JLA’s Speakers Breakfasts give event organisers and producers a free opportunity to see speakers in action before making a booking. Each year we host a Spring and Autumn season to showcase motivators, trends experts and business leaders – as well as the latest ‘movers and shakers’ and exciting new names to join the circuit.
SHOWING ALL 2012
Discovery
We were joined by three experts who brought scientific and mathematical discovery to life in a way that was genuinely inspiring and relevant for any organisation interested in innovation.
After training to be a doctor, Michael Mosley moved into TV to work on Troubleshooter. He has since produced and presented a raft of science programmes. 2012 projects include a look at today's medical frontiers and why we really don't need much exercise - along with his regular slot on The One Show. Michael's presentation explored the economics and the history of innovation.
Kevin Fong is an astrophysicist and anaesthetist. After training with NASA he now works with the UK Science, Technology and Facilities Council, as well as running an intensive care unit and teaching 'extreme environment physiology.' He also makes films for BBC's Horizon strand. Kevin considered lessons from space, and how technology and exploration both solves and creates problems.
In an earlier life Alex Bellos was The Guardian's man in South America and Pele's ghost-writer. He's now often hailed as the person who reclaimed maths from the geeks. In his presentation, as in his book Alex's Adventures in Numberland, he explained how maths underpins everything we do - and how random behaviour can be strangely predictable.
LOCATION 28 Portland Place, London W1
DATE MAY 10 2012
The Future Of UK Plc
For the second breakfast of our Spring/Summer season, we debated the future of UK Plc with three high profile business speakers...
Mark Wood is the former CEO of both Axa and Prudential. He now chairs a Lloyds underwriter, a digital marketing firm and the NSPCC, and serves on the board of the RAC. He turned around Axa and cut costs at Prudential UK by 40% (while increasing profits by the same amount). Mark addressed the leadership challenge of transforming a business, and dug beneath the surface of official statistics.
Newsnight's Economics Editor Paul Mason sums up his agenda as profit, people and planet. A former musician and deputy editor of Computer Weekly, he has also written on the global working classes in Live Working or Die Fighting. He expects protectionist measures towards China, and serious social unrest stretching from the US to Israel and Iran - and explored whether we've entered an age of 'repressionomics.'
PY Gerbeau has taken on numerous corporate rescues - including The Dome. He now heads one of the UK's largest leisure owners and lectures students in the 'experience economy' as a Visiting Professor at LBS and Imperial College. Having decided to settle in Britain because he finds it much more business-friendly than his native France, PY believes every company must be increasingly agile to improve the prospects for growth.
LOCATION 28 Portland Place, London W1
DATE APRIL 17 2012
Olympic Speakers Breakfast - Part 2
For our final Olympic event we were delighted to showcase two legends and one of the country's leading sports psychologists...
In his last Games Matthew Pinsent was forced to switch from the pairs to the four-man boat, requiring very different skills. Despite setbacks he famously led the crew to a remarkable victory. Now Sir Matthew and a member of the BBC team, he passed around the medals and explained how agility comes to the fore when events happen outside your control.
Steve Bull has worked with Team GB at three Olympic Games. He’s also the principal leadership coach for English cricket, helping the national side regain the Ashes. Steve explained why coaching is the primary responsibility of every manager in any organisation, creating a mindset that enables the team to thrive under pressure.
Britain’s best known Paralympian, Tanni Grey-Thompson amassed 11 gold medals in 5 consecutive Olympics. She also won the wheelchair race in 6 London Marathons and achieved 34 world records. Now Dame Tanni, Vice Chair of the 2012 Athletes Commission and an active member of the House of Lords, she described how her success came down to planning, teamwork, ambition and sheer determination.
Click below to watch highlights:
LOCATION 28 Portland Place, London W1
DATE MARCH 20 2012
Facing The Challenges
We showcased three high profile speakers offering their perspective on challenges at home and abroad...
As the debate about 'fairness' continues on the front pages and in the Occupy movement, the bestselling philosopher AC Grayling considers everyday ethical issues - and how we can be "good citizens of the business community." He might have also mentioned his New College of the Humanities, which opens later this year charging academically elite students £18,000 a year.
General Sir Mike Jackson was Head of the British Army until 2006. Applying first hand strategic experience to the challenges facing any big organisation, he argued that every leader must be ruthless: "Mark out the objective, work out the resources required to get there and get on with it." He also offered his view on the instability in Iran and across the Middle East.
Andrew Pierce's perceptive right-of-centre political journalism is required reading for its insider's view of parliament. After twenty years on The Times, Andrew was then assistant editor of The Daily Telegraph. He knows everyone in the Westminster village and his ability to ferret out scandal and gossip means that he has a reputation for breaking stories that the great and the good might prefer kept quiet.
Click below to watch highlights:
LOCATION 28 Portland Place, London W1
DATE FEBRUARY 7 2012
Reaching Your Potential
We saw three compelling speakers, each offering a timely perspective on getting the best out of your people...
Adrian Gilpin chairs the Institute of Human Development. He equips front line, middle and senior managers to lead their teams through change and uncertainty. His method is based on storytelling - mixing film clips with common sense wisdom and clear analytical insight into what makes us produce peak performance.
Daniel Tammet is a real-life Rainman - one of the world's top 'autistic savants'. Although he battled to learn basic skills that others take for granted (like looking someone in the eye), he can speak a dozen languages and recite Pi to 22,514 decimal places. He invites audiences to see through new eyes: "If you're able to look at the world in a different way, you find solutions and opportunities you would otherwise miss."
Guy Browning is a bestselling business writer and brand expert - often described as 'the David Attenborough of the business jungle.' He's also one of the funniest speakers on the circuit. Taking his new feature film as the starting point, he shows how we can all use creativity to escape from the usual clichés, break a problem into its constituent parts and apply our own beliefs "to make good things happen."
Click below to watch highlights:
