James Kerr

His forthcoming book, Where the Earth Meets the Sky, travels to Mount Everest with the Gurkhas to understand what it takes to overcome adversity to ‘reach the top’. It covers themes including adversity and resilience, purpose and pressure, leadership at every level, decision-making and the art of delegation, and the formation of strong, self-directed teams that get the job done. For this project, he spent a month embedded with the legendary British Gurkhas in Everest Base Camp as they attempted to summit.

He asks: What do all great teams have in common? What is the Being of Team? How does change happen? How can you create a culture of initiative, innovation and adaptation? How have we got leadership upside down? How do leaders create leaders? How do they create common cause? How do you prepare for and perform under pressure? How do you make your teammates better? How can culture create competitive advantage? And – what will your legacy be?

A superb presenter and a natural storyteller, his sessions are a mixture of sports psychology, leadership practice, organisational science, and compelling storytelling, and act as a powerful catalyst for change within organisations, and the individuals within them.

Kerr has advised US and UK Special Forces, Formula 1 teams, America’s Cup crews, Premier League football managers, Olympic Performance Directors – as well as many corporations from Google to PayPal, Vodafone to Dyson, HSBC to Roche, Red Bull to Unilever, Shell to Boeing. His next book, Spearhead, explores ‘the principles of war for the business of leadership’, providing a fresh framework for leaders looking to turn culture into a ‘force multiplier’ for competitive advantage.

Read more about James Kerr and Legacy: The Secret of Successful Teams