Sam Conniff

Sam’s career began as a teenager running raves. He enlisted Banksy and Shepard Fairey as designers for what became the Bafta-winning creative agency Don’t Panic.

Sam then founded the world renowned social enterprise Livity, where he won Agency of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Business of the Year, EY Entrepreneur of the year, the Queen’s Award, and a commendations from multiple UK Prime Ministers. His best-selling book, Be More Pirate, has become a global movement advocating ‘professional rule breaking and Good Trouble’ as a new approach to positive disruption.

With Netflix and University College London, Sam created Uncertainty Experts, the world’s first interactive documentary, which was scientifically proven to transform our ability to handle change.  In 2025, Uncertainty Experts was acquired by learning and communications agency MediaZoo, with Sam continuing to lead its development in partnership with the company.

Sam has also created Hard As Nails, a cutting-edge campaign and ‘empathy engine’ that utilises behavioural science to measurably increase healthy masculinity, challenge harmful stereotypes, and redefine leadership.

Today Sam speaks globally on leadership, navigating change and uncertainty, rewriting rules and professional rule breaking. His latest keynote, Professional Rule Breaking vs Ai, explores why compliance has quietly become the default response to automation, and why that loss of confidence, curiosity, and judgement is the bigger risk. It reframes rule-breaking not as rebellion, but as a responsible, necessary mindset for navigating change

In 2022, Sam turned down his MBE in an open letter to the Queen, saying he’d reconsider if she updated the title to Medal for British Excellence, instead of Empire. He is still waiting for a reply.

His latest book, ‘The Uncertainty Toolkit: How to Worry Less and Do More,’ was published by Pan Macmillan in January 2026, culminating what is now the world’s largest study into the human impact of uncertainty.

Keynotes & Talks 

Uncertainty Experts 

With Netflix and University College London, Sam created Uncertainty Experts, the world’s first interactive documentary, which was scientifically proven to transform our ability to handle change. Uncertainty Experts is the world’s first Entertainment Based Therapy immersive experience. Scientifically-backed, it is proven to increase your teams’ uncertainty tolerance, empowering people to move from fear to excitement, inertia to action and anxiety to emotional resilience. In a fast-paced, rapidly-changing world, the only thing that’s guaranteed is more uncertainty. A first-of-its-kind programme, Uncertainty Experts will equip your teams with the tools needed to not just survive, but thrive in uncertainty and be ready to embrace an uncertain future. Drawing from what is now the world’s most extensive research study on the human impact. Uncertainty Experts is guaranteed to reduce anxiety, increase creativity, unlock innovation and will teach your teams how to turn uncertainty into opportunity.

Be More Pirate 

Being more pirate is a shift in your mindset; a willingness to think differently, to challenge and be challenged, and to stop asking for permission to do what you know is right. It’s never been more difficult to create meaningful change and at the same time, bold creativity is more important than ever. Be More Pirate will help you and your teams to shift mindsets and behaviors, leading to more creative and confident crews as catalysts for change. From the first sessions immersion in the true, hair-raising inspirational story of pirates, the crew inherit a new level of excitement, agency and self-belief.

Hard As Nails 

Based on Sam’s award-winning national social experiment, Hard As Nails, this talk explores how redefining masculinity isn’t just a social issue—it’s a leadership advantage. Drawing from hundreds of anonymous male diaries, this session is raw, funny, and deeply human. It’s designed to open up honest conversations in places that need them most.

Professional Rule-Breakers VS Robots 

In Rule Breakers & Robots, Sam Conniff offers a fresh, grounded perspective on what’s really going on beneath the noise. Rather than another talk about tools, trends, or tactics, this session explores why compliance has quietly become the default response to automation, and why that loss of confidence, curiosity, and judgement is the bigger risk. It reframes rule-breaking not as rebellion, but as a responsible, necessary mindset for navigating change. Drawing on cutting-edge research into behavioural science, uncertainty, and the next phase of technological acceleration, Sam explores the mindsets and behaviours required not just to keep up, but to stay human, decisive, and effective when systems move faster than people. Audiences are introduced to the idea that the most adaptive individuals aren’t simply those who follow new rules quickly, but those who know when to challenge them, reinterpret them, or rewrite them entirely.