Meet our keynote speakers
Get inspired by leading voices in their fields
Discover insights and experiences from our exceptional lineup of keynote speakers. Each brings a unique perspective and expertise that can inspire and empower your people to meet organisational challenges. Enjoy their engaging talks and discover how they can help you grow in your journey.
Dream it
Believe it
Do it
Mandy Hickson
Experience from the front line
In today’s fast-paced business world, organisations struggle to maintain peak performance, effective teamwork, and resilience under pressure. Leaders grapple with decision-making in times of uncertainty, while teams falter when trust and communication break down.
Continue reading
Mandy Hickson brings unmatched expertise from the cockpit of a fast jet. As one of the first female fighter pilots in the RAF, Mandy operated in a male-dominated world, making split-second decisions at supersonic speeds, leading teams under pressure, and delivering results when stakes were high. Her journey is featured in her bestselling book ‘An Officer, Not a Gentleman’, and she inspires audiences worldwide as a speaker, translating lessons from the skies to the corporate world.
By booking Mandy as your keynote speaker, you’ll gain insights into building high-performing teams, making confident decisions under pressure, and fostering trust, communication, and resilience. Mandy’s engaging storytelling and practical strategies will leave your team inspired to face challenges. Whether it’s about leading with courage, adapting to change, or embracing diversity, Mandy delivers powerful messages that resonate.
Bring Mandy on board, and watch your team’s mindset and performance soar.
Learn how to
unlock your
extra.ordinary
Holly Budge
Speaker, adventurer, non-profit leader
Holly Budge is a high-energy keynote speaker who helps leaders and teams turn risk into results. Holly helps organisations move from risk-averse to risk-ready and thrive. Drawing on her experiences as an Everest summiteer, the first woman to skydive Everest, and a social entrepreneur, Holly delivers bold and powerful keynotes that blend edge-of-your-seat anecdotes with actionable takeaways for navigating change and leading with purpose.
Continue reading
Whether racing 1000km on wild horses across Mongolia, ambushing poachers on the front line in Africa, or building a global conservation movement from the ground up, Holly doesn’t just talk about risk, she lives it. She inspires audiences to lead with courage, build resilient mindsets, and take bold action in the face of uncertainty.
Your mental toughness is the single most important ingredient for your success
Penny MALLORY
Mental thoughness
Despite teenage homelessness and a challenging start to life, I was desperate to change things, and prove to the world that no starting point defines your finish line. Little did I know that the tough times were helping me to develop my Mental Toughness.
Against all the odds, I made my impossible dreams come true, and became the first woman to compete in a World rally Car – a place no one thought I could reach.
Continue reading
Today, I use my experience to help others develop Mental Toughness. Your mental toughness is a personality trait that explains why you do stuff, and why you don’t do stuff. It’s your ability to thrive under pressure, take bold action, and re-frame challenges as opportunities.
Whether I’m speaking on stage, coaching business leaders, or working with prison inmates, my message is the same: your circumstances don’t define you – your mindset does. I’m living proof that when you choose courage over comfort, incredible transformation is possible.
Challenge
Inspire
Thrive
Paula Reid
A rare mix of adventurer, psychologist, business leader
From skiing to the south pole to yacht racing round-the-world to humanitarian work in Ukraine, Paula Reid has learned to develop the mindset to thrive and perform in the toughest of conditions. She draws on her extreme adventuring experience, business acumen and masters in positive psychology to help individuals and organisations survive and thrive in challenging conditions and to ‘go Knowingly into the Unknown’™.
Continue reading
Paula’s 120 adventures to date include becoming the 3rd British woman to ski the 1000 km trek to the South Pole. So far only 300 people have successfully completed this journey through remote, freezing terrain. Prior to this, with no previous sailing experience, she was a core crew member of the Global Challenge World’s Toughest Yacht Race, racing 35,000 miles the ‘wrong way’ around the world. The race lasted for ten months, including 187 days at sea; 75 of which were spent in the notoriously freezing and dangerous Southern Ocean. In a ground-breaking expedition she paddled 600 miles down the Mekong in a dugout canoe which she bought off a tribal chief in rural Cambodia. She has also cycled across 20 countries and volunteers in Ukraine. In September 2023 she cycled across Ukraine for www.hopefull.org.uk
In business she has spent 30+ years working with leaders and organisations including RBS, GSK, PaloAlto, Arla, Pedigree and the M.O.D. In 2018 she founded Adventure Psychology, a performance and well-being business providing programmes that teach the mindset of adventuring, building flexibility, overcoming adversity, managing change, risk taking, resilience and enduring performance.
Adventure Psychology provides the tools, strategies and mindset to anticipate, and then lead and perform in challenging and uncertain conditions, in context and under pressure. We can’t predict the future, but we can prepare for it so that leaders and their teams can go Knowingly into the Unknown™.
Paula is the author of five books including the academic research book: Adventure Psychology : Going Knowingly into the Unknown. She’s a speaker and executive coach, delivers workshops and retreats, and takes groups of CEOs wild swimming!
Paula is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and has presented the Gold Duke of Edinburgh Award at St James Palace.
