Motivational speaker, Victoria Humphries, is a polar adventurer, three times Guinness World Record holder, mountain climber, marathon runner and author.  The Bath based businesswoman is a ‘normal’ person.  She prides herself on being just your average woman who happens to believe that Anything is Possible – if you put your mind to it.  Life is full of challenges, and we always have a choice. Step forward or run away, be overcome by the enormity of it or be brave and step into it.  What’s the worst that can happen?  Just give it a go!

Background

In 1997 Victoria, along with her mother Sue, became part of the first all-female expedition to the North Pole.  Along the way they experienced temperatures of -40^oC, constantly shifting ice and at one point they both fell into the Arctic Ocean finding themselves in a life or death situation.  The expedition tested their resilience, their ability to cope with a constantly changing environment and most of all, their courage.

Victoria is unusual in that she combines stories from her various adventures and challenges with her extensive commercial experience.  Therefore creating a talk that is both inspirational and relatable to the challenges of the modern day workplace.  She is known for avoiding corporate jargon and simply use her real life experiences to inspire and motivate.

She focuses on helping your workforce to recognise that they live in a ‘non-linear’ world. That is one where there will be constant change, they will fall over, they will need to change direction and there will be many times where they don’t know all the answers.  She explains how resilience is not about being strong but about learning to pick yourself back up again and keep going.

When not accepting challenges and generally being a little bit bonkers she has spent 25 years working in the education sector as a teacher, governor, Managing Director of an EdTech, consultant and trainer.  She now works with businesses around the world, across a range of sectors, giving keynote speeches and running resilience workshops; encouraging delegates to use their lived experiences to build their ‘resilience toolbox’.

Speaking topics include:

• Overcoming adversity
• Building resilience
• Managing change
• Motivation and inspiration
• Self-belief
• Women in business

Popular talk titles include:

• Managing Change in a Changing World…one step at a time
• Be Bold, Be Brave, Be You

Outcomes

Depending on what clients would like the session to focus on, delegates will leave:

• Feeling inspired and believing that they can achieve anything both individually and together
• With an increased self-awareness which will better equip them to respond to the challenges of leadership and business
• Thinking differently; challenging themselves to be curious, to take opportunities and to break challenges into bite size chunks
• With an increased understanding of resilience and of how their lived experiences can be transferred to the workplace environment

Why book Victoria?

Victoria’s talks have messages around overcoming adversity, leadership & teamwork and resilience along with encouraging curiosity, empowerment and a sense of perspective when things are tough; most importantly the talk is also full of humour and inspiration.  She uses stories from her North Pole trip and other challenges to spread a message about how anyone can overcome their fears and how anyone can achieve anything – it’s all about taking one step at a time, being curious and saying yes!  Her talks are deliberately jargon free and fairly informal so as to put the audience at ease and allow them to really soak up the messages that she is giving.

Recent clients include

• An inspirational talk at a sales conference for one of the world’s largest drinks companies
• After-dinner speech for a £1bn turnover global sales business
• Keynote speeches for Government Departments
• A keynote speech opening a global conference on education
• Regular training of graduate trainees on FMCG training schemes
• Inspirational talk followed by a resilience workshop for
  • one of the UK’s leading banks
  • an award winning UK franchise network
  • international advertising & marketing agency
• An after-dinner speech at a large charity fundraising event
• INSET day for all staff at a school in Worcestershire

Podcasts that Victoria has appeared on

• Modern Perspectives – the podcast where B2B leaders talk about how they’re tackling today’s challenges across strategy, systems and teams.
• The Career Success podcast – where senior business leaders talk about the lessons they’ve learnt
• Passion Struck – a journey into the minds and philosophies of the world’s most insightful people
• ESPN 30 for 30 – the story of Victoria’s Arctic adventure

Testimonials

‘What an amazing speaker.  A truly inspirational speaker, her talk was absolutely compelling’ – AkzoNobel

‘Inspiring, motivational and engaging.  Highly recommended for anyone looking to build their team’s resilience!’ – Coventry Building Society

‘The whole team would like to thank Victoria for motivating us to face new challenges and build resilience.  We can’t recommend her enough for your company’s team day/session or development!’ – ACD Projects

‘You simplified resilience, positive thinking and mental strength.’ – COBIS – Council of British International Schools

‘I was stunned and impressed with your fortitude, guts and belief – I know we can all learn from that and certainly put some of our day to day issues firmly into a new perspective. The crowd adored you and I think they felt very inspired to try something almost equally ambitious themselves one day!’ – British Telecom – Executive Women’s Networking Group

‘Absolutely fantastic. I’ve never seen anyone engage absolutely everyone in the room before as much as Victoria did… and [it was] delivered with lots of humour!’ – AQA Education

“Thank you so much Victoria … it was an absolute pleasure to listen to you speak and see how much everyone got out of your workshop – such inspirational messages backed up with practical techniques. Thank you very much for all your hard work and for really taking the time to understand what Radfield stands for and what we are all about. – Radfield Home Care

‘Just wanted to thank you again for today Victoria I know everyone found it very useful and inspirational.  It just shows what we are all capable of if we put our minds to it.  Highly recommended by us.’ – Rug Doctor

‘The women on my development programmes came away believing that with the right mental approach you can meet any challenge, and seize any opportunity.’ – Tarmac – Springboard Development Programme

‘Absolutely fabulous, what a gripping way to spend an hour or so at work’ – Pfizer

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