current affairs Speakers

Patrick Mercer, Member of Parliament for Newark since 2001, previously worked as a journalist and as a soldier with the British Army.

Patrick Mercer has a reputation as a lively and uncompromising British conservative politician, whose fascinating career experiences and robust political engagement on security and anti-terrorist issues make him a formidable, direct ‘no-nonsense’ speaker.

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After nearly a decade in Parliament and before that successful work in journalism and the British Army, Patrick Mercer invariably makes an impact both privately and as a forceful public speaker.

Patrick Mercer read History at Oxford University before following his father’s example and joining the British Army, being commissioned into the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment in 1975. He completed nine tours in Northern Ireland and commanded his battalion in Bosnia, Canada and Tidworth.

He was Mentioned in Despatches in 1983 while serving in Northern Ireland and earned a gallantry commendation in 1990 and the MBE in 1992. In 1997 he received the OBE for services in Bosnia. He left the Army in 1999 as a Colonel, having been head of communications and strategy at the Army Training & Recruiting Agency.

He then became the Defence Correspondent for the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme and worked as a freelance for the Daily Telegraph; this involved him reporting from many trouble-spots, including Kosovo and East Timor where he helped design newly independent East Timor’s first national defence policy.

In 2001 he was Member of Parliament for Newark in the English Midlands, defeating the Labour candidate in a strong personal success. After serving as a back-bencher on the Defence Select Committee he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Shadow Secretary of State for Defence. In 2003 he took up a senior new Opposition position as Shadow Minister for Homeland Security, a position he held until March 2007 when he resigned following a controversy over remarks made about race relations in the Armed Forces.

In 2004 Patrick Mercer introduced a Private Member’s Bill intended to give stronger legal protection to householders defending their property from burglars; this initiative received much popular support but did not proceed after the 2005 general elections.

Patrick Mercer is now known for his clear and uncompromising conservative positions on defence and intelligence issues. He supported the Iraq intervention and opposes further European Union powers, favouring a strong national UK defence effort. On domestic questions he has opposed the introduction of a national identity card scheme and favours reduced central state control of education.

Patrick Mercer now maintains a lively media profile and has written three books, including two vivid historical novels with Victorian/imperial military themes and a very well received account of the 1854 Battle of Inkerman in the Crimean War.

His novel To Do and Die was praised by Bernard Cornwell: ‘A tremendous achievement by a storyteller who knows the humour, the fear and the frenzy of men in battle.’

Patrick Mercer has firm convictions and trenchant views, drawn from his unusually varied career often spent applying policies to tough real-life military and anti-terrorist circumstances in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. He speaks fluently and with passion, including memorable and thought-provoking examples from past and present where lethal force has been used, for better or worse.

The Rt Hon Jack Straw MP is Member of Parliament for Blackburn, having previously served in successive senior Cabinet positions in Labour governments from 1997 through to 2010

Jack Straw is one of the most experienced British and European politicians. During his long career including continuous Cabinet-level roles, he has taken a leading part in many momentous political decisions in both national and international politics.

He has a reputation for clear thinking and professional, pragmatic good sense.

After a prominent radical role in national student politics in the 1960s, he qualified and worked as a barrister, did three years as an advisor to two Cabinet Ministers (Barbara Castle, and Peter Shore), and was then on Granada TV’s flagship “WORLD IN ACTION” programme. He was a London borough councillor, and Deputy Leaders of the Inner London Education Authority.

He first entered Parliament as a Labour MP representing Blackburn in 1979. He had a number of Shadow Cabinet roles before becoming Home Secretary after the Labour Party’s 1997 election victory, and then Foreign Secretary in 2001 and Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal in 2006. He served as Lord High Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice from 2007 until 2010.

Now again in Opposition, Jack Straw continues to play a leading role in national politics, on home and foreign policy, and not least in issues involving the UK’s Muslim population (his constituency Blackburn has a sizeable Muslim community). His deft personal style combines with his immense domestic and foreign policy insight (he was closely involved in key decisions before and after the intervention in Iraq) to make him a formidable and fascinating expert speaker.

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After three decades in Parliament and successive Cabinet positions, Jack Straw is one of the most experienced and insightful British and international political figures.

Jack Straw read law at Leeds University and in the 1960s became a national student leader known for radical positions, to the point of being described by the Foreign Office as a “troublemaker acting with malice aforethought” for his political activity involving Chile. After qualifying as a barrister he had various media roles and entered Parliament in 1979 as the MP for Blackburn. He was Shadow spokesman on Education, then Environment and Shadow Home Secretary before being appointed Home Secretary after the Labour Party won the 1997 general election.

His time as Home Secretary had its fair share of controversies (including new measures to increase police powers to deal with suspected terrorists) but also saw the European Convention in Human Rights incorporated into British law.

Appointed Foreign Secretary in 2001, he soon played a leading role in the dramatic and difficult foreign policy problems arising from the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and then the interventions in Afghanistan and then Iraq. He publicly defended these decisions, although later in January 2010 he told the Iraq Inquiry in London that the 2003 decision to go to war “had haunted him”. In 2006 he was appointed Leader of the House of Commons and Lord Privy Seal with responsibility for parliamentary reform. He returned to the Opposition benches after Labour lost the 2010 general elections

Jack Straw has attracted publicity for some of his policy positions concerning Muslim issues, not least his call in 2006 for Muslim women not to wear the full veil: “I felt uncomfortable about talking to someone ‘face-to-face’ whom I could not see”. His close relations with his very diverse Blackburn constituency (including his position as honorary vice president of Blackburn Rovers football club) mean that he has given a lot of thought to sensitive community relations issues in a modern democracy. In 2009 on the BBC’s Question Time TV programme he was a member of the panel which included British National Party leader Nick Griffin.

Although often criticized for his firm approach to a number of civil liberties questions concerning suspected terrorists and then his high-profile role in supporting the Iraq intervention, Jack Straw remains a popular figure in the UK and Europe, not least for his wry sense of humour: as Home Secretary he joked that his large department was “full of civil servants working diligently on projects that might ruin my career”.

His disarmingly understated, professional style as well as his formidable intellect and practical experience in so many policy areas give him a unique profile, not only in the UK and European Union but also at the international level. Few active politicians today match his insight and breadth of senior policy knowledge. He has many striking personal anecdotes and thoughtful examples of what works in politics – and what does not.

Christine Ockrent is both producer and anchor of the weekly current affairs program France Europe Express on France 3 Television.

She is also president of the advisory board of METRO International France, and a columnist for various French and Swiss newspapers.

Born into a family of diplomats, Christine Ockrent is a graduate of The Institute of political Studies in Paris. She began her career as a journalist for American television when she made her career televisual “scoop” in 1979. While going to interview in prison a former Prime Minister for the Shah of Iran a few days before her execution.

Previously she was editor in chief of the weekly news magazine, L’Express, the only journalist granted an interview with Saddam Hussein in the middle of the Gulf War. As well as becoming the first woman to anchor and edit the prime time news. She has had an outstanding career in television, both as producer of documentaries and anchor of the evening news, where she shaped a style as the first woman presenter and editor.

Ms. Ockrent was also deputy director general of TF1 Television and an editor with RTL Radio. She began her career in broadcast journalism at NBC News and worked for eight years at CBS’ 60 Minutes. She has been awarded several French and international distinctions for her work in TV journalism.

She is a graduate of the Institut d’études politiques in Paris and studied at Cambridge University.

She has written eight books, one of which translated in German (“Wie Julius Caesar den Euro erfand” Rowohlt).

Christine Ockrent is also the author of eight books, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and member of the board of directors of Reporters without borders, she is married to Bernard Kouchner, a senior French Minister and founder, organizer and president of “Médecins sans Frontières” (1971-1979); and of “Médecins du Monde” (non-profit-making organization whose members, all voluntary and doctors and nurses, help in times of emergency and situations of inadequate medical care in the third world) (1980-1988).

Rt Hon Dr Denis MacShane MP has an intimate knowledge of the inner workings of government, both as a Minister of State for Europe at the Foreign Office and as deputy Foreign Secretary.

Dr MacShane has spoken to diverse audiences from both public and private sector in the UK and abroad. He specialises in penetrating political and economic analysis laced with stories about the many senior politicians with whom he has enjoyed close working relationships.

As the MP who suggested in a changing room of the Commons to David Cameron that Mr Cameron should run for Leadership of the Conservative Party, Dr MacShane has made a small contribution to choosing the new Prime Minister.

He is one of Parliament’s most forceful speakers, known for the sharpness and wit of his interventions. He appears regularly on BBC and Sky TV and on the Today programme. His columns appears in The Times, Daily Telegraph. Observer, Independent and he writes regularly on European political affairs for Newsweek.

As a member of the Privy Council and Foreign Office minister, Dr MacShane had many dealings with the royal family which he builds into his speeches and talks with humorous insights. He specialises in CEO retreats and business conference and dinners where participants want a full and frank insight into how ministers and politicians arrive at their decisions, particularly relating to European affairs.

Dr MacShane speaks French, German and Spanish and writes regularly for European and North American papers. His latest books include a biography of Edward Heath and a study of global anti-semitism. He has four children and won an award as the fastest skier in Parliament. He has been MP for Rotherham since 1994.

Books by Rt Hon Denis MacShane include:

Buy Denis MacShane’s books here

Specific topics:

The global economy – challenges, risks, where the action is

Europe – yesterday’s dream, today’s problem

Lifting the veil on goverment – how it really works

The real controllers of power in britain

Why Labour lost and the Coalition will too

From Downing Street to buckingham place – why monarchs last and prime minister don’t

Ten things you didn’t know (but should) about the world economy

The end of foreign policy

Ian MacFadyen is a respected consultant, coach and commentator. He has advised governments in the UK and overseas, coached senior public officials, and commented in print and television on public services, reform and the Budget.

His public service career finished in Namibia, advising the government, and South Africa, helping design a poverty relief programme.

He set out to be a lawyer and volunteered in a law centre, appearing at the Old Bailey. But, he was engrossed in advising ministers by the time he got the degree. He went on to work closely with government lawyers and advise ministers on employment protection and other matters while working on policy in the Prime Minister’s Efficiency Unit in the Cabinet Office.

He brought to that work direct experience of commissioning health services in County Durham and having to justify decisions face to face with the public. His audiences ranged from several hundred to a single person. He won many people over and replaced a decade of animosity with cooperation. Earlier he advised on artificial limb services, hospitals, addictions, medicines, delinquency and manpower in the Department of Health and Social Security. He began by assessing benefits.

In Luton he founded a battered wives refuge. In east London, he was a Liberal council candidate. In Leeds in 2010, he is chair of the Liberal Democrats’ city-wide campaign group.

He was on the management committee of a charity for young homeless people in London. In east London, he was a successful chair of governors at a popular multi-ethnic, multi-faith school. Currently he is an elder and trustee of a church charity in Leeds.

Welsh and Scots by background, brought up in England and internationalist in outlook, his talks, writing, consultancy, coaching and workshops, draw on local and global references. With amusing anecdotes and quotations from a wide range of sources including Calgacus and the Beatles he shares his deep understanding of politics, current affairs, government, leadership, the public sector and reform. His style is relaxed. Successes include persuading a political commissar outsourcing could advance the revolution, winning over trades unions and persuading a most senior government figure to change his mind.

Mark Oaten was Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Winchester for 13 years and at one time considered favourite for party leadership. He is a recognised leading expert on the subject of Coalition governments- his book Coalitions was first published in 2007.

Oaten now lectures and advises a wide range of clients on the practical workings of successful coalitions.

He is currently a member of the Council of Europe representing the UK. He is a Board member of the British Healthcare Trade Association, Alcohol Concern, Mental Health Matters, the prison charity Unlock, the Council for Administration and a Director of the Charity Finance Directors Group.

Mark lectures at Wroxton College in Oxford and provides commentary and reviews for Sky and BBC Television.
During his time in parliament he was Chairman of the Liberal Democrats, Shadow Home Secretary and a member of the Business Select Committee.

Rachel Marsden is an internationally renowned political affairs commentator, a communications strategist, analyst, writer, and broadcast journalist.

“Rachel offers incisive comment, witty insight, informed opinion and a rare slice of beauty to modern political commentary” THE POLITICONOMIST

Currently based in Paris, she has presented programmes in varying capacities on Fox News, CNN, CNBC, Fox Business, Al Jazeera, LCP TV France, Paris Premiere (France), iTele (France), France24, Global Television, Sirius Satellite Radio and other TV and radio outlets.

Unique in many respects, Rachel is immersed and informed in political affairs on both sides of the Atlantic. This rare knowledge has made her a popular conference and consultancy choice with many leading global corporations.

Marsden is a contributor to London’s Daily Telegraph online, Human Events, Townhall.com, and many other publications.

Previously a weekly columnist with Sun Media, she contributes to publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Washington Times/United Press International, Newsmax Media, and The Vancouver Sun. Marsden has also written a twice-weekly political column for the National Post – one of Canada’s two national newspapers – with one weekly column about national/international politics, and the other about Toronto/Ontario affairs.

Born in Vancouver, Canada, Marsden was raised in the birthplace of political talk-radio, where she grew up listening to Jack Webster and watching Liberal Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, flip people off. She still holds several major records in competitive swimming from her days as an international level competitor.

The fully bilingual former print and runway model was schooled almost exclusively in French until high school. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Simon Fraser University on a full academic scholarship before pursuing graduate studies in law and criminology, a journalism degree at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, then political journalism at the National Journalism Center in Washington, DC. For her academic achievements, she was awarded the Canadian Governor General’s medal for academic excellence.

After working as a producer, anchor, camerawoman, and reporter for a cable news outlet in her hometown, and as a videographer for Rugby Canada and BC Rugby, her first major media position was with ABC News’ 20/20 in New York City, where she apprenticed under Connie Chung and learned that you can’t live in New York City on $5/day. After an apprenticeship in talk-radio at the Radio America Network in Washington, DC, Marsden was hired as Director of a DC-based conservative think-tank that was a key component of President George W. Bush’s beltway coalition during the lead-up to the Iraq War.

She returned to her native Canada to work as an operative on two simultaneous federal campaigns for current Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party in the province of British Columbia, specializing in communications strategy and opposition intelligence.

At the same time, she began contributing to United Press International (UPI), and hosting a call-in talk-radio show in Vancouver, BC, where she interviewed and debated guests ranging from Canada’s then Deputy Prime Minister, Sheila Copps, and current International Trade Minister, Stockwell Day, to Ann Coulter and Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy of the Richard Nixon administration.

It was this hour-long interview with Liddy – in which he talked in-depth about his role in Watergate and the scandal’s aftermath – that caught the attention of David Asper, the Executive Vice-President of the CanWest Global media empire, who offered her a Toronto-based political columnist position at the National Post, in conjunction with then publisher, Lester Pyette.

Having quickly established a unique, controversial, populist conservative voice in the Canadian media, she switched to a regular column in the Sun Media chain, and started her own public relations and communications company on Toronto’s Bay Street.

While based in Toronto, Marsden started out with the Fox News Channel in 2004 as the Canadian Correspondent for The O’Reilly Factor — the top-rated cable news show in the world — after she was spotted as a regular panelist on Dennis Miller’s CNBC show in Los Angeles. She was recruited by Rupert Murdoch’s chief lieutenant and former Ronald Reagan communications strategist, Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, who personally selected her to be the only conservative on a daily national talk show with three other male co-hosts.

After several months, Marsden left the show when it underwent a format change, stating, “The show has drastically changed direction since its inception and apparently no longer has a place for a political pundit.” She has since appeared on Fox Business.

Marsden has since returned to her entrepreneurial roots, picking and choosing interviews, appearances and projects, and working with various television and radio networks as a free-agent. She continues to work as a political operative, opposition intelligence (“oppo”) researcher and media/strategy consultant, in France, the USA, UK, emerging democracies, Canada and elsewhere.

She speaks on Capitol Hill and elsewhere on topics such as national and international politics; the impact of current political events on business; political strategies applied to business; crisis management; the war on terrorism; national security; leveraging media and public relations in business; media and technology; politics and technology; election analysis; the cultural and economic impact of immigration; and various other public policy issues.

In February 2008, Marsden launched an online political talent project and magazine, GrandCentralPolitical.com to cultivate new and emerging media and political talent.

Mark’s face is known to millions. He is the man they see on their TVs when producers need authoritative comment on scandals, celebrity and the media itself. They might seek his opinion on the latest reality TV shock-horror story, a celebrity’s faux pas or on the craft of PR itself. Whenever the celebrity news agenda hits hysteria point, Mark offers thoughtful analysis, a wry point of view and an insider’s insight.

That insight is drawn from hard-won experience. He’s not merely an academic observer of the media and its celebrity machinations: he’s in it, up to his neck, every day. This is the man who has handled PR for some of the biggest names in the business and continues to do so. He’s worked for Eddie Izzard, Graham Norton, Joan Rivers, Macaulay Culkin, Sir Cliff Richard, Shirley Bassey, the Bolshoi Ballet, Cirque du Soleil, the Three Tenors, Michael Jackson, Michael Flatley and Michael Moore. His roster of the rich and famous even extends to Mikhael Gorbachev and Diego Maradona.

Mark has also publicised some of the best TV drama series over the past decade – including Spooks, Our Friends in the North, The Lakes, and 40, and he launched The Word, The Girlie Show, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and They Think It’s All Over, at a time when everybody thought they were very bad ideas.

He’s been behind the high public profile of a string of West End successes, and his portfolio of film promotion includes cult classics such as American History X, Best in Show, and Thank You For Smoking, as well as multi-million-dollar box office hits like The Matrix.

What distinguishes him is his willingness to engage with challenging international work from left-field companies and artists.

Early in his career, he brought to the attention of the British public a ramshackle but inspired grunge circus from France called Archaos. The name is now legendary in alternative theatre circles. At the start of Mark’s stewardship, Archaos was performing in a shoddy 400-seat tent on Clapham Common.

Three years later, thanks in part to the immense media storm he had succeeded in whipping up, it had shifted into a 5,000 seater. During that time, Mark saw to it that Archaos split a moving vehicle in two in Princes Street in Edinburgh (a journalist in the back, who was eight months pregnant went into labour as a result), and leapt over traffic junctions on a motorbike. He encouraged the company’s Iraqi strong man to bend lampposts before claiming he had run away from the circus to join the first Gulf War. Mark pressed performers into running amok with chainsaws in public and deliberately outraged every moral watchdog and local authority wherever it went.

He went on to scale new heights of extreme entertainment by publicising Jim Rose’s S&M Circus Sideshow, in which a selection of freaks dangled breeze blocks from nipple rings, hung flat irons from their penises, ate light bulbs and cockroaches and persuaded audience members to drink the regurgitated contents of their own stomachs. “He is the greatest publicist I know” says Jim, a man ready to hammer a nail into his head at the drop of a hat.

Mark publicised XXX by La Fura, a multi-media Spanish theatre concoction which enacted de Sade’s Philosophy of the Bedroom in the most graphic and explicit detail ever seen on a British stage. Was it pornography? or was it ART? While the debate raged, the press printed the stories and the pictures Mark gave them, securing the total sell-out sought by both the venue and the company.

He also launched the fantastical circus-cum-rave-cum-performance-art aerial ballet De La Guarda in the UK, personally securing the sponsorship to secure their debut at the London International Festival of Theatre (but only after he’d been persuaded to travel to Marseilles to watch them perform in a disused submarine workshop).

A whole roster of off-the-wall, radical and groundbreaking acts owe their success in this country to his tireless, committed and passionate approach to PR. The list includes everybody from the original Stomp, through to Robert Lepage, Momix, Mummenshanz, Lindsay Kemp, Ken Campbell, Philippe Genty, the Kodo Drummers and the Shaolin Monks.

Mark views PR as an instinctive, spontaneous, totally creative business whose sole function is to fire the imagination of the reading and viewing public. He doesn’t care whether this involves leaving a live scorpion in a BBC green-room, inventing a troupe of performing pit bull terriers for no better reason than it seemed a good idea at the time, building the biggest paper boat in the world, staging a theatre show in a two-seater car, twice presenting and twice earning a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the Biggest Custard Pie Fight in the World (on the second occasion in the Millennium Dome, possibly the best use to which it was ever put) or simply doing a Jim Rose by hammering a nail up his nose and setting fire to his chest hair. Anything, in fact, just so long as it gains the column inches that attract attention and bring punters to the box office, or as the great showman Silas Bent once put it, “if there’s no excitement ready made, some must be invented”.

The widely held belief that PR should be about the absolute, rigid, undeviating control of a message is anathema to him. The message, he believes, can only be properly communicated by stirring the imagination, and ultimately what stirs the imagination more than anything else is the ability to conceive and tell a great story. In that sense it would not be too high-flown to say that Mark Borkowski regards PR as an art form in itself.

Entertainment – and the technique which sells that entertainment to the public – is in his bloodstream. His career started with humble beginnings at the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon, followed by a successful tenure as in-house publicist at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East, during one of its heydays under Philip Hedley as London’s most vibrant centre for multi-cultural theatre and new writing.

But it would be wholly wrong to pigeon-hole Mark as purely an entertainment publicist, locked into the superficial celebrity circus. While he may be on call for a professional take on Jordan’s latest pneumatic exploits, his opinion is regularly sought on more substantial issues of PR practice, particularly its moral aspects.

He writes opinion pieces for the broadsheets, and produces a regular, provocative and cogent column in The Guardian online, (“Stuntwatch”) which frequently focuses on corporate and political abuses of the media. In academic and industry circles he is a respected lecturer and thinker. During the course of the 2nd Gulf War, he established a significant American audience, through his repeated, thoughtful and detailed criticism of the techniques employed by the US propaganda machine. On this subject, he wrote a BBC 3 documentary How The War Was Spun.

Mark has played a key role in developing the careers of a number of advertising stars, notably Trevor Beattie and Tony Kaye, and he’s increasingly in demand from an industry that is – at last – beginning to understand that its erstwhile poor relation can make a potent contribution to ‘marketing product’.

Much of this side of Mark’s work depends on his understanding of the ways consumer brands operate. Although his profile is connected with celebrity, much of his agency’s day to day work comes from the representation of major brands. In this guise, his company manages – or has managed – PR for the likes of Vodafone, Tiscali, P&O, Eurostar, Smartcar, Lotus, Hovis, Virgin Megastores, Selfridges, Harrods, Norwich Union, Thorntons, Horlicks, Bacardi, Pimm’s, Piat d’Or, Gordon’s Gin, Hasbro UK (Europe’s largest toy maker and manufacturer of Action Man, Trivial Pursuit and Monopoly).

The techniques Mark views as essential to entertainment PR are the identical techniques he strives to use when generating media coverage for corporate clients.

After all, what journalist in his or her right mind would want to write an article, unprompted, about Bacardi Breezer? Breezer is Breezer is Breezer. Let’s not be cynical, but it’s sticky flavoured tart-fuel which gets you drunk, and there are no column inches in that. But if you turn the Tom Cat from the Bacardi ads into a Hollywood star, weave a series of outlandish stories round his contract riders and pampered celebrity lifestyle, take him to film premières, award ceremonies and first night parties, organise media trips to Prague for his latest advertising shoot, get him pictured with glamorous soap stars and finally secure him a newspaper column in a national daily, then the media can’t resist the story.

It’s a showbiz style of PR: it makes the media flock to the brand, and so secures the kind of prominence that the product alone would never warrant. And as far as the bean-counters who control such things can see, it bears fruit on the bottom line. As PT Barnum once observed “Every crowd has a silver lining”.

One of his strengths – and one of the aspects of his character that can be infuriating for his colleagues – is his restless, enquiring mind, his curiosity and his readiness to embrace the new, however far-fetched the concept, however impractical the idea. But what inspires the lasting loyalty and affection of his staff is the knowledge that at least one in ten of those ideas has genuine value and exploitable potential.

Which brings us to the genesis of SONS OF BARNUM. When he began working as a PR in the theatre, Mark’s discovered the extraordinary power to be gained in provoking the press; the power which resides in the ability to create stories the media swallow, and the resultant impact on the public and on sales at the box office. That was his education, pure and simple, in perhaps the hardest PR environment around.

Mark’s growing interest in the history of PR and specifically the publicity stunt led to his creation in 2001 of an exhibition – “Improperganda: the Art of the Publicity Stunt” and an accompanying book – which drew together some of the most classic PR images of all time.

The power of images to communicate directly with an audience had long been a theme in Mark’s work, and the exhibition provided an historical perspective on his established practice.

What also became evident in the compilation of the book was that Hollywood’s early publicists, knowing no other way of working, had adapted Barnum’s techniques to the evolving movie business. There were no rules or constraints, (such as there are today in the modern, tightly controlled superstar environment) and these publicists – amongst them Harry Reichenbach, Warren Cowan, Jim Moran and Russell Birdwell – operated with a free-wheeling, buccaneering spirit which 21st century studio chiefs and PR fuhrers would regard with profound horror. Perhaps for that very reason they scored some resounding successes. They did nothing by the book – there was no book to follow – they were anarchic, indisciplined, and sometimes just plain dangerous. Who today, for instance, would book a crated lion into an hotel room under the pretence that it was a grand piano? And more to the point, why would they think it useful to do so? These pioneers showed a creative spirit and a truly inspired ability to improvise their way out of tight corners.

In the summer of 2004 Mark took to the stage of the Wildman Room at the Edinburgh Festival to premier “Son of Barnum: A Stunt Too Far”, his live one-man exploration of the world of the publicity stunt. Part lecture, part performance, his run on the Fringe was greeted with genuine appreciation, as well as laughter, applause and offers of corporate bookings. The stories he tells in the show are those of the publicists of the past 150 years, going back to Barnum himself in the mid nineteenth century. In short, they were exciting, and the work they produced was also exciting. More than that, it was memorable and thoroughly, thoroughly entertaining.

Following this, Mark was approached by book publishers and a year later he was commissioned by Macmillan to write “In Search of the Sons of Barnum”. That book, now titled The Fame Formula, is out on general release in August 2008

For Mark, this approach is what still lies at the heart of great PR. The means of ‘delivery’ may have changed; we may operate in a far more sophisticated, diversified media market, but at the root it all rests on the ability to fire the imagination of an audience. Spin will never engage, convince or excite the public: real PR will. It’s his belief in these principles, and his practical application of them to business problems, which makes Mark Borkowski

“the proud inheritor of the Barnum tradition” Jeremy Paxman.

It’s often easy to disagree with Jeremy Paxman. In this case it’s impossible not to.

Gaby Hinsliff is a writer, blogger and former political editor of The Observer. For over 12 years she has covered politics, for the Daily Mail and then for the Observer, developing an astute inside track on the exercise of power and the development of policy.

Gaby specialises in the point at which politics, social affairs and policy meets. As one of very few women working at this level in political journalism, she also has an intriguing take on working motherhood, and the challenges facing women in public and corporate life.

Gaby left the Observer in November 2009 to concentrate on a broader portfolio of writing, policy and new media projects.

She is the author of Used To Be Somebody, a blog about downshifting careers, and a regular freelance writer for clients ranging from the Guardian to Grazia magazine.

She has been a regular broadcast commentator and newspaper reviewer for the BBC, Sky, and ITV, and is an experienced chair of public conferences and debates for a range of voluntary and public organisations. Gaby has a longstanding interest in making politics accessible and entertaining, tackling it with a wry sense of humour.

She is currently also serving as a member of an independent taskforce advising government on flexible working, and trustee of the charity 4Children.

Leaving Cambridge University in 1990 with a first class degree in English, Gaby worked first for the Grimsby Evening Telegraph before joining the Daily Mail in 1996. She worked as a news reporter and health reporter before becoming political reporter n 1997.

She was headhunted by the Observer in 2000 as chief political correspondent and, in 2004, became the youngest then political editor of a national newspaper. She has closely followed both the rise – and otherwise – of New Labour, and the remaking of the Conservative party.

Gaby is widely regarded as a trusted and insightful observer of the political scene in both old and new media. Her broadcast work has included appearing as a commentator on outlets from Radio 4’s Today programme to Sky News, and a regular slot reviewing newspapers on Radio 2’s Michael Ball show.

Her particular interests include election 2010, health policy, employment policy and the world of work, issues affecting women, social affairs, new media, and equalities issues.

William Crawley is a broadcaster, journalist and writer of Will & Testament, one of the country’s most popular blogs. The diversity of subjects he deals with on television, radio, in print and online inevitably lead others to describe him as “versatile”, though he wonders himself if it isn’t a sign of a short attention span. Or the fact that he’s Irish.

His TV series “Blueprint”, which explored 600 million years of Ireland’s natural history in three hours of television, was described by the BBC in Northern Ireland as the “most ambitious multi-platform broadcasting project” in their history.

In his BBC interview series “William Crawley Meets …”, he travels around the world to talk to some of the controversial thinkers and activists who help shape the modern conversation — from the biologist Richard Dawkins to the philosopher Peter Singer, from the gay bishop Gene Robinson to the architect Richard Rogers.

After hundreds of interviews on radio and television, he realizes that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Which may explain why Ian Paisley first revealed in an interview with William Crawley that he had prayed in private with his former enemy Martin McGuinness; why the Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney first talked about his pot-smoking days in Berkeley, California; and why Richard Dawkins had second thoughts about the use of the word “delusion” in the title of his global bestseller The God Delusion. Alas, it may also explain why the Holywood screen legend Tony Curtis used so many expletives in one live interview during a lunchtime news programme that he made headlines around the world for “turning the BBC airwaves blue” (as the New York Daily News put it).

A former philosophy teacher, with a PhD in the subject, William is an expert on ethics and religion and has made many programmes investigating contemporary moral debates, including “What’s Wrong With …?”, a round-table discussion show, and “Frozen North”, which took him to the Canadian sub-arctic to investigate the impact of climate change.

With a passion for the arts, William presents The Book Programme for BBC Radio Ulster, has hosted the BBC’s TV coverage of the Belfast Festival since 2005, and has presented features on the arts for Radio 3 and Radio Ulster. One of his biggest challenges was a documentary for Radio 4 in which William was tasked with explaining the annual Loyalist bonfires to an English audience without the use of subtitles.

William has also turned the camera on himself in a semi-autobiographical TV series which examined some of the big issues of our modern age, and some of the obsessions of Irish culture: death, booze and religion. In Dying For A Drink, William joined a very short but nevertheless illustrious list of BBC presenters who have become inebriated on screen. That is, inebriated deliberately.

He also regularly presents news and political phone-in shows for the BBC in Northern Ireland, frequently hosts the drive-time news and current affairs programmes for Radio Ulster, gets up early every Sunday morning to present a specialist religion and ethics programme, Sunday Sequence (which was recently named UK Religion Programme of the Year) and can also be heard presenting Radio 4′s Sunday programme from time to time. He presented an edition of Sunday Sequence live from the Ground Zero site shortly after 9/11, and marked the 50th anniversary of South Africa’s Freedom Charter with a programme broadcast from the cell that held Nelson Mandela.

If this looks like a media career, it’s well to remember that it all happened by accident. Ten years ago, William was asked to present a Thought for the Day, which, at less than 3 minutes, is an ideal format for a short attention span. He’s been broadcasting ever since.

After many years in high-level diplomacy Charles Crawford has a unique profile as an imaginative, dynamic and even provocative speaker who has addressed audiences large and small in English, Polish and Serbian

After an Honours degree in Jurisprudence from Oxford University he qualified as a Barrister before joining the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

From 1985-87 Charles served as Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe’s official Speechwriter, contributing ideas/language for speeches by the Foreign Secretary (major set-piece speeches, Parliamentary debates and less formal after-dinner remarks)

His first job on joining the FCO in 1979 was to head the Indonesia Section, followed by his first posting, to communist post-Tito Yugoslavia. He returned to London in 1984 and after a year on the Aviation Desk was appointed FCO Speech-writer. He was posted to South Africa in 1987 as part of the Embassy team led by Ambassador Robin Renwick working to end apartheid.

Returning to London in 1991 he worked in the FCO Department dealing with the Soviet Union as communist rule collapsed. He then spent three years in Moscow as Political Counsellor and then served three times as HM Ambassador: in Sarajevo (1996-1998); in Belgrade (2001-2003) and most recently in Poland (2003-2007).

In 1987 he wrote the FCO’s first Guide to Speech-Writing, a dynamic text full of real-life examples on how to write speeches – and how to weed out lugubrious mistakes. Two decades later it remains a core part of the FCO’s speech-drafting training

He subsequently contributed to speeches by members of the Royal Family and successive Prime Ministers, as well as different Ministers and other senior personalities in public and commercial life

He left the FCO at the end of 2007 to start a new career as writer, consultant, mediator and trainer. In 2009 he joined the UK Conservative Party candidates list

In recent months Charles Crawford led training courses for senior EU and other officials and private clients aimed at improving their communication skills. He has written for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Independent, DIPLOMAT and Total Politics.

In 2009 his audiences included the Headmasters Conference and Conservative Friends of Poland, as well as private groups and academic gatherings

In 2010 he and other former British Ambassadors in partnership with ADR Group launched a new senior strategic dispute resolution panel, ADRg Ambassadors

Charles Crawford’s trenchant observations on public policy issues are now available to a growing readership on his blog




Such honesty has no place in modern government…it’s bloody dangerous!
Andrew Dodge (Samizdata)

The most telling critique of this delusional foreign policy comes in regular instalments in the form of a blog by the former British ambassador to Poland, Charles Crawford. It’s called www.charlescrawford.biz, and if you want to know just how much in despair many of our diplomats are, this is the place to look
Dominic Lawson (The Times, 2010)

In 2005 a humorous FCO email he wrote as Ambassador to Warsaw (a satirical speech by Prime Minister Tony Blair damning other countries’ selfishness on EU Budget issues) caused a stir when it was leaked to the Sunday Times

His FCO written work was praised at the highest levels in London, NATO and the EU for its uncompromising dynamic style:

“fabulously readable and interesting analysis, with practical application … just about the best scenesetter [No10 staff] have ever seen”

“acrobatic and eye-catching in his use of language”

As a speaker Charles Crawford draws on dramatic episodes from his diplomatic career to explain wider policy themes, paradoxes and trends. His presentations are interesting and thought-provoking, but above all memorable

He is strong on foreign and public policy issues such as:

o Communism (and Vampires)
o Dealing with extremists and war criminals
o Climate change and PPP (perverse precautionary principles)
o Amazon Space: how the Internet is changing the strategic policy context
o International negotiation (as explained by Shrek, the Joker and Clint Eastwood)
o UK/European Union relations: Too Big (not) to Fail

Dr Eamonn Butler is Director and co-founder of Britain’s leading free-market policy think tank, the Adam Smith Institute, and a leading author and broadcaster on economics and social issues. Westminster insiders look forward each week to his wry online commentary on politics and politicians.

Eamonn is the winner, with his colleague Dr Madsen Pirie, of the 2010 National Free Enterprise Award, for the greatest contribution to furthering the market economy. He is Vice-President of the Mont Pelerin Society, an international association of distinguished economists and entrepreneurs, founded in 1947 by the Nobel Prize winner F A Hayek.

After leaving St Andrews University in the 1970s with degrees in Economics, Psychology and Ethics, he joined the brain drain out of bankrupt Britain, becoming a policy analyst at the US House of Representatives in Washington. “There, I saw how laws are made,” he says.

He returned to edit an insurance magazine in the City, and to co-found the Adam Smith Institute, which for ten years became the chief intellectual force behind privatisation, internal markets, contracting out, and other foundations of the Thatcher Revolution.

Eamonn is author of books on a wide range of subjects, from economics through psychology to politics. These include easy-read introductions to the economists Milton Friedman, F A Hayek and Adam Smith, and a short explanation of how markets work, called (modestly) The Best Book on the Market, which he wrote to be “so simple that even politicians can understand it.”

He is also co-author of Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls (which traces economic incompetence back to Hammurabi of Babylon) and a series of IQ testers including The Sherlock Holmes IQ Book.

Recently, he has published a popular paperback explaining what has gone wrong with the UK, The Rotten State of Britain (2009), and what he calls a DIY manual for fixing it, The Alternative Manifesto.

His ability to explain complex economic and political issues in a simple, amusing and controversial style has led to Eamonn appearing on speaking platforms in every continent, he says, “except Antarctica – though if the global warming nuts are right, I could break my duck there soon.”

He is an experienced broadcaster, appearing regularly on current-affairs programmes, including The Today Programme, Newsnight, The Week, Any Questions, The PM Programme, Question Time Extra, Five Live Breakfast, Five Live Drive Time, News at Ten, Jeff Randall Live, and Sky News. His articles have appeared in national newspapers including The Times and Sunday Times, The Daily (and Sunday) Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, The Mail and Mail on Sunday, the London Evening Standard, The Scotsman, The Herald and (his personal favourite because “I’ve followed Oor Wullie since I was six and The Broons since I was seven”) The Sunday Post.

His writing for specialist journals such as Financial World and Private Banking has courted controversy recently by maintaining that the financial crisis was caused entirely by “incompetent politicians and regulators” rather than by “greedy bankers”. His insights into the world of political economy and centre-right policy thinking make him much in demand as a speaker and commentator for corporate clients.

In February 2010, Total Politics magazine ranked Dr Butler at 30th on a list of key unelected figures whose work and views exert measurable political influence today.

Shane Greer is a leading political commentator, writer and is the executive editor of the popular political monthly magazine Total Politics.

Shane launched Total Politics in 2008 with its publisher, the renowned commentator and blogger, Iain Dale, and has since helped establish it as one of the UK’s top political magazines.

In May 2010 he assumes the role of Managing Director of the leading publishing group Biteback Media, the company which also own Total Politics magazine.

Shane appears regularly on television and radio, including Sky News, BBC News, Daily Politics, BBC Breakfast, BBC World Service, Channel 4 News, More 4 News, Al Jazeera and BBC Radio and is a paper reviewer for both Sky and the BBC.

His first foray into politics was as the Executive Director of the Young Britons’ Foundation and as a lead presenter on the world’s first political internet television channel 18 Doughty Street. Shane is originally from Northern Ireland, but has since set up his home in London after spending time in Glasgow, the North West of England and Washington DC in the USA.

Shane writes for Total Politics, has blogged for the Daily Telegraph and Centre for Political Studies, was an online columnist for Sky News during the 2008 US presidential election and writes for the Yorkshire Post.

Shane’s first book Why Vote Conservative will be available at the beginning of March, followed closely by his second book,‘So You Want to be a Politician’. The former makes the case for voting Conservative at the coming general election and the latter is an essential read for first time candidates, sitting politicians, anyone intending to run an effective campaign and anyone interested in the art and science of political campaigning. Both books are published by Biteback.

Shane’s deep understanding of politics and political campaigning was recognised by leading US magazine, Campaigns and Elections, which has invited him for the last two years to join the judges panel for the Reed Awards; the US’ preeminent awards recognising campaigning excellence across the spectrum of political campaigns.

“Shane Greer is not only an accomplished blogger, but also an astute political analyst and excellent TV pundit. He is a regular on Sky News, featuring prominently on our Sky.Com programme, a half-hour daily show highlighting the web’s agenda, and frequently reviewing the newspapers with wit and aplomb.” -
JON CRAIG, Chief Political Correspondent, Sky News

Steve Richards is one of Britain’s leading political commentators and broadcasters. He is Chief Political Columnist for the Independent, Contributing Editor of the New Statesman and presenter of Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.

For eight years Steve also presented GMTV’s live political show The Sunday Programme. He has written and presented several political films for Channel Four and BBC2. He was named political journalist of the year in 2009 by the Political Studies Association. Currently Steve is writing a book on the New Labour years, which will be published in September. He has also written for the Guardian, Standard, and Sunday Times.

Steve aims to take audiences behind the scenes of British politics, conveying the high theatre and epic personal dramas of an election year, the comedy and the tragedy: Gordon Brown has ached to be Prime Minister for most of his life and now prepares for his first election as leader well behind in the polls; Cabinet ministers plan a make or break campaign and yet plot for the future and the sweaty drama of a leadership contest; David Cameron and George Osborne exude a public confidence while preparing for the intense scrutiny of an election and power for the first time as major public figures. They are the novices; Nick Clegg wonders whether power is about to be thrust upon him. Or does he face the dark gloom of eternal opposition? In his talks Steve answers this question and many others.

Broadcaster turned parliamentary candidate Esther Rantzen had described Steve as the “most entertaining political speaker in the UK” and Martin Bell says of him, “Steve is as entertaining as John Sergeant”, a comparison that is surely a compliment.

Steve is a regular guest on Radio 4’s Today programme, BBC’s Newsight and has appeared on Any Questions, Question Time and Andrew Neil’s Politics Show. For several years he was a presenter of BBC2’s Despatch Box and was a BBC Political Correspondent who reported on the fall of Margaret Thatcher and the rise of Tony Blair. He has chaired major political conferences and has also spoken on politics as a guest at conferences and as an after dinner speaker.

Professor Roger Steare is a leading practitioner in the development and delivery of Leadership, Culture and Ethics programs globally, for organizations such as BP, Citigroup, HSBC and PwC. He helps people in organizations all over the world develop good thinking and then do the right thing.

Regulators and law enforcement agencies including the FSA, the SFO and the US Department of Justice have endorsed the effectiveness of his highly interactive programs and while his consultancy work has been acclaimed by top executives from firms such as HSBC and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, his book ethicability®: How to decide what’s right and find the courage to do it has been endorsed by President Jimmy Carter and David Cameron MP.

Roger Steare is Professor of Organizational Ethics and Corporate Philosopher in Residence at the Cass Business School in London, where he teaches ethics at undergraduate, postgraduate and MBA levels. He conducts extensive research on human character, judgement and behaviour, and has published research based on over 20,000 “Moral DNA” profiles of people in 162 countries.

He is a Fellow of the influential centre-right policy think tank, Respublica; a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts; and a Fellow of the Institute of Recruitment Professionals.

Roger is a recognized media expert on ethics issues, appearing regularly on BBC Newsnight, the BBC World Service, CNBC Europe and in the FT and The Times. He was a member of the Expert Drafting Committee for Rights and Humanity, invited by the British Government to prepare recommendations for the G20 London Summit in April 2009.

Roger studied the History of Western Philosophy with the late Lord Conrad Russell, son of the great British philosopher Bertrand Russell and draws on a wide range of professional experience as a banker, a social worker, an executive coach and CEO of a UK subsidiary of Adecco, the world’s largest employment agency.

Whether as an enthusiastic, capable conference facilitator, a speaker working interactively among delegates on the floor, or as an advisor and consultant to boards and businesses, Roger’s unique skill set and ability to communicate his advice and views ensure he is constantly in international demand. He unfailingly provokes lively debate and discussion and the fascinating, thought inspiring opinions he holds on ethicability in the world of politics make him an important member of our Election 2010 commentary team.

View the corporate showreel for Prof. Roger Steare, the leading consultant, educator and speaker in the field of ethics.

Stephan Shakespeare is widely known as the charismatic founder of YouGov, PoliticsHome, ConservativeHome and 18 Doughty Street, the world’s first political internet TV station. Born in post war Germany, Shakespeare saw politics at work from an early age through his father who was a Journalist and press officer.

His family relocated to the UK in 1962 where he continued his education graduating from Oxford. Shakespeare was founding Principal of Landmark West Preparatory School in Los Angeles and held several senior teaching positions in California before returning to Britain as a political commentator, including a stint as a pollster for the Conservative party and spokesman for Jeffrey archer. Education remains an area of particular interest to him; he writes regularly for the national press on education policy.

Stephan Shakespeare has an unrivalled ability to understand and predict political outcomes. In the general election of 1997, he was beaten for the Colchester seat by Lib Dem candidate Bob Russell.

Within a year of founding market research and polling company YouGov he scored a major coup by predicting 2001 election victory for Labour to an accuracy of 1%. Shakespeare’s reputation as a fearsome innovator and businessman equals his political ability. YouGov has aquired major investment and now operates in the USA.

The Guardian included him in their line up of UK 100 most influential media personalities in 2008, rating him as “the pollster with the uncanny ability of getting it right”.

In 2008 Shakespeare along with Freddie Sayers established PoliticsHome which became rapidly established as the definitive source for political research and news.

PoliticsHome has become one of the most visited sites for political professionals and commentators, as with YouGov the operation has extended its services to America, and its innovative methods have been applied to the commercial sector across the world.

Julia Hartley-Brewer is Assistant Editor and columnist on The Sunday Express. She is also a well known for her regular appearances on programmes such as Have I Got News For You and Question Time. She once had a regular spot on Sky News as a newspaper reviewer.

Her newspaper career started with a stint on a local east London paper, the East London Advertiser before joining The Evening Standard as a reporter on the Londoner’s Diary and political correspondent. Her interest in political stories lead her to The Guardian and ultimately to The Express.

In 2006, she presented two political documentaries for the BBC; the programme “Every Prime Minister Needs a Willie” studied the history of Deputy Prime Ministers of Britain, whilst “The Worst Job in Politics” looked at the history of the Leaders of the Opposition.

Quentin Letts is The Daily Mail’s star Parliamentary sketch writer and a prolific contributor to the news and magazine press including The Telegraph, New Statesman and formerly, The Times. He regularly appears on television progammes such as This Week, Newsnight, Have I Got News For You and Question Time.

His writing career has included writing and editing newspaper diaries for the likes of the Evening Standard’s ‘Londoner’s Diary’ and heading up the Daily Telegraph’s Peterborough column for four years.

Letts has worked as New York correspondent for both The Telegraph and The Times, returning to the UK to take up sketch-writing for the Daily Telegraph. Letts was lured to the Daily Mail by Editor Paul Dacre to revive parliamentary sketches in the paper.

Quentin Letts is a proudly self confessed middle-class scratcher renown for his mastery of the vituperative arts.

His highly acclaimed yet controversial book 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain reached number 3 on the Independent’s politics & current affairs bestseller list and is a recommended read by Specialist Speakers.

Quentin Letts is a highly recommended after dinner speaker and panellist for political and current affairs focussed debates.

Will Self is the author of five novels, four collections of short stories, three novellas and four non-fiction works. He was born in London in 1961 and graduated from Oxford University. He began writing fiction and working as a cartoonist for the New Statesman and City Limits, a London listings magazine. He has a regular column in the Evening Standard and is also a frequent broadcaster on television and radio.

Nominated in 1993 as one of Granta magazine’s 20 ‘Best of Young British Novelists 2′, his fiction includes three short-story collections: The Quantity Theory of Insanity (1991), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, Grey Area (1994), and Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (1998). Cock and Bull (1992) consists of two novellas, and he is also the author of four novels: My Idea of Fun (1993), Great Apes (1997), How the Dead Live (2000) and Dorian (2002), a retelling of Oscar Wilde’s classic tale set in late 20th-century Britain.

His non-fiction includes Perfidious Man (2000), described by his publisher as ‘an examination of modern masculinity’ with photographs by David Gamble, and Sore Sites (2000), a collection of writings about architecture. In addition, he has published two collections of journalism, Junk Mail (1995), and Feeding Frenzy (2001), which includes writing from the period 1995-2000. In 2002 he took part in a ‘reality art’ project in a one-bedroom flat on the 20th floor of a tower block in Liverpool, writing a short piece of fiction while being watched by members of the public. His most recent novel is The Butt (2008), winner of the 2008 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize.

A regular broadcaster on television and radio and contributor to and numerous newspapers and magazines, Will Self lives in London with his partner and three children. A book of non-fiction, Psychogeography, was published in 2007, and a selected short stories, The Undivided Self, in 2008.

Books by Will:

Cock And Bull
Dorian
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
Feeding Frenzy
Great Apes
Grey Area
How The Dead Live
Junk Mail
Liver
My Idea Of Fun
Perfidious Man
Psycho Too
Psychogeography
The Book Of Dave
The Butt
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys

Journalist and adventurer Donal MacIntyre is Europe’s best known investigative reporter. He has worked for all the UK broadcasters, most famously ITV and the BBC where he has won awards for his outstanding and often dangerous work.

As a finalist of Dancing on Ice he won the nation’s heart and brought his journalism to whole new audience. MacIntyre has worked also in adventure television for Discovery and National Geographic and travelled the world living with far flung tribes and enduring the planets Wild Weather for the BBC.

His work is more diverse than any other broadcaster in the country ranging from undercover to war zone reporting to animal welfare documentaries. From live radio to live television, he has won awards across the world for his unique brand of work. Recently he has worked with the Government on fatherhood and health campaigns and he is currently an Ambassador for Born Free and Mencap.

In addition, he has won major awards as a director across Europe. He is currently broadcasting on BBC Radio Five Live and writing screenplays and novels.

Donal inspires and entertains conference and after dinner audiences with his experiences from war zones to jungles to one of the most surprising and biggest departures yet from his comfort zone – going from rank outsider to finalist on Dancing On Ice.

He talks about overcoming fear stress and anxiety, operating outside of your comfort zone, and managing risk and reward. From welcoming tribes into his home to learning to dance on ice, Donal is not afraid to take a risk and believes that we can achieve anything we want with the right mindset. Donal is inspiring and entertaining and appeals to a wide audience.