Speaker fees:
Topics:
Ollie Thorn is a keynote speaker on resilience, adaptability and inclusive culture, and the first person to handcycle to Everest Base Camp under his own power.
Ollie’s career spans the Army, professional sport, the charity sector and big business, and he led a world-first expedition. He draws practical lessons from each and tailors every talk to the client’s brief. He was head of client solutions at a mid-sized consultancy and a senior manager at a FTSE 250 company, launched a global disability employee network, and facilitated Generation Valuable, the Valuable 500’s global leadership development programme for executive leaders and high-potential disabled talent. He advises organisations on inclusion, culture and change, and his speaking clients include AXA Partners, Channel 4, JLR and UBS.
While training to become a British Army officer, Ollie was involved in a motorbike accident. He broke more than 40 bones, sustained a spinal cord injury and spent a month in a coma. Paralysed from the chest down, he had to rebuild his body, his identity and his expectations for the future. Recovery became a process of continual adaptation. He returned to competitive sport through sit-skiing, racing internationally, and went on to cross Tibet into extreme altitude on a specially adapted handcycle, a journey captured in the BBC documentary Everest: Pushing the Limits.
As organisations face faster and less predictable change, Ollie shows leaders and teams how to thrive in uncertainty rather than just survive it. Audiences leave with practical ways to take ownership, adapt when plans change and keep moving forward when the path isn’t clear. They learn to build belief before they have all the evidence, focus on what they can control, and create teams where people feel safe to speak up.
Resilience is often treated as a rare trait that some people are simply born with. After breaking more than 40 bones, spending a month in a coma and being left paralysed from the chest down, Ollie went on to race internationally and handcycle to Everest Base Camp. But he argues that none of it came from being extraordinary.
In this talk, Ollie shows that resilience is a practice, not a superpower. It is built through small decisions made consistently, the people around you, and the honesty to say when things are hard. Audiences leave seeing resilience as something they can develop, not something they either have or don’t.
Takeaways
· Resilience as a practice: the small, repeatable habits and decisions that build capacity before you need it.
· Control the controllables: managing the inner voice and staying consistent towards long-term goals when progress is slow.
· Resilient teams talk: why communication, vulnerability and telling your team when it’s hard make people and teams stronger.
Ideal for
Leadership conferences, sales kick-offs, wellbeing weeks and teams working under sustained pressure.
Change is the only constant in life. The biggest risk isn’t failing to change; it’s quietly sliding back to the old normal. Ollie’s life changed in an instant, and the long journey that followed taught him how to adapt forward rather than wait to get back to how things were. The people and teams who thrive aren’t the ones who avoid change, but the ones who learn to adapt fastest.
Drawing on his recovery, elite sport and senior management experience, Ollie shows that adaptability is a skill that can be learned and gives audiences a simple model for responding to change: Responsibility, Adaptability and Purpose. He shows how to spot when people and organisations are being pulled back to their baseline, and how to act with confidence before all the answers are clear so audiences leave ready to thrive in uncertainty, not just survive it
Takeaways
· Responsibility: you can’t control the change, but you can own your response, as individuals and as teams.
· Adaptability: flex the approach, keep the goal; how constraints become catalysts for new thinking and innovation.
· Purpose and belief before evidence: why a clear purpose, and committing before you have proof, is what carries people through uncertainty.
Ideal for
Organisations going through transformation, restructures or adapting to new ways of working; leadership teams and founders scaling up; conference openers and closes.
High-performing teams are built on people feeling able to speak up, share ideas and be themselves. Yet many leaders aren’t sure how to create that, and well-meaning managers often freeze or default to process when conversations get difficult.
Combining his senior management experience, launching a global employee network and facilitating leadership development for the Valuable 500, Ollie shows how inclusion and psychological safety drive performance. His personal story brings the subject to life and makes it relatable for every manager in the room.
Takeaways
· Psychological safety in practice: what it looks like day to day, and the small leadership behaviours that build or erode it.
· Inclusion as a performance advantage: why teams where people bring different perspectives adapt and innovate faster.
· Leading with curiosity: moving from freezing or defaulting to HR towards asking, listening and adjusting, and why changes made for one person often help everyone.
Ideal for
Leadership and manager development, culture and engagement programmes, National Inclusion Week and organisations acting on staff survey results.
Disability isn’t a dirty word. Around 24% of the working population is disabled, yet many businesses don’t know where to start when discussing disability inclusion.
Ollie brings lived experience as someone with a physical disability and neurodiversity, alongside professional experience: launching a global disability employee network at a FTSE 250 company, facilitating the Valuable 500’s Generation Valuable programme, advising global businesses, and serving on the board of an international humanitarian charity. He brings both authenticity and authority.
Takeaways
· Demystifying disability: taking the fear out of the subject so people can have an adult conversation, and recognising how they interact with disability every day.
· The opportunity: why disability inclusion matters morally and commercially, and what organisations gain when they get it right.
· The how: there is no one-size-fits-all approach, so Ollie shares manageable, practical steps for busy people and teams.
Ideal for
Disability History Month, International Day of Persons with Disabilities (3 December), Purple Light Up, employee networks, and HR, L&D and inclusion teams.
Thank you so much for coming and delivering such an impactful talk.
You were completely brilliant, and that is not just me but the feedback from everyone. The lessons and take aways from your story on career resilience were brilliant.
Ollie Delivered a Keynote on ‘taking control of your career’ during a leadership conference for our directors. The session was absolutely brilliant, and we’ve seen the longer-term impacts of the session going forward. We’re looking forward to working together again!
