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Benedict Allen
Benedict differs from most explorers in that he lives for months at a time with remote tribes, learning their survival techniques. He takes nothing into these communities - no equipment, maps or compasses - throwing himself on the mercy of the people he encounters. He has come close to death on many occasions. The BBC series Skeleton Coast brought Benedict’s adventures to a wide audience, documenting his experiences walking the diamond littered coast of Namibia. By the end he had walked 2,000 kilometres, with three very reluctant camels.
For the following series, Ice Dogs, Benedict had to earn the trust of his hardened ten-strong team of huskies. After getting separated in a blizzard, and without any form of communication or back-up, he only narrowly survived crossing the Bering Straits.
He has trekked from the remote wilds of Siberia, through the Mongolian steppe and Altai mountains, ending with a lone crossing of the Gobi desert. He’s been hunted, shot at and left to stitch up his own chest. Benedict admits the challenges are more extreme than anything you’ll find in the business jungle, but there are parallels: both are highly competitive, often confusing and sometimes frightening.
Benedict is also a successful author. His book Into the Abyss weaves his own experience with the likes of Columbus, Stanley and Livingstone. In his gripping conference presentation and after dinner speech, Benedict demonstrates the qualities necessary to succeed and survive - including personal motivation, risk-taking and the ability to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances.
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Jamie Cole, Executive Partner, Industrial Leader, Cognitive Solutions, Europe
Bio arriving soon.
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Tom Flatau, MD Teamworking International
Tom is an international speaker whose clients include names such as Louis Vuitton, American Express, Siemens, HSBC, Emirates, Unilever, and City University. Tom is a Fellow of the Institute of Leadership & Management, an executive coach and sales and negotiation trainer.
Tom has a first degree in Information Systems and a Masters degree in Business Analysis & Systems Design. Tom’s academic career included posts at Universities in London & the US. He used this experience and his later managerial career to develop the accelerated training methods that are unique to TWI Ltd.
Tom’s work is based on understanding human instincts and behaviour, derived from up-to-the-minute research in the fields of neuroscience and positive psychology.
Tom helps people make positive changes to the beliefs, feelings and approaches that influence their work performance and interactions. Consequently, individuals become happier and more effective. Customer interactions are improved, with immediate and lasting benefit to the organisation.
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Rory Sutherland, Vice-Chairman and Executive Creative Director of advertising at the media company Ogilvy Group
After a spell teaching at a grammar school (and finding his colleagues far more challenging than the pupils), Rory applied to a number of advertising and marketing agencies and was offered a planning role by Ogilvy & Mather. He was asked to leave the Planning Department and moved to the Creative Department instead as a junior copywriter. He worked on accounts including American Express, Royal Mail, and the relatively obscure software company Microsoft. Despite approaching Microsoft with the idea of a system whereby people could share Office documents over the nascent internet and being roundly rejected, Rory went on to help found OgilvyOne, the group’s dedicated digital and direct agency, and he remains an advocate of socalled ‘360 Degree Branding’ ensuring brands have a coherent, joined-up presence in all relevant media areas. Rory was appointed Head of Copy, and shortly afterwards Creative Director of Ogilvy. He has also served as the president of the Institute of Practioners in Advertising (IPA) - the first ‘creative’ to do so. Ogilvy is now part of the massive WPP ad and media group and count Ford, Unilever, IBM, American Express, BP, and British Airways amongst their top accounts.
With characteristic wit and erudition Rory looks at the successes, the failures and the outright bizarre from the ad world. He analyses what branding means, what creativity is, and the value of persuasion over compulsion. He considers how the potato was rebranded by Friedrich the Great of Prussia, the mysteries behind advertising, why the media is like food and why cheap, imaginative answers can often be better than expensive ones.
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