Team Leadership

Why organisations work with Jim Davidson Two decades inside a regulated, risk-driven scientific career sit behind the climbing stories, so the language of preparation, hazard analysis and recovery lands with operational, safety and engineering audiences who usually distrust adventure speakers. Two named, public disasters on his record, the 1992 Mount Rainier crevasse fall and the 2015 Everest earthquake at base camp, give him specific case material to teach from rather than generic survivor framing. Co-authored The Ledge won the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Literature, and The Next Everest is a published St. Martin’s Press title, so the underlying material is editorially vetted, not bureau copy. Twice recognised by the U.S. National Park Service for volunteer high-altitude rescues, which gives him a credible voice on team trust, mutual reliance and judgement at altitude that is hard to manufacture. Books to senior corporate audiences with a track record of named clients, including Marriott, National Geographic, UPS, Nationwide Insurance and the U.S. Army, so the room calibration is already proven across sectors. Biography highlights Co-author, The Ledge: An Inspirational Story of Friendship and Survival (Ballantine / Penguin Random House), with journalist Kevin Vaughan. Author, The Next Everest: Surviving the Mountain’s Deadliest Day and Finding the Resilience to Climb Again (St. Martin’s Press). Winner, 2012 National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Literature, for The Ledge. B.S. and M.S. in environmental geology; roughly 20 years as a practising environmental geologist before full-time speaking. Summited Mount Everest in 2017, two years after surviving the April 2015 Nepal earthquake at base camp. Recognised twice by the U.S. National Park Service for volunteer high-altitude rescue work in Colorado and Alaska. Biography A snowbridge collapsed under Jim Davidson on Mount Rainier in June 1992. He fell roughly 80 feet into a glacial crevasse with his climbing partner, Mike Price. Price did not come out. Davidson did, and spent the next 20 years working as an environmental geologist while quietly building the body of climbing experience that would later put him on Everest. That two-track career is the point. Davidson is not a climber who picked up a corporate vocabulary, he is a working scientist who spent two decades on industrial sites assessing oil and gasoline contamination, writing remediation plans and answering to regulators. The risk language he uses with executive audiences, hazard recognition, contingency design, post-incident learning comes from that work as much as from the mountains. The mountains supplied the case studies. Co-authored with journalist Kevin Vaughan, The Ledge took the Rainier accident through judgment, friendship and recovery and won the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award for Outdoor Literature. The Next Everest, published by St. Martin’s Press, covers the 2015 Nepal earthquake, which struck while Davidson was on Everest, and his return to the summit in 2017. Both books are written, not ghosted around a brand. For corporate audiences, the value is specific. He has briefed Marriott, National Geographic, UPS, Nationwide Insurance and the U.S. Army on what disciplined teams actually do when the plan stops matching the terrain, drawn from rescues he has been part of and the U.S. National Park Service has formally recognised, twice. The talks work because the material is real, the science is honest about luck, and the decisions get named. Key speaking topics Resilience under pressure Decision-making in high-consequence environments Risk recognition and hazard preparation Team trust and mutual reliance Recovery after setback Leadership in crisis conditions Change and uncertainty Ideal for Senior leadership offsites where the agenda is preparation, recovery and judgment, not motivational storytelling. Safety, risk, engineering and operations functions in industries where consequence is physical, including energy, construction, utilities, life sciences and defence. Annual sales kickoffs and field-leader gatherings that need a credible non-business voice on resilience. HR and learning leaders are building a leadership programme around decision-making under uncertainty. Audience outcomes A working vocabulary for talking about hazard, judgement and recovery that doesn’t collapse into platitude. Two specific case studies, Mount Rainier 1992 and Everest 2015, are used as decision artefacts that the audience can argue with. A clearer separation between things a team can prepare for and things it can only respond to. Practical questions to take back into post-incident reviews, planning sessions and team debriefs. A sharper view of what trust between teammates is actually built from when the consequences are real.

Why organisations work with Jenson Button A first-hand account of winning a world title with a team that did not exist eighteen months earlier, when Honda withdrew and the Brawn GP outfit was rebuilt from the wreckage. The temperament side of elite performance, drawn from 306 Grand Prix starts: how a driver and a team hold their nerve when the result is twenty seconds away and there are no second chances. A current insider voice on Formula 1 strategy and team dynamics, with active roles at Williams Racing and Sky Sports F1 that keep the perspective live, not retrospective. Credibility across disciplines: F1 World Champion, Super GT GT500 champion in Japan, and FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar driver with Hertz Team JOTA. Biography highlights 2009 FIA Formula 1 World Drivers’ Champion with Brawn GP. 15 Grand Prix victories, 50 podiums, 8 pole positions across 18 F1 seasons with Williams, Renault, BAR, Honda, Brawn GP, and McLaren. MBE for services to motorsport, 2010 New Year Honours. Senior Advisor, Williams Racing, working with the team and its driver academy. Lead pundit and expert analyst on the Sky Sports F1 broadcast team. 2018 Super GT GT500 Series Champion (Japan); 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar driver with Hertz Team JOTA. Author of “Life to the Limit: My Autobiography” (2017), longlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2018. Biography Honda walked away from Formula 1 at the end of 2008. The team Button had been driving for had no engine, no sponsor, and no certainty it would make the grid. By March it had become Brawn GP. By November he was World Champion. The story is well known in the paddock; the lesson, less so. Button won the 2009 title because the discipline he had built across nine seasons of underperforming machinery transferred intact to a car that finally matched him. Across 18 F1 seasons and 306 Grand Prix starts, Button took 15 victories, 50 podiums, and the 2009 World Drivers’ Championship. He raced for Williams, Benetton-Renault, BAR, Honda, Brawn GP, and McLaren, partnering Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, and Rubens Barrichello. He was awarded an MBE for services to motorsport in 2010. The career did not end with F1. Button won the 2018 Super GT GT500 series in Japan, raced at the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours with the NASCAR Garage 56 entry, and contested the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2024 with Hertz Team JOTA in a Porsche 963 Hypercar. He is Senior Advisor to Williams Racing, where he works with the team and its driver academy, and a lead expert on Sky Sports F1’s broadcast team. For organisations, the value sits in the practical content of composure under pressure: how a driver makes decisions in tenths of a second with championship implications, how a team holds together when results stop arriving, and how performance is sustained across two decades of repeated reinvention. His autobiography, “Life to the Limit”, set out the same argument in 2017: the title was won as much in the head as in the car. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Decision-making at speed Team dynamics in elite environments Resilience across long careers Formula 1 strategy and competition Mental preparation and composure Ideal for Leadership teams facing a high-stakes execution moment, product launch, transformation milestone, or competitive deadline. Sales, performance, and operations groups where individual composure compounds into team result. After-dinner audiences at corporate hospitality, championship-night events, and senior leadership offsites. Organisations using motorsport partnerships (sponsors, suppliers, hospitality programmes) to anchor a leadership narrative. Audience outcomes A working account of how a championship-winning driver prepares for and executes under pressure. A close-quarters view of the Brawn GP turnaround as a case in team performance after structural collapse. A current read on Formula 1’s competitive dynamics, drawn from active Williams and Sky Sports roles. A clear connection between the discipline of elite sport and the discipline required to lead a senior team through a difficult cycle.

Why organisations work with Jann Mardenborough He carries a verified outlier credential: third in the LMP2 class at the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours, reached in two years from a Gran Turismo console with no prior motorsport background. His subject is composure after consequence. The 2015 Nürburgring crash, which killed a spectator and which he chose to allow into the Sony Pictures film, is part of what he discusses, not a fact left at the door. The Gran Turismo film, in which Archie Madekwe plays him and on which he served as co-producer and stunt driver, gives audiences immediate recognition without requiring a motorsport brief. He has operated inside two of the most demanding racing cultures in the world, Japan’s Super GT and Super Formula, where the working language and feedback loops are not built around his first language. Biography highlights Won the 2011 Nissan GT Academy, beating more than 90,000 entrants on Gran Turismo before progressing through a real-car final at Silverstone. Third in LMP2 class at the 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans with Greaves Motorsport; further Le Mans entries in 2014 and 2015, the latter with Nissan’s LMP1 programme. Second in the 2016 All-Japan Formula 3 Championship, with four wins, six poles and twelve podiums. Long Japanese career across Super GT GT300 and GT500 and Super Formula, including a GT300 win at Fuji. Co-producer, stunt driver and consultant on Gran Turismo (Sony Pictures, 2023), portrayed by Archie Madekwe. Simulator and test driver in Formula E for Nissan e.dams and McLaren (2021 to 2022); signed by HRT Ford Performance for the 2025 GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. Biography The 2011 Nissan GT Academy final was a twenty-minute race at Silverstone in real GT cars, contested between gamers who had never sat in one. Jann Mardenborough won it by eight seconds and signed a professional racing contract the same week. He had been playing Gran Turismo since he was eight. Two years later he stood on the LMP2 podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That trajectory is unusual enough on its own. What makes the story usable for senior audiences is what came after. In 2015 his Nissan GT-R Nismo left the circuit at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, cleared the catch fencing at Flugplatz and killed a spectator. He survived. He returned to racing. He later agreed to let the incident appear in the Sony Pictures Gran Turismo film, on which he was co-producer, stunt driver and consultant. The professional record sits alongside that. Second in the 2016 All-Japan Formula 3 Championship with four wins and a dozen podiums. A GT300 win at Fuji. Multiple seasons in Super GT’s top GT500 class and in Super Formula, racing inside an engineering culture that does not run on his first language. Simulator and test work in Formula E with Nissan e.dams and McLaren. A 2025 signing with HRT Ford Performance for the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. The talk he gives is about what performance actually costs once the conditions stop being forgiving, and what a person and a team have to keep doing on the morning after a setback that is not theoretical. Few speakers in this category can address that subject from inside the event rather than at a remove. Key speaking topics High-performance under pressure Composure and recovery after setback Mindset and the transition from amateur to professional Decision-making at speed Cross-cultural performance in elite sport Digital disruption and unconventional career paths Ideal for Leadership teams preparing for high-stakes execution windows: product launches, results days, regulatory events Sales, trading and operations groups whose work is judged on consistency under pressure Talent and L&D programmes addressing resilience and career reinvention Corporate partner activations for motorsport, gaming and automotive sponsors Audience outcomes A concrete account of what changes inside a performer between an amateur ceiling and a professional one A sharper sense of what composure looks like in the hours and days after a serious setback A working frame for thinking about decision-making when feedback is immediate and consequence is high Recognition that high-performance careers are made of recoveries, not only of wins

Why organisations work with Liz McConaghy A first-person account of operational PTSD from someone who survived a suicide attempt, not a clinical overview of mental health from a third-party expert. Seventeen years on the Chinook Fleet, including ten Afghanistan deployments and MERT casualty recovery under fire. The credibility on high-stakes teamwork is earned, not theoretical. 2023 Inspirational Woman in Defence Award, recognising her public advocacy on PTSD and recovery among veterans. A bestselling book (Chinook Crew ‘Chick’) that gives audiences a durable artefact to take back into the organisation after the talk. Direct relevance for organisations with armed-forces-connected workforces, high-stress operating teams, or active mental health and resilience programmes. Biography highlights Longest-serving female crewman on the RAF Chinook Fleet, with over 3,000 flying hours across a 17-year career. Two Iraq deployments and ten Afghanistan deployments under Operation Herrick, including service on the Medical Emergency Response Team. Author of Chinook Crew ‘Chick’ (Pen and Sword, 2022), Amazon Bestseller within three weeks of release. 2023 Inspirational Woman in Defence Award winner. Mental health and PTSD ambassador for veterans, drawing on her own near-fatal post-service crisis. Featured speaker for the Institute of Leadership and a regular contributor on military leadership and recovery. Biography The Medical Emergency Response Team flew casualty recovery under fire in Helmand. Soldiers died and were resuscitated on the cabin floor of the Chinook. Liz McConaghy spent ten deployments on that aircraft, and the operational cost of it caught up with her years later, not in service. She joined the RAF at 19, deployed to Iraq at 21, and stayed on the Chinook Fleet for 17 years. Three thousand flying hours, two Iraq tours, ten Afghanistan tours, and four years as the only female crewman on the wing. She left in 2019, and in August 2020 attempted suicide. What followed was the work she now brings into organisations. A bestselling autobiography, Chinook Crew ‘Chick’, published by Pen and Sword in 2022. The 2023 Inspirational Woman in Defence Award. An ambassadorship for veteran mental health, built on the argument that PTSD is a chapter of a life, not the definition of one. For organisations carrying the cost of psychological strain on their people, the value is the source. McConaghy speaks as someone who has been through the failure mode that mental health programmes are meant to prevent, and who is articulate about what brought her back. Key speaking topics Mental health and PTSD in high-pressure roles Resilience after operational and personal trauma Team leadership in extreme operating environments Self-leadership and recovery Women in male-dominated workplaces Veteran transition and post-service identity Ideal for CHROs, wellbeing leads, and ER teams running mental health and resilience programmes at scale Organisations with armed-forces-connected workforces, including defence primes, security contractors, and emergency services Leadership offsites where the agenda includes psychological safety, burnout, or sustained performance under load Employee network groups and ERGs focused on women, veterans, or mental health Audience outcomes A first-person reference point for what operational PTSD looks like, and what recovery from it actually involves Practical language for opening internal conversations about suicide risk and post-service mental health A clearer view of how high-functioning teams in extreme environments sustain themselves, and where they fail Renewed permission, particularly for senior leaders, to treat their own mental health as an operating variable

Why organisations work with Mark Schulman He has spent decades performing in front of stadium crowds with P!NK, Cher, and Foreigner, and translates that experience into specific attitude and focus habits a workforce can use the next morning. His keynote includes live drumming and audience participation, which moves a conference room out of passive-listening mode and produces engagement that in-house speakers cannot replicate. He carries the Certified Speaking Professional designation from the National Speakers Association, a credential held by a minority of working keynote speakers, signalling consistency at the level Fortune 500 buyers expect. His Conquering Life’s Stage Fright framework gives audiences a named three-step model (Clarity, Capability, Confidence) for managing performance anxiety, not a generic motivation message. He pairs the music-industry story with a working business voice, having co-founded and run West Triad Studios in Venice for over a decade. Biography highlights Touring drummer for P!NK from 2006 to 2021, Cher from 1999 to 2017, and Billy Idol from 1993 to 2001 Performed with Foreigner, Stevie Nicks, Sheryl Crow, Simple Minds, and Velvet Revolver Author of Conquering Life’s Stage Fright: Three Steps to Top Performance, and co-author of The Attitude Equation with Dr. Jim Samuels Cover feature, Modern Drummer Magazine, May 2019; voted Top 3 Pop-Rock Drummer in the Modern Drummer Reader’s Poll Awarded the Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation by the National Speakers Association in 2021 Co-founder of West Triad Studios, Venice, California Biography The difference between a strong team and a top-performing one is rarely talent. It is whether people can switch on under pressure, recover quickly when something goes wrong, and stay engaged on the night the room actually matters. That is the territory Mark Schulman works in. His credibility comes from the stage. Schulman spent more than two decades as the touring drummer for P!NK, Cher, Billy Idol, and Foreigner, performing in front of stadium audiences where there is no second take. The performance-mindset content he now delivers to corporate audiences is drawn directly from that environment, not borrowed from a leadership textbook. The work is anchored by his book Conquering Life’s Stage Fright: Three Steps to Top Performance, which sets out a Clarity, Capability, Confidence framework for managing performance anxiety. He co-authored a second book, The Attitude Equation, with Dr. Jim Samuels, focused on the attitudinal habits that separate consistent performers from one-off ones. In 2021 he was awarded the Certified Speaking Professional designation by the National Speakers Association, the standing credential of full-time keynote speakers. What organisations book is a session that changes the energy of a room. Schulman drums live, brings the audience into the performance, and ties the story back to specific attitude shifts a team can apply on Monday. The format is unusual; the underlying argument, that consistent high performance is a learnable discipline, is what keeps Fortune 500 buyers returning. Key speaking topics Performance mindset under pressure Attitude and personal accountability Confidence and stage fright Team engagement and collaboration Peak performance habits Creativity and reinvention Ideal for Sales kickoffs, annual conferences, and leadership offsites looking for an opening or closing keynote that shifts the energy of the room CHROs and culture leads programming for engagement, motivation, and people-performance themes Leadership development audiences working on confidence, presence, and personal performance Audience outcomes A named three-step framework (Clarity, Capability, Confidence) for managing performance anxiety in high-stakes moments Specific attitude practices borrowed from world-class touring musicians and adapted to a business setting A shared, high-energy experience that resets the tone of a conference and gives teams a common reference point A clearer sense of how individual presence and preparation feed collective team performance

Why organisations work with Mikkey Dee A working account of staying at the top of a brutally competitive craft for more than three decades, drawn from inside one of rock’s most demanding touring lineups. Lived material on what happens to a team when the founder dies, told by the drummer who held Motörhead’s final lineup together until Lemmy Kilmister’s death in December 2015. Grammy-winning credibility (Best Metal Performance, 2005, with Motörhead) and Hall of Heavy Metal History induction with Scorpions at the inaugural 2017 ceremony. A speaker whose appeal sits outside the usual corporate circuit: a Swedish rock musician, comfortable in English and Swedish, who works as the unexpected closing voice at a leadership offsite or annual conference. Biography highlights Drummer for Motörhead, 1992 to 2015, across 12 studio albums and the band’s longest-serving lineup. Permanent drummer for Scorpions since 2016. Grammy Award, Best Metal Performance, 2005, for Motörhead’s cover of “Whiplash”. Inducted with Scorpions into the Hall of Heavy Metal History at its inaugural ceremony, Anaheim, January 2017. Earlier credits with King Diamond (Fatal Portrait, Abigail, Them) and Don Dokken (Up From The Ashes). Named Gothenburger of the Year in his home city of Gothenburg, November 2021. Sonor signature snare drum released in his name, 2012. Biography Lemmy Kilmister asked Mikkey Dee to join Motörhead for seven years before Dee finally accepted in 1992. That single fact frames the rest of the story: a drummer who refused to take a seat he had not yet earned, then held it for the next twenty-three years, across twelve albums and the longest-serving lineup the band ever had. The Motörhead chapter ended in December 2015 with Kilmister’s death, and Dee has since spoken openly about the choice the surviving members made: to celebrate the life of the man at the centre of the band rather than build a public mourning around it. Within a year he was the permanent drummer of Scorpions, where he has been since 2016. The credentials are concrete. A Grammy for Best Metal Performance in 2005 for Motörhead’s cover of “Whiplash”. Induction with Scorpions into the Hall of Heavy Metal History at its inaugural ceremony in 2017. A Sonor signature snare in his name. Earlier work with King Diamond on Fatal Portrait, Abigail and Them, and with Don Dokken on Up From The Ashes. For organisations, the value sits in the unusual angle. Most speakers on resilience and longevity come from sport, the military, or business itself. Dee speaks from a craft where the daily test is public, the team is small, and the founder is irreplaceable. Audiences leave with a clear-eyed account of what it takes to stay sharp for thirty years, and what a team actually does when the person at the centre is gone. Key speaking topics Perseverance and longevity in a high-performance career Continuing after the loss of a founder or central figure Self-leadership and composure under sustained pressure Lessons from inside a long-running creative team Reinvention after the end of a defining chapter Ideal for Annual conferences and leadership offsites looking for an unexpected closing keynote Sales kick-offs and customer-facing events that want a story-led session on perseverance Internal events for teams navigating the loss of a founder, CEO, or long-standing leader Audience outcomes A first-hand account of how a small team holds together across decades of touring and turnover. A frank perspective on what changes inside an organisation when the founder is suddenly gone. A working definition of perseverance grounded in a specific craft, not a slogan. A reset on what longevity at the top actually demands, day to day.

Why organisations work with Julien Simon-Chautemps He has run live, multi-million-pound decisions across 265 Grands Prix, where the cost of a wrong call is measured in tenths of a second and broadcast to a global audience. Few speakers operate from that altitude of pressure. He explains the F1 pit wall as a working management system: how information flows from car to engineer to strategist to driver, what gets filtered, and how the team avoids the two failure modes of analysis paralysis and over-reaction. He sat next to one of the most demanding drivers in modern F1 history, Kimi Raikkonen, and can describe in concrete terms how to communicate with high-performers who do not want managing, only useful input. He is still active in the sport as a Canal+ and F1 TV technical analyst, which keeps the case material current rather than nostalgic. The session does not rely on the 2007 Toyota years to make its point. He brings the engineer’s view, not the driver’s. Audiences get the side of the cockpit where the strategy, the data, and the team coordination actually happen. Biography highlights 14 seasons as a Formula 1 race engineer across Toyota, Lotus/Caterham, Renault/Lotus Renault, and Sauber/Alfa Romeo 265 Grands Prix attended trackside between 2007 and 2022 Race engineer to Kimi Raikkonen at Alfa Romeo through his final F1 seasons; previously worked with him at Lotus Engineered drivers including Jarno Trulli, Romain Grosjean, Pastor Maldonado, Vitaly Petrov, Jolyon Palmer, and Marcus Ericsson Founder of JSC7 Engineering Ltd (2022), providing motorsport consultancy, race strategy, and data analysis services Technical analyst for Canal+ and on-air pundit for F1 TV; aerospace engineering graduate of IPSA Paris (2002) Biography The pit wall in Formula 1 is one of the most concentrated decision environments in any industry. Tyre choices, fuel loads, safety-car responses, and pit-stop calls all happen on a clock that does not negotiate. Julien Simon-Chautemps spent fourteen seasons running that environment as a race engineer, including the final F1 chapter of Kimi Raikkonen’s career at Alfa Romeo. His route into the cockpit conversation was technical, not glamorous. He trained as an aerospace and aeronautical engineer at IPSA in Paris, then ran junior single-seater programmes at Prema Powerteam and Trident before stepping onto the F1 grid with Toyota in 2007. By the time he retired from trackside duties in 2022, he had attended 265 Grands Prix across Toyota, Lotus, Caterham, Renault, Sauber, and Alfa Romeo. The drivers he worked with were not interchangeable personalities. Jarno Trulli, Romain Grosjean, Vitaly Petrov, Pastor Maldonado, Jolyon Palmer, Marcus Ericsson, and Raikkonen each demanded a different style of communication. That range is what gives his sessions their texture: he is talking about how to lead and inform high-performers who will not tolerate noise, not how to motivate average teams. Today he runs JSC7 Engineering Ltd, a motorsport and automotive consultancy he founded in 2022, and contributes technical analysis to Canal+ and F1 TV. The keynote work draws on the same source material the consultancy does. Senior teams hear how an F1 garage actually coordinates, where the failure points sit, and what leaders in regulated, high-stakes industries can take from a sport built around the discipline of tenths. Key speaking topics Decision-making under time pressure High-performance team coordination Real-time communication between technical and executive functions Leadership of elite individual performers Operating rhythms in high-stakes, regulated environments Data, instinct, and the limits of each in live decisions Resilience and recovery in competitive cycles Ideal for COOs, transformation leads, and operational executives running time-critical functions Senior leadership teams in regulated or safety-critical industries (aviation, energy, financial markets, healthcare) Engineering and technology leaders building decision systems around live data Sales, trading, and front-line teams whose performance depends on second-by-second judgement Audience outcomes A working picture of how an F1 team turns live data into a single coordinated decision, with named examples from the pit wall Sharper language for the difference between a fast decision and a rushed one A feel for how high-performers actually want to be communicated with under pressure, drawn from years alongside Raikkonen and Grosjean Specific habits leaders can install before high-pressure moments rather than improvise during them A closer view of the sport itself: what the audience hears on the radio is the surface of a much larger system

Why organisations work with Jose Manuel Calderon Fourteen NBA seasons across seven franchises, each requiring a different role, system, and relationship with coaching staff. Few speakers can describe reinvention at that frequency from inside the experience. Captained the Spain national team through its most decorated era, winning the 2006 FIBA World Cup, the 2011 EuroBasket, and three Olympic medals across 2008, 2012, and 2016. Holds the NBA single-season free throw record at 98.05 percent. The story behind that statistic is a precise account of preparation, repetition, and composure that translates directly to high-stakes performance. Now operates inside the business of sport as Special Advisor to the Cleveland Cavaliers, strategic advisor to technology firm Sngular, and co-founder of sport technology venture OWQLO. The post-playing view is operational, not nostalgic. Biography highlights 14 NBA seasons with Toronto Raptors, Detroit Pistons, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Atlanta Hawks, and Cleveland Cavaliers. NBA single-season free throw record holder at 98.05 percent (2008-09, Toronto Raptors). 2006 FIBA World Cup champion and 2011 EuroBasket champion with Spain. Three Olympic medals with Spain: silver in 2008, silver in 2012, bronze in 2016. Special Assistant to the Executive Director at the National Basketball Players Association from 2019. Special Advisor to the Cleveland Cavaliers, strategic advisor to Sngular, co-founder of OWQLO, UNICEF Ambassador. Biography Fourteen seasons in the NBA is not a tenure. It is seven different working environments, seven coaching philosophies, and a constant negotiation of role. Across Toronto, Detroit, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Cleveland, the work was the same every season: arrive, read the room, and become useful to a group of people who did not pick you. That career line is the substance behind Jose Manuel Calderon’s speaking. He captained the Spain national team through the most decorated period in its history, winning the 2006 FIBA World Cup, the 2011 EuroBasket, and three Olympic medals across 2008, 2012, and 2016. The Spanish “golden generation” is studied because it sustained excellence across more than a decade, with changing coaches, ageing key players, and rising rivals. Calderon was a central figure in how that group held together. The detail that travels well into corporate rooms is his free throw record. In 2008-09 he made 151 of 154 attempts, a 98.05 percent season that still stands as the NBA’s highest. The talk that emerges from it is about repeatable performance, not natural talent, and it lands cleanly with audiences who are measured on consistency rather than peaks. After retiring, Calderon moved directly into the business of sport. He served as Special Assistant to the Executive Director of the NBA Players Association from 2019, advises the Cleveland Cavaliers, sits on the advisory board of Spanish technology firm Sngular, and co-founded sport technology venture OWQLO. He is also a UNICEF Ambassador. The result is a speaker who can speak to senior teams in the language they use, drawing on a playing career that is genuinely rare at the level it reached. Key speaking topics Leadership under sustained pressure Team performance across changing line-ups High-stakes decision-making Captaincy and standards Inclusion and identity in elite sport Reinvention across cultures and systems The business of professional sport Ideal for Senior leadership teams under prolonged performance pressure CHROs and people leaders building cohesion across changing structures Sales and commercial leaders who manage on consistency rather than peaks Board and executive offsites looking for a credible outside voice on team dynamics Audience outcomes A practical account of how elite teams hold standards through line-up change, coaching turnover, and external scrutiny. A clear picture of what daily preparation looks like at the level that produces records, not anecdotes about motivation. A working language for captaincy, the responsibility of senior players inside a team, and how that maps to senior leaders inside an organisation. A perspective on inclusion built from a long career across multiple national, cultural, and locker-room contexts.

Why organisations work with Pau Gasol Two NBA championships, three Olympic medals and a FIBA World Cup title give him a working definition of high performance grounded in repeated wins across cultures, coaches and rosters, not a single peak. He speaks credibly about the operating reality of elite teams: ego management next to a generational star (Kobe Bryant), role clarity, and the unglamorous habits that hold a group together across an 82-game season. A Basketball Hall of Fame induction in 2023 and a retired Lakers jersey place him among the small group of athletes whose authority on team and leadership is taken seriously inside a boardroom, not only on a stage. His work outside sport (Gasol Foundation on childhood obesity, IOC Athletes’ Commission, Gasol16 Ventures) shows a leader who has built institutions, not only played in them. The J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award is the NBA’s formal recognition of that. He presents fluently in English and Spanish, with direct experience of US, European and global organisations, which suits international leadership audiences without translation overhead. Biography highlights Two NBA Championships with the Los Angeles Lakers (2009, 2010); six-time NBA All-Star; four-time All-NBA selection. 2002 NBA Rookie of the Year, the first non-American player to win the award. Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Class of 2023; jersey No. 16 retired by the Los Angeles Lakers. FIBA World Cup champion and MVP 2006; three EuroBasket golds with Spain (2009, 2011, 2015); two-time EuroBasket MVP. Three Olympic medals with Spain: silver in 2008 and 2012, bronze in 2016. President and co-founder of the Gasol Foundation; UNICEF Global Champion for Nutrition and Zero Childhood Obesity; member of the IOC Athletes’ Commission; 2012 NBA J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. Biography Two NBA Championships, three Olympic medals and a FIBA World Cup title are not won by the same individual playing in different teams. They are won by leaders who help different groups behave the same way under pressure. Pau Gasol spent two decades inside the highest-stakes team environments in professional sport, with Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles, alongside his brother Marc on the Spanish national team, and across rosters in Memphis, Chicago, San Antonio and Milwaukee. The interest for senior leaders is not the trophy count. It is what it took to sit beside a generational star like Bryant and still deliver, year after year, in the locker room as much as on the court. Role clarity, ego management, honest conversations between named individuals, and a standard that did not move with the score. Gasol’s account of that period is one of the more credible insider readings of elite team performance available from any speaker in the market. His record off the court is unusually substantive for an athlete. He co-founded the Gasol Foundation in 2013 with Marc Gasol, working on childhood obesity and child wellbeing in Spain and the United States. He serves as UNICEF’s Global Champion for Nutrition and Zero Childhood Obesity, sits on the International Olympic Committee Athletes’ Commission, and runs Gasol16 Ventures, an investment platform in sport, health and wellness. The NBA recognised the community work with the 2012 J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award. Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023, with his number retired by the Los Angeles Lakers the same year, Gasol now speaks to leadership audiences in English and Spanish on what it actually takes to build a team that wins more than once. Key speaking topics Leadership and team performance under sustained pressure Building trust and role clarity inside elite teams Resilience and self-leadership through injury, transition and setback Sport as a model for organisational culture and standards Purpose-driven leadership and life after a professional career Child health and the leadership case for long-term social investment Ideal for Senior leadership offsites and CEO conferences focused on team performance and culture Sales kick-offs and annual conferences seeking a credible voice on resilience and standards Sports, health and consumer-brand audiences engaging with athlete leadership International audiences requiring delivery in English or Spanish Audience outcomes A working picture of what elite team performance looks like behind the result, told by someone inside it A direct view of how leaders manage ego, role and trust around a dominant individual Specific reference points for resilience and decision-making through injury, transition and public scrutiny A leadership case for long-term investment in people and purpose beyond the immediate quarter

Why organisations work with Tom Bowen An eight-year international career in one of the most physically and selectively demanding squad environments in elite sport, drawn on for what it teaches about standards inside a small team. A first-hand account of being named Olympic reserve for Tokyo 2020 and not getting on the field, used to talk about preparation, selection, and disappointment in terms a senior team will recognise. Direct experience competing for England at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens in Cape Town, alongside more than fifty World Rugby Sevens Series tournaments. A speaker pitched at the practical mechanics of teamwork and pressure, not a celebrity sports billing. Biography highlights Former England Sevens international made debut in October 2014 on the Gold Coast, Australia. Reserve in the Great Britain Rugby Sevens squad for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Selected for England at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens in Cape Town. Joined Plymouth Albion in 2012 from Leicester Tigers; top try-scorer for Plymouth Albion in 2013-14 and twice the club’s young player of the season. More than 50 tournaments for England on the World Rugby Sevens Series; signed for Worthing RFC in 2022. Biography A reserve player at the Olympics trains the same hours as the squad, makes the same sacrifices, and watches the tournament from the side of the pitch. Bowen sat in that seat at Tokyo 2020. The talk that comes out of it is less about the moment and more about the years before it: the eight-season England Sevens cycle that put him there. His club path runs through Leicester Tigers and Plymouth Albion, where he switched from centre to wing, scored six tries in his first eighteen RFU Championship appearances, and was named the club’s young player of the season twice in succession. He became Plymouth’s top try-scorer in 2013-14 before the England Sevens debut in October 2014. The international record is the substance of the booking. Fifty-plus tournaments on the World Rugby Sevens Series, the GB Olympic squad in Tokyo, England, at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, and the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Cape Town the same year. Sevens is a short, high-density format where small mistakes are decisive; the lessons travel reasonably well into corporate teams that work in short cycles under scrutiny. What he brings to a room is a working account of how a small group sustains its standards over a long competitive arc, including the years that do not produce a medal. He signed for Worthing RFC in 2022 and continues to coach. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Team standards in elite sport Resilience after setback Selection, disappointment and recovery Teamwork in short-cycle, high-stakes environments Motivation and confidence Ideal for Sales and commercial leadership conferences focused on team performance and pressure Internal team away-days where leaders want a credible outside voice on standards and culture Early-career and high-potential audiences inside large organisations Audience outcomes A usable reference point for what disciplined, daily standards look like in an elite team environment A grounded view of what it means to prepare fully for an outcome that does not arrive Language for talking about pressure that goes beyond motivation and into specific habits Renewed focus on the role of small-team behaviours in larger organisational performance

Why organisations work with James Lang He brings live, professional rugby experience of operating at fly-half, the position responsible for in-game decisions under crowd noise, time pressure, and immediate consequences. That is a useful analogue for senior teams that have to make calls quickly in front of an audience. His career spans Harlequins (79 senior appearances) and Edinburgh Rugby in the United Rugby Championship, with six Scotland caps. The credentials are specific, verifiable, and current. He works in concrete language: setbacks, dropped balls, missed kicks, recovery between phases. Audiences leave with examples, not generic motivation. Useful for sessions where the buyer wants athlete-translated content on pressure and team trust rather than a corporate leadership lecture. Biography highlights Senior debut for Scotland against Canada in Edmonton, 9 June 2018, starting at inside centre in a 48-10 win. Six caps for Scotland between 2018 and 2021. 79 senior appearances for Harlequins between 2016 and 2021. Signed for Edinburgh Rugby in 2021, playing in the United Rugby Championship. Early career with Welsh side Rygbi Gogledd Cymru (RGC1404) before returning to the Harlequins academy. Educated at St Mary’s University and Bangor University. Biography Fly-half is the most exposed position on a rugby pitch. Every decision is public, every kick is counted, and recovery has to happen between phases of play. Lang has spent his senior career in that role, including a Scotland debut against Canada in Edmonton in June 2018 and 79 senior appearances for Harlequins before signing for Edinburgh Rugby in 2021. His route to professional rugby is itself part of the content. He left the Harlequins schoolboy programme for Welsh side Rygbi Gogledd Cymru as a teenager, then returned to the Harlequins academy in 2016. The detour gave him competitive minutes that more conventional pathways do not provide, and it shapes how he talks about non-linear progression. On stage he focuses on the practical mechanics of pressure performance: preparation routines, handling mistakes mid-game, and the team trust that holds when results do not. The reference points are specific moments in named matches, which makes the content useful for internal team sessions, sales kick-offs, and events where the brief is high performance and recovery rather than strategic leadership. The honest framing for a buyer: this is athlete-experience content. It is most powerful when the room wants a credible voice on composure and team dynamics, paired with substantive business speakers for the strategic agenda. Key speaking topics Performance under pressure Team trust and collaboration Resilience and recovery from setbacks Self-motivation and elite habits Leadership in high-stakes moments Adversity and non-linear careers Ideal for Sales kick-offs and internal team conferences seeking an athlete’s voice on pressure and recovery. People and culture events focused on team trust and collaboration. Talent and graduate development programmes covering early-career resilience and non-linear progression. Audience outcomes A concrete picture of how elite athletes train composure rather than rely on it. Specific examples of recovery routines used between high-pressure moments. Language for talking about team trust that holds when results turn negative. A useful contrast between athlete preparation habits and typical corporate working patterns.

Why organisations work with Daniel Chappell A first-hand account of raising significant early-stage capital with no trading history, which is the situation most internal innovation teams quietly find themselves in when pitching new ventures to their own boards. A working operator’s view of UNTIL, a business that pairs physical premises in Soho, Liverpool Street and Marylebone with a digital membership model. Useful for any leadership team thinking about hybrid product-and-place propositions. An unusually honest voice on neurodiversity from a founder who runs a company while managing dyslexia and dyspraxia, rather than a clinical or HR-led perspective. A high-performance sports background that translates the language of marginal gains, recovery, and team standards into the running of a commercial business, without leaning on tired sporting metaphor. Biography highlights Co-founder of UNTIL, a members business for freelance health, wellness and medical practitioners operating from three central London sites. UNTIL counts Steven Bartlett among its investors and co-founders, following a high-profile early funding round. MSc in Strength and Conditioning, Cardiff Metropolitan University. BSc in Sports and Exercise Science, St Mary’s University, Twickenham. Over a decade working inside high-performance sporting environments before launching his own ventures. Speaks publicly about dyslexia and dyspraxia, and treats neurodiversity as part of his founder identity, not a sidebar. Biography Service industries built on individual practitioners tend to share the same problem. The talent is excellent and the business model is fragile. UNTIL, the London business Daniel Chappell co-founded, was built around that gap: a members club and workspace that lets freelance health, wellness and medical professionals operate from premium premises in Soho, Liverpool Street and Marylebone without carrying the cost of their own. The route in matters. More than a decade inside high-performance sport gave Daniel an instinct for how elite practitioners work, what they need around them, and where their time is wasted. An MSc in Strength and Conditioning from Cardiff Metropolitan University and a BSc in Sports and Exercise Science from St Mary’s University, Twickenham sit behind that view. The transition from working with athletes to building a company for the people who work with athletes is the spine of the story. UNTIL has since attracted Steven Bartlett as an investor and co-founder, and has built a community of more than 300 practitioners across more than 40 disciplines. For a buyer, the value of the talk is not the milestone list. It is what the talk reveals about persuading investors with no trading history, building a founding team that can scale, and running a young company in public. Daniel is also open about managing dyslexia and dyspraxia as a founder, and speaks to neurodiversity from the inside of a working business. That perspective is useful in any leadership conversation about how organisations actually get the best out of people whose minds are wired differently from the average hire. Key speaking topics Entrepreneurship and founding-team dynamics Early-stage fundraising and investor relationships Building a business in the health and wellness sector High performance applied to commercial environments Neurodiversity in leadership and at work Team culture in young companies Resilience and personal performance for founders Ideal for Leadership offsites for scale-ups and founder-led businesses Corporate innovation, ventures and intrapreneurship teams HR and people leaders building practical neurodiversity programmes Wellbeing, benefits and employee-experience conferences Audience outcomes A clearer picture of what early-stage investors actually respond to when there is no trading history to point at. A practical framing of how a young founding team divides work, makes decisions, and survives the first eighteen months. A working model for treating neurodiversity as a commercial asset inside a team, with examples from a live business. Language for translating high-performance habits into a corporate or scale-up context without resorting to sports cliché.