Dion Dublin

Dion Dublin is the former Manchester United footballer, turned popular TV personality. Dion has most recently presented Home Under The Hammer on BBC1 and has had a successful media career since retiring from football in 2008.

One of England’s best-loved footballers, Dion was best recognised for his 2 year spell at Manchester United, in which he scored on his debut. He was given legendary status at many of his other clubs including scoring 48 goals at Aston Villa where he was the joint top scorer in the Premier League in 1998. Dion also earnt four England caps when he was playing for Coventry City.

Dion has built a very successful media career as a football pundit for the BBC and Sky. He presented Late Kick Off for BBC1 East and can also be heard regularly on BBC Radio 5 Live.

Aside from his love of football, Dion is extremely passionate about music. He has invented his own instrument called ‘The Dube’ which is a percussion instrument. The Dube has been endorsed by the likes of Courtney Pine and has also been used by bands such as Feeder and The Maccabees.

Ben Cohen MBE

Born and raised in Northampton, Ben began his professional rugby career with the Northampton Saints and was part of England’s Rugby World Cup winning team in 2003, before successful years with France’s Brive and then the Sale Sharks.

Following the terrible events of his father’s death when he was fatally injured trying to protect an employee, Ben was moved to set up the StandUp Foundation in 2012. The Ben Cohen StandUp Foundation is the world’s first foundation dedicated to raising awareness of the long-term, damaging effects of bullying by connecting communities and raising funds to support those doing real-world work to eradicate bullying.

Ben now travels worldwide speaking to businesses about the importance of character, respect and equality in creating a kinder world. Ben has reached millions of people with his anti-bullying message through global media coverage: He has over 500,000 followers on social media. In the UK, he has worked with the Home Office, where he led the charge for a StandUp Charter to end homophobia across sports particularly in soccer, rugby and tennis.

He is also known for his media appearances on shows like Strictly Come Dancing and The Jump.

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.

Will Greenwood MBE

Will Greenwood is not one to shy away from high pressure or highly competitive situations, having become the second highest try scorer in English rugby history.

He helped power England to a glorious victory at the Rugby World Cup in 2003 where he finished the tournament as joint top try scorer with five to his name. In 2005, in the culmination of an outstanding career, he finally threw off injury problems to run out for the British & Irish Lions in their tour of New Zealand.

Off pitch his focus has remained undimmed. With a reputation as a bright, articulate and witty personality he was snapped up by Sky as a regular match day presenter and fronts the hugely popular ‘School of Hard Knocks’, giving at risk youngsters the chance to train, grow and shine through sport.

Alongside this he pens a weekly opinion column for the Saturday Telegraph and is patron of the Child Bereavement Charity.

A brilliantly funny after dinner speaker, Will can also shed light on the more serious lessons learnt from a career in elite sport.

As a Durham Economics graduate and former City trader with HSBC he can speak eloquently, intelligently and with real insight about the synergies between high performance in sport and business.

Steve McCulley

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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.

 

Stephen Hewett

Working with leadership teams in both Public and Private sector organisations, Stephen has experience in a wide variety of industry sectors.

Stephen is a former Head of Business Consulting at Charteris Plc. He is also a former Development, Research & Expansion Manager at the world-famous John Lewis Partnership. It was here that Stephen gained much of his retail industry experience, progressing through training on the shop floor, to managing a department and, playing a vital role in the operations of the entire organisation.

Prior to his Retail and Consulting career, Stephen enjoyed a career in Aviation, where he held both management and flying roles. Stephen is also a Fellow of the Institute of Consulting.

‘What has been absolutely core to my three careers is my personal passion for helping my clients organisations align themselves to what customers need.’

Stephen’s views on people’s interactions stretch out far beyond the world of business. In fact, he believes emphatically that the philosophy of prioritising the agenda of customers’ needs in the social world in general, and in all areas of human contact, particularly international politics, has significant potential for benefit.

Stephen remains a partner of Charteris Plc and is now also a Director of Vantage Partners and a Founding Partner of C3 Partners, which specialises in helping organisations both in Private and Public sectors streamline themselves for maximum Customer Centricity.

Stephen spends much of his time heading major teams both in the UK and abroad that advise organisations at the very highest level and furnish them with a hands-on practical intervention that puts customers at the absolute forefront of the organisations activities.

Stephanie Davies

Stephanie has over 12 years experience working in the public and private sector and is recognised as one of the UK’s leading voices in happiness humour and laughter.

In past 12 years Stephanie has worked on projects and events developing everything from creating happy spaces and environments in schools and health settings to motivating and inspiring individuals and teams in large blue chip organisations as well as working on government initiatives to promote positive, happy lives and work.

Stephanie’s unique combination as an award winning stand-up comedian and her expertise and knowledge in psychology and business makes her one of the most sought after speakers on the business and after-dinner circuit.

Qualifications include: An M.A in The psychology of humour and laughter for personal growth; Dip1 CBT, Health psychology and Analytical psychotherapy B.A Hons in Community Arts; Advanced Skills in Creative business and Cognition, JMU; Graduate of The Health Care Intensive Programme, with Patch Adams MD USA; Graduate of Dr Madan Kataria’s Laughter Techniques Programme; NLP Practitioners Diploma; and is qualified in cognitive behavioural psychology and health psychology.

On top of her busy schedule, Stephanie is often asked to contribute to popular television programmes, such as Trisha, The Bank of Mum and Dad, BBC’s Heaven & Earth and ITV’s Stand-up Jenny. She is also a regular on BBC Radio. Her book, “Laughology: The Science of Laughter”, has received excellent reviews on Amazon, The Guardian Book website and Watkins book review.

Sophie Hosking MBE

At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Sophie Hosking raced in the lightweight women’s double scull with Kat Copeland. The duo won their final by over 2 seconds ahead of China, to become Olympic Gold medallists.

Sophie was subsequently awarded an MBE in the 2013 New Year Honours list.

During the 2012 World Cup Series, Sophie won a silver medal. At the 2011 World Rowing Championships Sophie won a bronze medal just a fraction behind the double from Canada. In Munich at the first World Cup of 2011 Sophie and her crewmate won gold.

Sophie started rowing at the age of 14 at Kingston Grammar School after gaining a sport scholarship. She established herself as the leading lightweight woman and in 2009 won the GB Rowing Senior Trials in the single, and with Hester Goodsell winning GB’s first ever lightweight women’s World Cup gold in the double in Munich. In Lucerne they won gold again establishing themselves as a strong partnership for the 2009 World Championships in Poznan.

Sophie joined Durham University in the autumn of 2004 and graduated in Chemistry and Physics in the summer of 2007. She is interested in most areas of sport and also enjoys listening to and playing music. Her father was a World Champion rower in the lightweight eight in 1980.

Sir Ian McGeechan OBE

Knighted in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List, Sir Ian McGeechan is distinguished as one of Rugby’s most popular and well regarded figures. His knighthood was widely applauded from all quarters of sport and he is attributed with having renewed the vigour of the Lions’ brand.

Ian has a great empathy with players, an ability to get the right people around him and is incredibly knowledgeable about the game. His quiet passion and determination to achieve excellence offer some fascinating insights about the nature of success, not just in sport but also within business.

During his playing career Ian won 32 caps for Scotland. He toured with the British Lions as a player in 1974 in the unbeaten tour to South Africa and in 1977 to New Zealand playing all eight tests. During his coaching career he spent five years with Northampton Saints after which he was appointed Head Coach at Scotland.

In December 2003, Ian took up the post of Director of Rugby of the Scottish Rugby Union after Jim Telfer retired. However, 18 months later, he was back to hands on coaching as Director of Rugby with Wasps.

Ian left Wasps in May 2009 and went on to manage what has widely been acknowledged as one of the best British and Irish Lions tours, despite a narrow series defeat.

Ian was entered into the Sportscoach UK Hall of Fame in 2001 and appointed Chairman of Sportscoach UK in April 2005.