Performance scientist · Keynote · Coaching
Most teams chase outcomes. Elite teams design for probability.
Thirty years inside the British Olympic system, leading the science behind Team GB at Athens, London and Rio. Now applied to senior teams at Google, McLaren and Ralph Lauren.
30
Years inside elite sport
1,000+
Athletes supported
200+
World and Olympic medallists
61
Olympic Games delivered
1Six Games in all. Led the science operation for Team GB at Athens, London and Rio.
Leadership teams I have worked with
The keynote
One keynote, delivered four ways. The central idea, that success has a probability you can design for, runs as the spine through every version. Each audience gets a talk shaped to their work and the moment they're in.
Drawn from three decades supporting Olympic champions. Refined for boardrooms and senior teams.
A 2-minute extract from a recent corporate keynote
Four movements within one talk
The science of success under uncertainty. What the world's best do when outcomes aren't in their hands. How to bring that posture into business decisions.
Why most goal-setting frameworks reward the wrong behaviours, and a model that survives contact with reality.
How elite performers think clearly when the stakes are highest. How senior teams can rehearse for it before the moment lands.
What leaders model is what gets repeated. The observable behaviours that turn a personal standard into an organisational one.
Format
Recent events
Selected from recent corporate, partnership and conference engagements.
Working with Steve
One body of work, performance science from inside elite sport, applied at three depths: a keynote, one-to-one coaching, or extended advisory with leadership teams.
The keynote.
One talk: Increasing the Probability of Success. Customised for your audience. Plus extended workshops where useful. The front door to the work.
Read about the keynote
Performance Science for Executives.
The same physiological work that supported 200+ Olympic medallists, applied one-to-one to senior leaders. Sleep, capacity, decision-making under pressure.
How coaching works
For leadership teams.
Off-sites, multi-touch programmes and ongoing advisory with executive teams. Performance frameworks that translate elite standards into how a leadership group operates.
Advisory overview
Case studies
Named where the client has agreed. Anonymised where they have not. The numbers are real in every case.
Case 01Olympic preparation · London 2012
4 sec
Off her 800m. A 62-point swing in the heptathlon
Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill
Read the case
Case 02Executive coaching · year-end peak
Client anonymised
$2bn
In projects, across ten international flights
Eric, CEO of a European multinational
Read the case
Case 03Executive coaching · midlife strength
Client anonymised
20%
Stronger, with 10% less body fat, in sixteen weeks
Sarah, CFO at a global financial services firm
Read the case
Testimonials
Throughout my career Steve has made innovation and ideas useful. He has been my go-to scientist for preparation and performance.
Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill
Olympic Heptathlon Champion
There are very few people I would consider an insider to our efforts to win at successive Olympics. Steve was one of them.
Steve's approach strikes the right balance with tough challenges that are achievable. Five stars. Long-lasting experience.
Brilliant, just brilliant. Just what our team needed.
Steve is my go-to trusted, proven, innovative and performance-focused partner.
I was thriving at key times and could go into my vacation without being burnt out.
Steve's ability to make those experiences completely relatable to the everyday working world sets him apart.
Steve provided a superb insight into the impact on outcomes through performance coaching.
Steve gave a thought-provoking, inspiring and engaging speech at our Staff Away Day.
About Steve
I spent thirty years inside the British Olympic system, first as a sport physiologist, then leading the science operation behind Team GB at Athens, London and Rio. I worked with more than a thousand athletes, including over two hundred World and Olympic medallists.
I now apply that work to senior leaders and the teams they run. Clients include Google, McLaren, Ralph Lauren, Pfizer, Bayer, Capgemini and Warner Bros. Discovery. I teach at Warwick Business School and Saïd Business School (Oxford).
I'm the bestselling author of How to Support a Champion. A second book, What Persists, is coming next.
Books
The flagship · 2016
The art of applying science to the elite athlete
8,000+
Copies sold, self-published
In 1998, Sir Steve Redgrave looked across a lab and asked whether I was going to make him go faster. This book is thirty years of trying to answer that question well.
Buy on Amazon UKComing next
No. 05
169
conversations from the Supporting Champions podcast
21 Lessons from the Leading Minds in Performance
Olympic champions, fighter pilots, neuroscientists, surgeons and West End performers, each asked what they have learned. The answers kept arriving at the same places.
The catalogue
4 published · 1 forthcoming · 1 in development
No. 01
Exercise Physiology and Anatomy of Movement
Textbook, with Colin Clegg
Amazon UK
No. 02
How to Support a Champion
The flagship. 8,000+ copies
Amazon UK
No. 03
The First Hurdle
For practitioners getting into sport
Amazon UK
No. 04
The Cyclist's Codex
A different lane: a field guide for riders
Amazon UK
No. 05
What Persists
Forthcoming
Reserved
No. 06
Physiology book
In development. Slot held for publication.
How it works
01
Tell me about your event, audience and the message you want them to leave with. We talk for thirty minutes.
02
I match emphasis and examples to your audience. Where useful, I'll preview the framing with your organiser.
03
Keynote, workshop, or both. In person or virtual. Followed by a short note on what to do with what your team heard.
Tell me about your event, and the message you want them to leave with.
Start an enquiry