Business Speakers Archives - After Dinner Speakers & Comedians

Roger Black MBE

Roger’s standard speech is designed to engage the audience in the lessons learnt throughout my athletics career, which resulted in him achieving his dream of standing on the Olympic rostrum in Atlanta in 1996.
The session includes a selection of Olympic images and archive race footage of the Gold Medal Winning 1991 World Championships 4x400m Relay. Audience members can also reflect and learn from the performance lessons of Team GB, who delivered on the greatest stage of all, the London 2012 Olympic Games, coming third on the medal table and four years later, improved their performance to come second on the medal table at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

There are many similarities between high performance in the worlds of sport and business. Topics he will address including:

• Change management
• Overcoming adversity
• Talent is not enough
• Need to achieve v Fear of failure
• Leadership
• Teamwork
• Ownership/accountability
• Synergy – surrounding yourself with talent
• Pro-active vs Re-active

His particular areas of interest are:
• The space between talent and performance, the attitude and behaviours of
world class performers
• The balance between individual and team success.

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton has been a firefighter for eighteen years. She decides which of her colleagues rush into a burning building and how they confront the blaze. She makes the call to evacuate if she believes the options have been exhausted or that the situation has escalated beyond hope.

Taking us to the very heart of firefighting, she immerses us in this extraordinary world; from scenes of devastation and crisis, through triumphs of bravery, to the quieter moments when she questions herself. Revealing her own story for the very first time, she recounts her years spent sleeping rough and her passion for a career that allows her to rescue others as she was never rescued herself.

Declan Curry

Journalist, speaker and conference chair Declan Curry was one of the BBC’s most recognisable business presenters and is an accomplished after dinner and keynote speaker, conference facilitator and awards host.

Declan previously presented BBC’s Working Lunch and was the front man for the BBCs Breakfast Business News for many years. He was also the Business Presenter on BBC News 24 since the channel’s launch in 1997.

Previously he presented Show Me The Money on BBC News, and a weekly programme on business and work – On The Money on BBC Radio 5 Live and a weekend show Your Money, providing essential news and information on personal finance.

His broadcasts on Breakfast covered a wide range of stories about business, work and money, he extracted news and views from chief executives, trade union leaders, stock market watchers, private investors and individual workers.

He formerly broadcast for the BBC’s international news channel, BBC World, and he reported as the business commentator in the United States for ABC News for nearly a decade.

Also, formerly the presenter of BBC Radio 5 Live’s early morning business programme, Wake up to Money. He produced and reported for a range of programmes, including Radio 4’s personal finance flagship Moneybox, Radio 5 Live’s Financial World Tonight, and World Service Radio’s World Business Report. In the past, he has worked for the London-based commercial news station LBC, and writes for a wide range of newspapers, magazines and industry publications in the UK, the Irish Republic and the United States.

His previous speaking engagements include the Global Economic Symposium, which has become an annual event for Declan, National Business Awards conference, Retail Week Conference and the Engineering Employers Federation annual awards.

A consummate professional, Declan has brought his vast experience in the media to the speaking circuit. He can facilitate conferences, host awards ceremonies and act as an entertaining after-dinner speaker. Able to tailor his speech to any audience, Declan’s charm and knowledge makes him a sought-after speaker.

Clive Woodward

As a renowned speaker, Clive delivers thought provoking, engaging and entertaining keynotes tailored to the requirements of each organisation he works with. Carefully crafted to inspire, motivate and challenge, Clive’s presentations blend practical tools with inspiring video insights from his career as a businessman, athlete and coach acting as a storied backdrop.

Clive has established his reputation as a popular and respected commentator for both ITV Sport and Sky Sport’s rugby coverage and as a journalist within the Daily Mail’s award winning sports team. Clive is also a regular contributor to BBC Radio where he discusses performance and leadership with influential figures across sport and business.

Drawing upon his successful experience at the top of professional sport, Clive is now working across various businesses to support teams and organisations to improve both individual and collective performance.

From executive coaching and workshops to unique experiences and golf days, Clive and his team offer a range of services that allow businesses to engage with Clive in the pace and style befitting their culture, goals and strategy.

Ryan Giggs

Ryan Giggs is quite simply a footballing great. An icon for Manchester United fans, his 963 appearances for the club are record breaking, and included 168 goals. Choosing his native Wales to represent at international level, he secured 64 caps for his country, and is now the national manager.

Having spent his youth career with Manchester City, then on to Manchester United, he made his professional debut in 1990 and remained with the club, into his 40s, until finally calling time in 2014. A brief spell period as interim manager at the club was followed by his appointment as Welsh Manager in 2018.

Ryan is football through and through, and has remained in the spotlight throughout his career, having achieved every club trophy possible throughout that time.

Simon Calder

Simon is a travel expert and has seen most of the most amazing places in the world first hand. Simon’s passion for travel began at an early age, when he began hitch hiking, something he still tries to pursue at any given opportunity. Having travelled the world in first class to the cheap seats (where Simon claims his best tales come from) , Simon gives an insight into the contrasting classes of travel and has many amusing and interesting stories to tell about his travels and experiences. A well travelled, world aware and entertaining after dinner speaker.

Jim McNeill

Jim is lucky enough to have clocked up over 30 years of polar expeditioning; thousands of miles mostly on skis and dragging his world with him, which has given him a huge breadth and depth of experience in surviving and working in extreme environments. In 2001, he founded the “Ice Warrior Project” that gives “ordinary” people the chance to become polar explorers, achieving extraordinary feats of endurance for the betterment of humankind.
His aim is to develop people, discover change and deliver it to global audiences in a way that engages others; fostering a better understanding of the world we live in.

Kevin Keegan

Kevin Keegan is a Liverpool and footballing legend. With his crazy hair styles and fantastic football, Kevin is never without something to talk about in his after dinner speeches.
Kevin started out playing for the town of Scunthorpe and got his lucky break with Liverpool under Bill Shankly. Kevin has been both England Player of the Year and European Player of the Year. He is also one of the very few players who has both captained for and managed England. After an impressive football career and taking the managerial position at both Newcastle and England, Kevin retired from management.
He now shares his enthusiasms and experiences through his coaching and his after dinner speaking. He has the ability to tailor his presentations to his audience and is an undeniable gentleman on all occasions. A truly fantastic speaker and character.

James Bellini

James describes himself as ‘an historian of the future’ with a close interest in key trends and strategic challenges facing current and future business up to Horizon 2020 and beyond. He also has a professional academic background in international relations, defence strategy and emerging patterns of global political change.

He is a regular choice as a speaker at high level conferences around the world, has published a number of books and special reports on the world of tomorrow and has worked within high-level consultancy teams on projects with a future perspective. He was the first British staff member of the US-headquartered futurology ‘think tank’ the Hudson Institute, taking a senior role at the Institute’s European division based in Paris.
He focuses on such issues as: the emerging new balance of world economic and political power; the impact on business strategy of new technologies and the wireless and connected world; new business ‘eco-systems’ — the shape, style and psychological characteristics of tomorrow’s company; the future of work and the workplace; the ‘New Normal’ new economic and social realities; life and work in the digital age; the global demographic revolution and its future impact; tomorrow’s people; building the post-carbon economy; the business challenges of the green agenda …
He also acts as moderator at major events across Europe, the Middle East and the Americas. Recent clients for speaking and moderating engagements include leading corporate names such as HP, Novo Nordisk, Somfy, BAE Systems, IBM, Axa, Barclays, Microsoft, HSBC, Oracle and Unisys as well as international professional associations, EU and UK government agencies and major non-governmental and non-profit organisations.
He has more than twenty-five years experience as an award-winning TV broadcaster, presenting The Money Programme for BBC TV for three years before moving to Newsnight and Panorama and then to ITV. He was subsequently a newsreader at Financial Times Television and Sky News for seven years, heading up their financial and business coverage.
James has a Masters in law and history from Cambridge and a PhD from the London School of Economics. He is a Fellow of the World Innovation Foundation, founded by Nobel Laureate Glenn Theodore Seaborg.

James Woudhuysen

Professor of Forecasting and Innovation at De Montfort University, Leicester, journalist and broadcaster, James Woudhuysen has a reputation for registering trends well before others, and he often offers counter-intuitive proposals on what actions to take.

James attended Sussex University, where he studied at the Science Policy Research Unit. His first job was technology editor, then editor of Designmagazine, a glossy colour monthly.

A few years later, James became head of research at the international designers Fitch, before leading consultancy in IT at the Henley Centre for Forecasting, where he managed worldwide market intelligence for Philips consumer electronics. At Henley he also advised major UK cities London, Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester on international competitiveness.
He went independent in 2001 and currently sits on the boards of the Journal of Consumer Behaviour and Energy & Environment. He also broadcasts about the future of work and the environment.

James has made some notable forecasts. In 1982, he identified the user interface as a key issue in IT. He anticipated by two years the conditions in the North Sea that gave rise to the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster in 1986. James also warned of a dotcom bust in 1999, attacked doubters on 3G mobile telephony in 2002, exposed Britain’s shortages of housing and nuclear power in 2004, and punctured hype about 3D printing in 2013.

In his conference presentations James shows how future trends can inform decisions on strategy, research and development, innovation, marketing and design. With his specialist international knowledge spanning IT, energy, the home and FMCG, his themes extend from product development and regulation to the need for risk taking.

He frequently challenges faddish, politically correct theories – contrasting the creative potential we all have with the deadening effect of conventional wisdom. He offers a witty but deadly serious alternative to myths about almost everything.