conditions that almost no corporate audience has access to: a 32,000km solo ride from Alaska to Argentina, ultra-endurance racing, and a Guinness-ratified ascent from sea level to the world’s highest road in 14 days. His corporate finance background, ten years inside JP Morgan’s Investment Banking Operations, means he translates the physical lessons into the language and pressures senior commercial audiences actually recognise. The childhood cardiac story is genuine, not staged inspiration. It connects directly to his work with Cardiac Risk in the Young and gives the resilience material a clinical and personal foundation that other endurance speakers do not have. He talks about decision-making under exhaustion, not motivation. Audiences leave with material on what to do when the conditions for good thinking have already gone. Biography highlights Former Vice President, Investment Banking Operations, JP Morgan Guinness World Record holder: fastest ascent, Khambhat to Umling La Pass by standard bicycle (June 2025, ratified by WUCA) Completed a 32,000km solo cycle from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina, raising funds for Cardiac Risk in the Young Lead figure in “Pedal The Impossible”, a planned solo unsupported cycle to the South Pole Brand partner of GOREWEAR and Restrap; published rider features with both Public profile under “The Biking Viking”, with documentary-style video coverage of his ultra-endurance attempts Biography The hardest part of an ultra-endurance ride is rarely the terrain. It is what happens to judgement after weeks of broken sleep, cold, and physical decline. That is the territory James Benson-King has spent the last several years inside, and the territory that gives his speaking material its weight. A childhood heart condition, with two operations before he turned seventeen, set the original frame. It is also the reason his cycling work is tied to Cardiac Risk in the Young, the charity behind his 32,000km Alaska to Argentina ride beginning in 2022. He cycled from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia through fifteen countries, including a 900km stretch ridden on one leg. The corporate context is real and recent. He spent close to a decade at JP Morgan, reaching Vice President in Investment Banking Operations. That background shapes how he speaks to senior commercial audiences: he understands quarterly pressure, operational decision-making, and what resilience language sounds like when it is empty. In June 2025 he set a Guinness World Record for the fastest ascent from Khambhat at sea level to Umling La Pass at 5,800m, completing 2,100km and 17,595m of climbing in 14 days, 4 hours, 25 minutes, ratified by the World Ultra Cycling Association. His current project, Pedal The Impossible, is an attempt to become the first person to cycle solo and unsupported to the South Pole. Key speaking topics Resilience under sustained pressure Decision-making in fatigue and uncertainty Mental health for high performers Goal-setting and execution over multi-year horizons Recovery from physical and personal setbacks Performance under extreme conditions Ideal for Sales and trading leadership teams managing prolonged commercial pressure Operations and transformation leaders running multi-year change programmes HR and wellbeing leads building substantive resilience content for senior populations Off-site keynotes for leadership groups requiring lived rather than theoretical resilience material Audience outcomes A direct account of how decisions degrade under exhaustion, and what to protect first Specific, repeatable practices used by ultra-endurance athletes that translate into commercial settings A frank perspective on mental health from someone who built a career on physical risk A reference point that audiences carry into their own difficult periods, anchored in named events rather than abstractions

Why organisations work with Clive Branson He gives wellbeing and safety teams something internal communications cannot produce: an unsentimental first-person account of suicidal crisis and psychiatric admission, delivered by someone who spent seventeen years on the employer side of workplace duty-of-care conversations. His professional background in Ministry of Defence industrial relations means he speaks the language of HR, health and safety, and line managers rather than clinical or motivational language. He carries three concurrent diagnoses, Motor Neurone Disease, Stage Two prostate cancer, and acute anxiety, and talks about functioning through them rather than recovering from them. Audiences dealing with long-term illness in colleagues recognise the reality he describes. He has been trusted inside HM Prison Service settings as well as corporate audiences such as Network Rail, Ecolab and Guy Carpenter, which tells a booker he holds a room across very different registers. Biography highlights Three years Royal Air Force service, followed by seventeen years in UK Ministry of Defence Industrial Relations. Founded and ran a health and safety consultancy before health challenges forced him to step back. Diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease in late 2017 and subsequently with Stage Two prostate cancer. Seven-week inpatient admission across two psychiatric hospitals for acute anxiety and suicidal ideation. Featured speaker at CarFest in 2022 and 2023. Delivers talks voluntarily inside HM Prison Service and to corporate audiences including Network Rail, Ecolab, Intermediate Capital Group, Guy Carpenter and Tindall Riley. Biography Most corporate mental health content is written by people who have read the research. Branson sat on the other side of the table for nearly two decades. In Ministry of Defence industrial relations he handled the employer-side conversations about employment law, occupational health and the human condition at work, which is to say he knew the policy apparatus before he needed any of it. In late 2017 he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. A Stage Two prostate cancer diagnosis followed. Surgery was ruled out because of the MND. Acute anxiety took over, and he was admitted to two psychiatric hospitals for a combined seven weeks after considering suicide. He lost his father, father-in-law and mother in the same stretch of years. What makes the talk useful to organisations is the combination of that experience with his prior role. He can describe, from the inside, what a line manager’s words actually landed as; why disclosure felt impossible; what policy language reads like to someone in crisis. He is not a clinician and does not claim to be. He is the employee that wellbeing policies are written for, who once wrote them. He works across corporate audiences including Network Rail, Ecolab, Intermediate Capital Group and Guy Carpenter, and volunteers inside HM Prison Service. He was a featured speaker at CarFest in 2022 and 2023 and has discussed resilience on BBC Radio Shropshire. The register adjusts to the room; the underlying account does not soften. Key speaking topics Workplace mental health Resilience under sustained adversity Suicide awareness and crisis disclosure Living and working with long-term illness Line manager communication in duty-of-care conversations Men’s mental health Grief and bereavement at work Ideal for CHROs, wellbeing leads and health and safety directors shaping workforce mental health programmes Line manager and people manager development audiences Employee resource groups focused on men’s health, long-term illness or cancer Organisations marking World Mental Health Day, Men’s Health Week or Mental Health Awareness Week with an internal keynote Audience outcomes A first-person account of what a suicidal crisis and psychiatric admission actually look like, from someone who once wrote workplace policy Specific language cues for line managers, on what helps and what closes a conversation down A reframing of vulnerability at work as something to surface rather than manage around Recognition of how long-term diagnosis reshapes an employee’s relationship with work, useful to colleagues and managers alike

Why organisations work with Rob Hosking He has made decisions in 999 response situations where the cost of a poor call is measured in lives, and he can translate that experience into language a leadership team or frontline workforce will actually listen to His own breakdown, suicide plan and PTSD diagnosis sit at the centre of his keynote, which is why men’s forums, wellbeing networks and emergency-services audiences book him to start conversations that other speakers can only describe The “What’s in Your Vest?” framework gives audiences a concrete tool, built from a real police equipment vest, for thinking about the communication, composure and curiosity they carry into pressure Chris Evans nicknamed him “The Mighty Motivator” on national radio, and that platform, alongside Channel 4, Talk TV and GB News, has built the public profile that lets him land in front of senior corporate audiences at the London Stock Exchange, Kellogg’s and Heathrow Biography highlights Former frontline Police Officer with Police Scotland TEDx speaker, “Always Choose Happiness”, TEDxUWE Author of Lessons from the Frontline – Your Unexpected Guide to True Happiness (Fisher King Publishing) Shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the 2024 Speaker Awards Featured on the Chris Evans Breakfast Show (Virgin Radio), Channel 4, Talk TV and GB News Co-founder of Rise of Happiness, Contributor to The Growth Hub, Associate Trainer for Wellity, trained mental health first aider Worked with the NHS, Kellogg’s, London Stock Exchange, Heathrow Airport, Parker Meggitt, Secret Escapes, LetterOne, NI Water and Bedfordshire Police Biography Most workplace conversations about pressure are theoretical. Rob Hosking spent his early career as a frontline officer with Police Scotland, attending 999 calls where every decision had a tight clock and a real consequence. The practical question for any leader, of how people stay clear-headed, communicate well and keep performing when the operating environment is hostile, is the question his career was built to answer. Hosking left policing after a single shift in which he witnessed a young man take his own life and a colleague die of a heart attack. Months earlier, in July 2018, he had planned to take his own life and was interrupted by his dog. He has since been diagnosed with PTSD and trained as a mental health first aider. That sequence is the substance of his keynote, not its preamble, and it is what allows him to speak to men’s networks, emergency services and leadership audiences with a credibility that policy and academic content cannot match. The work has earned a public platform. Chris Evans dubbed him “The Mighty Motivator” on Virgin Radio, and he has appeared on Channel 4, Talk TV and GB News. His TEDx talk “Always Choose Happiness” was delivered at TEDxUWE, and his book Lessons from the Frontline – Your Unexpected Guide to True Happiness was published by Fisher King Publishing. He was shortlisted for Best Newcomer at the 2024 Speaker Awards. His “What’s in Your Vest?” framework uses the contents of an officer’s equipment vest as a way of asking audiences what tools they carry into pressure, including communication, composure, clarity and curiosity. He has delivered this material for the London Stock Exchange, Kellogg’s, Heathrow Airport, the NHS, Parker Meggitt, Secret Escapes, NI Water, LetterOne and Bedfordshire Police, with men’s mental health, wellbeing, resilience and adaptability as the recurring themes. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Adaptability and managing change Mental health in the workplace Resilience and stress management Psychologically safe leadership Decision-making in high-stakes environments Workplace wellbeing culture Ideal for HR, wellbeing and DEI leads programming mental health, resilience or men’s network events Leadership and management teams operating in high-tempo, high-consequence environments such as emergency services, healthcare, transport and infrastructure Internal conferences, all-hands and away-days where the brief is to open up the conversation on pressure and performance Wellbeing weeks, mental health awareness campaigns and employee network launches Audience outcomes A frank vocabulary for talking about pressure, trauma and mental health at work, drawn from a speaker who has lived it The “What’s in Your Vest?” model as a shared reference point teams can return to after the session A clearer view of how sustained stress degrades judgement, communication and team trust Specific habits and behaviours, taken from operational policing, for staying decisive when conditions are unstable Permission, particularly in male-heavy environments, to speak earlier when something is wrong