Keynote SpeakersDr Steve Ingham is one of the world’s leading performance scientists, a high-performance expert and keynote speaker helping teams and leaders achieve peak results.
Steve was Director of Science at the British Olympic Association and the English Institute of Sport.
Steve is steeped in high performance. He led a team of 200 scientists supporting Team GB and Paralympics GB, and has been integral to Britain’s development into an Olympic superpower.
He has supported over 1,000 athletes, of whom over 200 have won World or Olympic medals. These include some of the world’s greatest athletes, including Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Steve Redgrave, Tim Foster MBE, Sir Matthew Pinsent and James Cracknell.
Aside from sports, Steve advises leading business executives on individual and team performance.
Furthermore, Steve Ingham is the author of the best-selling book ‘How to Support a Champion: The Art of Applying Science to the Elite Athlete’, inspiring the importance of learning and adapting to reach our maximum potential.
“Throughout my career, Steve has provided me with a way of making science ideas useful for my preparation and performance. If science can be applied to the complex world of heptathlon, it can probably be applied to anything – Steve shows you how.”
Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill
Dr Steve Ingham – Motivational Speaker
Steve’s most popular speech is ‘Supporting Champions‘. In this presentation, Steve discusses how to lead teams from good to record-setting excellence.
Supporting Champions: Increasing the Probability of Success
A world record stretched across the conference room. Olympic video that stops 500 people mid-conversation. 10 million data points projected on screen. This keynote does not lecture – it demonstrates, challenges, and gives leaders ideas they can act on immediately.
Drawing on three decades inside elite sport, performance scientist Dr Steve Ingham shows how the principles behind Olympic gold translate directly into leadership, decision-making, and team performance.
He supported over 1,000 athletes and more than 200 World and Olympic medallists. Now Steve Ingham brings that same rigour to the boardroom.
Most teams chase outcomes. Elite teams design for probability.
Through four signature moments – a live tape measure demonstration, powerful Olympic footage, real-time data analysis, and the story of how an 18-year-old Jessica Ennis changed how a roomful of experts thought – Steve challenges audiences to rethink how they set goals, distinguish between necessary and unnecessary effort, and build environments where high performance is sustained, not just celebrated.
The keynote is interactive, evidence-based, and delivered with humour. Audiences do not sit and listen – they volunteer, debate, and discover. Leaders leave with a shared language and practical frameworks they apply immediately.
Key themes:
- Why SMART goals are among the least effective methods in goal-setting science – and what the data shows works instead.
- The difference between doing what is necessary and doing what feels productive.
- How elite performers think probabilistically when making decisions under pressure.
- Why teams must align to contribution and purpose, not just targets.
- How leadership behaviours set the standards that scale across organisations.
Related speech topics include:
- Collaboration and Leadership
- Risk and Decision Making
- Visions, Values, Culture
- Stress/Wellbeing
- Building Resilience
- Marginal & Massive Gains
- Performing under Pressure
Clients have included Google, BBC, Discovery, McLaren, EY, Sky, Phillips and AT Kearney.
