Caspar Berry

Caspar is a highly distinctive corporate speaker with a unique and challenging message that requires people to question many of the things they take for granted.

Caspar Berry, started his career in the first series of Byker Grove on BBC1 alongside Ant and Dec. He went on to read Economics and Anthropology at Cambridge and – after setting his sights on becoming a professional film writer – had his first screenplay produced by Film Four whilst in his final year.

By the time he was 23 Caspar was writing for Miramax and Columbia Tri-Star. At 25 he moved to Las Vegas and became a professional poker player for the next three years of his life.

In 2002 he co-founded Twenty First Century Media and built it into the fastest growing audiovisual media company in the North East of England. At this time he also began his career as a speaker and catalyst for new thinking within business, specialising in risk-taking and decision-making. In 2008 his company was sold to Bob Geldof’s media giant, Ten Alps.

He returned to his television roots as the presenter and poker expert on a number of TV shows, most notably: Poker Night Live, voted Britain’s best poker show; and Sky Poker, the country’s premier nightly poker show. He also appeared on Sky Sports, was the poker strategy writer for Flush magazine and was also the poker adviser on the James Bond movie, Casino Royale.

Caspar is a highly distinctive corporate speaker with a unique and challenging message that requires people to question many of the things they take for granted. Drawing from his diverse range of experiences in poker, business and life, Caspar offers a fresh look at the way individuals approach risk and take decisions in order to gain a competitive edge. Caspar’s key message is that understanding how to take calculated risks is critical in the creation of dynamic leaders and managers who will innovate and change the world around them.

Caspar is also a charismatic host, often leading an end of day Poker activity as a follow through from his key note speech or workshops sessions. During which Caspar back-references his insights about risks, decision or luck to coach his audience to play poker and then commenting on and hosting a poker tournament.

He has now delivered over 1000 sessions as a speaker and trainer for hundreds of organisations including Google, The Met Police, IBM, Castrol, KPMG, ASDA, Orange, Eon, Ernst and Young, BAA and Ashridge Management School.

Steve McCulley

Steve switched to motorpsort as a second career and made an immediate impact. He has competed in over 50 races in the last four years, with a 50% podium finish rate, and is an ARDS ‘A Grade’ Instructor.

Prior to his motorsport career, he was a commissioned officer in the Royal Marines for seventeen years, where he served in all the Commando Units and deployed all over the world, including operational tours to Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan, before his career was cut short.

Whilst in command of 175 marines on his second operational tour to Afghanistan in 2011, during an extremely hostile period in Helmand Province, his leadership and management skills were fully tested in the most dire of situations. Whilst operating in an area that at the time was considered to be the most dangerous square mile on Earth, he was very seriously injured by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED), which put him in a coma for three weeks and physical rehabilitation for over two years.

Whilst in rehab he soon realised that his military career was over and, faced with great adversity, he turned his passion for cycling into a business and established a custom carbon bike building company – LIOS Bikes (abbreviated from the names of his children, Lily & Oscar). In November 2018 Steve won the ‘Heropreneur of the Year’ award, an inaugural event aimed to shine a spotlight on the business achievements of Armed Forces personnel who have founded their own companies.

As he could no longer compete on two wheels, and being a petrol head from a young age, he gravitated towards four wheels and an engine. After being introduced to Mission Motorsport in 2013, Steve soon found himself involved with the forces’ motorsport charity whilst in its infancy and at the beginning of 2014 he was selected to race in the 2014 Caterham Academy.

In 2017 Steve had a 70% podium finish rate in the Caterham 310R Championships and in 2018 he is aiming to translate that success to British GT, where he will be racing a Jaguar F Type SVR GT4 in British GT for the Invictus Games Racing Team. With the ambition to continue competing at the highest levels, he continues to build upon his motorsport career in order to enhance his experience as a talented racing driver, coach and instructor.

Steve is also a polished inspirational speaker. He highlights his experience in leadership and management whilst serving in the marines and setting up a new business. Steve also speaks insightfully about the adversity he faced in overcoming life-changing injuries and he shares his passion for motorsport, that fuels his drive to succeed.

 

Sir Ranulph Fiennes OBE

Sir Ranulph Fiennes has been named by the Guinness Book of Records as “the world’s greatest living explorer”

As an explorer and sportsman Ranulph Fiennes is probably one of the most accomplished Britons of his generation. Born and raised in South Africa, Ranulph was brought to the UK to attend Eton where he then went on to join the Army, SAS and become the youngest Captain in the British Army.

For over the next 40 years Sir Ranulph lived through countless life-threatening experiences. His successful and ground breaking expeditions include becoming the first person to reach both poles, first to cross the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans and first to circumnavigate the World on the Polar Axis.

Following on from this, Fiennes has managed numerous unsupported Polar expeditions as well as discovering the lost city of Ubar on the Yemeni border. Perhaps the most awe inspiring for all of these accomplishments was his completion of seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. This feat was completed three and a half months after Fiennes suffered a massive heart attack and spent three days in a coma, undergoing double bypass surgery. His long list of achievements alone provides any audience with a living example that nothing is impossible.

Sheridan (Shed) Simove

Sheridan ‘Shed’ Simove is a modern-day entrepreneurial genius.

In a varied career he has enjoyed success as a TV Producer (Big Brother, Big Breakfast, Space Cadets); a Bestselling Author; Product Designer and an Award Winning Stand-Up Comedian.

Harnessing a constant stream of ideas from his astonishingly active mind, Shed has learnt to transform his unconventional concepts into lucrative new business ventures. Shed uses his own entrepreneurial journeys to give a powerful insight into how others can be more creative, plus he shares his secrets for success and outlines the steps towards achieving whatever you desire – both personally and in business.

Shed’s ability to create new ideas, coupled with his skill to make them happen, mean that his range and rate of success is vast – and thus his performances are wonderfully motivational as well as entertaining.

He has the ability to both inspire significant, profitable changes, and then equip you with the tools to make those changes happen. As a result Shed has worked with the some of the biggest blue chip companies around the world, including Unilever, BBC, Sony and EE.

A cross between Anthony Robbins and Woody Allen, Shed is a truly compelling, uniquely memorable, one-off performer.

Hashi Mohamed

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Hashi Mohamed is one of the UK’s leading junior barristers in planning and public law. He was Special Adviser to David Anderson QC, the Independent Reviewer or Terror Legislation (2015-2017). He also practises in environmental, human rights law and commercial litigation.

One of 12 children, Hashi’s father died when he was 9. Soon after Hashi came to the UK as an unaccompanied child refugee from Kenya in the summer of 1993. When he arrived he spoke basic English, attended failing schools and was raised exclusively on state benefits in a deprived area of North West London.

Today, at 33, as a barrister and broadcaster, Hashi has attended both Oxford University and Bar school on a full scholarship. He is also a presenter on BBC Radio 4 and commentator across leading newspapers. Drawing on his own experiences he wants to dispel the myth that upward mobility is possible through sheer hard work alone and speaks out against empty tokenism.

Hashi’s speaking style is at once realistic and inspirational and he is not afraid to talk about hard truths. From refugee to barrister, he uses his personal journey to draw powerful conclusions for business – about resilience, focus and the ability to adapt in the pursuit of success. Whether he is talking to CEOs of big corporations, judges, politicians or underprivileged pupils – he creates an immediate and powerful connection with people. As a broadcaster his work has been highly acclaimed including BBC Radio 4’s ‘Adventures in Social Mobility’ and his viral Guardian Opinion piece ‘Telling children “hard work gets you to the top” is simply a lie’.

Hashi is fast becoming a sought after motivational speaker. He also chairs and hosts events and panel discussions in the UK and abroad.

 

James Cracknell OBE

James Cracknell is one of Britain’s most successful athletes of all time, with two Olympic Gold medals and six World Championship titles.

His Olympic rowing finals – in Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 – were epic battles, won by inches. But it is since retiring from his 13 year international career that James has distinguished himself as a very special sportsman.

Unwilling to get a ‘proper job’ in 2005, James teamed up with TV adventurer Ben Fogle to race across The Atlantic. Despite their ocean-rowing inexperience, the pair were first to arrive in Antigua. The experience was captured by the BBC in the documentary series ‘Through Hell and High Water’.

In 2008 James came up with the idea of pushing himself to his limits once again for charity, this time in collaboration with Sport Relief. Entirely under his own steam, James rowed The Channel; cycled down through France and Spain and finally swam The Strait of Gibraltar, accompanied by comedian David Walliams.

In December 2008 James attempted his toughest challenge yet when he set off with former team-mate Ben Fogle and Dr. Ed Coats in a race to the South Pole. Suffering frost-bite, infected blisters, dramatic weight-loss, pneumonia and exhaustion, the team finished second only to a pair of Norwegian polar experts. The adventure was filmed by the BBC – ‘On Thin Ice’.

Most recently, James suffered a major head injury when he was thrown off his bike in America whilst filming a TV show for the Discovery Channel. James has held a ten-year post as a Daily Telegraph journalist. He was the Olympic presenter for ITV News at Ten in Bejing; hosted Channel 4’s Red Bull Air Race and ITV1’s British Superbikes.

 

Jamil Qureshi

Jamil has worked with talent across the board as diverse as fighter pilots, medical teams, Formula 1 racing drivers, and the current England Ashes winning cricketers.

In 2006, he was appointed as the first-ever official golf psychologist to the European Ryder Cup team by captain Ian Woosnam. They made history in winning by a record-equalling margin. Jamil has worked with 22 golfers inside the top 50 in the world, including Colin Montgomerie, Graeme McDowell, Darren Clarke, Paul Casey, Thomas Bjorn, Sergio Garcia and former World Number 1, Lee Westwood.

Ranked among the most influential figures in British sport in 2009. Jamil has worked successfully with three English Premiership football clubs, one of which reaching a record position from its halfway point in the season.

In business and industry Jamil has worked from CEO and board level to middle management in a variety of sectors. He has worked with business leaders and companies in over 24 different countries last year alone helping teams to fulfil their potential by orchestrating change and performance programmes. He has developed and delivered management and leadership programmes at board level for Coca Cola, Hewlett Packard, Emirates Airlines, Serco, Orange, and Royal Bank of Scotland. He has worked across LBG Group Operations on the ‘journey to world class’ and other areas within Lloyds Banking Group such as Wholesale, Retail, and Commercial.

Jamil also lectures on the prestigious WorldProgram, in the US, UK and China through Ashridge and Fordham Business Schools and Qing Dao University. He is also a world recognised speaker on all aspects of the psychology of performance, psychology of leadership, leadership attitudes, improving people, cultural change techniques, and employee engagement. He is one of only a few external psychologists ever to be allowed to study astronauts on the NASA Space Programme.

Jamil used to be a regular at London’s prestigious Comedy Store and spent two years working with TV’s award winning mind reader, Derren Brown!

Jim Lawless

Jim Lawless is one of the world’s leading keynote speakers. Over half a million people on five continents have been entertained and inspired by Jim’s presentations and many more by his bestselling book “Taming Tigers” (Random House).

Jim acts as an elite team coach at board level and serves as a non-executive board chairman. He has advised companies globally on creating cultural change and elite teams. He has designed and implemented successful change programmes in companies including Apple, Barclaycard, Atos, Axa, BT, Aramark, Skrill Group and Badminton England.

He insists on testing his principles on himself before advising others, using “Taming Tigers” to become Britain’s deepest freediver. He is the first Briton to dive below the magic 100m barrier on a single breath of air.

In response to an audience challenge, he proved “Taming Tigers” by becoming a jockey in 12 months. At the outset he was 3 stone (20kg) too heavy and could not ride.

These adventures – and the lessons he learned – bring him and his methodology immediate credibility with audiences on all continents.

Jim holds a Bachelor of Laws degree, qualified as a solicitor and practiced commercial law in the City of London and in a major IT company before founding Taming Tigers Limited (formerly “Optimise”). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in 2008 in recognition of his business writing.

John Steele

John began his career in the army, trained at the prestigious Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Here, he learnt the essentials for strong effective leadership and soon developed a distinguished style of his own.

He left the army to pursue a career as a professional rugby player, and like most things John puts his hand to, he achieved great success, playing in over 400 first class games, including matches against Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. On retirement John turned to coaching, successfully leading Northampton Saints to become European Champions in 2000; their first major cup win.

Following the clubs victory, John became Executive Director on the Saints Board during a period of unprecedented off-field growth, including a share issue and stadium development. His experience in Rugby Union also saw him serve on the England Rugby Board during the successful World Cup campaign of 2003. He was also appointed as CEO of the Rugby Football Union.

In 2005 John became Chief Executive for UK Sport. A post which he held for six years leading the organisation through a remarkable period of successful change through Beijing and into the record breaking London 2012 Olympics. Post-London 2012, with the Nation’s focus on sporting successes and “inspiring a generation”, John became Group Chief Executive of the Youth Sport Trust.

John is also the Chairman of the English Institute of Sport, succeeding Steve Cram, and is helping to further the Institute’s success in delivering a range of performance impacting sport science solutions to over 40 Olympic and Paralympic sports, along with a select number of non-Olympic sports. To date, John’s Olympic and Paralympic involvement spans eight different games including the recent Rio Olympics and Paralympics.

Building on his lifelong passions of leadership and sport, John founded Unforgiving Minute, a niche consultancy with unique leadership development expertise from high-performance sport. At present John is also leading an ambitious change programme as Executive Director of Sport at Loughborough University.