Richard is currently Chairman and CEO of the Fresh Oxygen Group, a strategy consultancy specialising in driving rapid business performance improvement in consumer facing branded, retail and e-commerce businesses. In addition, he is Chairman of American Golf Retail, Chairman of Grace Cole, Chairman of Jollyes the Pet Superstore, Chairman of Outdoor Holdings GP, and also a Main Board Investor NED at New Look Retail.

From playing golf against multiple major winners Sir Nick Faldo, Greg Norman and Sandy Lyle, summiting Kilimanjaro and Mont Blanc with Sir Chris Bonington and building Berghaus, the eponymous British brand, into a global market leader, he has both the experience and a unique ability to correlate the risk and adventure of high-altitude mountaineering, professional sport and elite performance coaching with the risk and adventure of running businesses in corporate life. Drawing parallels which deliver success in both fields and articulating them in a pragmatic and actionable way.

He strongly believes that new generation business leaders must be capable of balancing the here and now with the ability to see what the bright future needs to look like, creating an organisation where business alignment and employee engagement are the two driving forces.

Richards speaking work focuses on challenging and energising audiences to; consider what their Leadership Brand should look like; demonstrate they have sufficient Desire, Belief and Commitment to make it happen; re-visit and evaluate their Strategic Choices; think how they build a High Performance Culture; define what a world class “Team 1” needs to look like; understand how to mobilise an organisation and create Unstoppable Momentum.

Richard has captured his experience and insight in his best-selling book The Zebra Reality, a remarkably practical 5 Step Programme designed to help businesses create unstoppable organisation momentum and achieve all their business goals.

Steve Hackney

The Core Asset helps owners, directors and entrepreneurs to grow, build and increase the profits of their small and medium sized businesses.

For more than 20 years Steve has enjoyed successes through his business marketing books, tools, strategies, programmes, training courses and systems to help thousands of businesses in 46 different countries. He has trained and developed hundreds of business coaches on the Core Asset methodology which has in the last 5 years alone generated over £3 billion in extra profits.

Steve believes it’s not what you do to grow your business it’s how you do it. He is the creator of ‘The FORMULA’, also published as a book, which delivers a proven system any business owner can use to quickly grow their business.

As a keynote speaker, Steve shares this methodology for those who are looking for a grow fast without losing the shirt on their back.

He starts from the position that marketing and growing your business isn’t rocket science, but it IS a science. There are a number of strategies and entrepreneurial traits that businesses need to master if they’re going to be highly successful. Steve knows what works, what works better and more importantly what doesn’t work.

His business growth systems are founded upon the principles of elite sport and his 20+ years in helping business owners to build successful firms.

Tony Morris

Having been in sales from the age of 18, Tony Morris knows sales as well as he knows life and more importantly, he knows what it takes to lead a successful business. Tony can translate his hands-on experience into a coherent, compelling and exciting philosophy, which has made him an inspiring speaker and a powerful sales trainer.

Tony’s presentations are interactive, motivating, fast-moving, informative and entertaining. He presents his ideas with a rare combination of fact, insight and practical advice that delegates can apply immediately for improved results.

Tony offers insights on persuasion and influence, perseverance, handling rejection, tenacity and negotiations. His specialist subjects include how to make the perfect sales call, which sees him make live calls on stage to demonstrate how to create additional revenue streams for your business. Tony shows audiences what the top 1% of sales professionals worldwide do differently to become overachievers, having worked with 15,000 of them.

Tony is the author of five sales books including: ‘Coffee’s for Closers’, ‘Dear Sales Doctor’, ‘The Perfect Sales Meeting’. Each have achieved four and five star book reviews across numerous business magazines and journals.

He also pens a weekly column called ‘Dear Sales Doctor’ where sales people pose their most challenging sales questions to him. This has appeared in numerous publications including the London Evening Standard, Manchester Evening News and Sales Initiative Magazine.

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.

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.

Diana Hunter

From an early age Diana had a clear passion for retail, she would often be found meandering the aisle of her grandfather’s department store in Darlington. It was therefore a natural fit when she joined the Sainsbury’s Graduate Programme in 1990 and since then Diana has gone on to climb the retail ladder, boasting some incredible successes.

Diana stayed at Sainsbury’s for thirteen years where she held a multitude of roles including heading up a senior manager transformation programme before eventually departing from the role of format development. She later made the switch to Waitrose in 2007, where she carved a reputation as an innovator in store development. Some of her major projects whilst there included; the launch of Little Waitrose, securing partnership with Shell for service station stores and the launch of its home offer in its Canary Wharf Store. Diana was also a key player in the development of John Lewis’ food hall.

Gavin Quinney

Gavin Quinney runs a 75 acre vineyard, Chateau Bauduc near Bordeaux, producing upmarket house wines for leading British chefs Gordon Ramsay and Rick Stein. He also sells the vineyard’s wine direct to people at home in the UK.

A former IT Sales Director, Gavin shares the journey he has been on since he chose to leave behind all the trappings of success, living and working in London. He moved his family to France in 1999 to run a vineyard and proceeded to break all the rules of the wine trade!

Gavin is also a well-known wine writer, having been the Bordeaux critic for Harpers Wine and Spirit magazine since the 2005 vintage, and is a regular contributor to Jancis Robinson’s website and to Liv-ex, the global fine wine site. Each year Gavin tastes the new wines of the leading 500 châteaux, both from the barrel and again after bottling. He describes it as “a teeth-staining labour of love, but someone’s got to do it”.

Gavin, whose Chateau Bauduc has been the house wine at Gordon Ramsay’s and Rick Stein’s restaurants since 2000, is a passionate wine lover and entertaining speaker. He is very happy to share that passion and knowledge with guests through wine tasting sessions as part of an event activity or dinner.

Geoff Cousins

Armed with an entrepreneurial mindset, Geoff Cousins has the ability and skill needed to drive innovative strategies and deliver real results for businesses of all sizes.

During his career Geoff has held a number of C-Suite positions within the iconic Jaguar Land Rover Brands which include; Chief Financial Officer of North America for JLR and Volvo, Director of Sales, Manufacturing and Planning for JLR, UK Managing Director and Global Sponsorships and Brand Partners Director for JLR, and currently he is the Chairman of G&P. As a result he is well known and respected throughout the industry.

Geoff’s global experience and track record of personal business achievements provides a unique mix of big business process capability and innovative thinking that delivers transformational but pragmatic business solutions to entrepreneurs, innovation start ups and SME’s. His experience allows businesses and leaders to optimise performance, deliver results and lead transformation initiatives, while cutting through complex issues.

Geoff is currently the Non-Executive Director of Performance Communications, advising on strategy, operational performance and business growth initiatives. He is also the Managing Director of Geoff Cousins Associates, a Business Consultancy advising their clients on areas such as; Leadership and People Performance, PR and Marketing, Product Planning and Distribution, Strategic and Business Development and Executive Recruitment.

His most recent project is the creation of a cutting edge brain development product known as Zing Performance. Inspired by the latest neurological research, Zing Business improves human performance by enhancing the brain body connection. It does so by developing neural pathways to improve cognitive, emotional and social abilities.

Geoff is a visiting Professor of Global Governance at the University of South Wales where he delivers master classes on international business, chairs the course student conference and assesses group simulation exercises. He holds a number of external positions in the fields of charity and sports administration.

Speaker Theme: Sales

Richard Cotter