Ideas

We recently hosted a breakfast event titled “Leadership in Uncertain Times” and the two keynote speakers – Baroness Manningham Buller and Margaret Heffernan – asked themselves are these times really uncertain? More so… Read More

I’m writing this on a Tuesday (worst day of the week) in November (my least favourite month) in 2016 (need I say more?)  I thought I’d lift myself out of this dark… Read More

JLA’s Octavia Rothwell talks through the best Olympic talent on offer… As a relatively new member of the JLA team, I’m still rather in awe of some of the motivational speakers who cross our… Read More

Adam explores what motivation actually means, and how motivational speakers can help you succeed… Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be an existential piece examining what it is that gets us up… Read More

I have been working at JLA for almost a year now, and the diversity of motivational speakers that we deal with never ceases to surprise me. Whether it is politicians, psychologists, sports… Read More

The first quarterly round-up of the new speakers that JLA have met recently and are excited about. Every three months we’ll briefly profile the latest conference speakers (and occasionally presenters, after dinner… Read More

VAT on conference speakers and speaking engagement fees is, unfortunately, a fairly dull topic. Possibly even more so when you consider that previous blogs about our conference speakers contain more than their… Read More

Even with our illustrious history, these really are heady days for Scottish sport. Our football team face a make or break game against Poland to make the playoffs for Euro 2016 –… Read More

My passion is educating for digital equality. I want to make a difference in the world, through reporting and speaking about the digital revolution. I never talk about server parks. I never… Read More

When someone asks you to say a few words it’s the ‘few’ that’s important not the ‘words’. No-one ever complains about a speech being too short. If you’ve had no time to… Read More

The Women’s World Cup is in full swing so in case the collective event mind has turned to female sporting success, here are eight female conference speakers to whet your appetite for… Read More

Put bluntly, after dinner speakers have been around for a long time. The world’s first recording of an after dinner speech is dated October 5th 1888. In this short speech, Sir Arthur… Read More

One of the first questions I’m usually asked when I mention that I work for a speaker bureau is, “Who is the best speaker you’ve seen?” This normally follows the initial, tentative… Read More

When I first started working at JLA I had spent the last three years living between the USA and Japan. As a result, so many of the speakers we regularly work with… Read More

I’ll get this out the way first. I’m unusual. I mean nothing too weird, but I do like politicians. I studied politics at university and it annoys me when members of the public say… Read More

With the annual awards season in full flow, Halloween always seems to sneak up on us – that last themed party before the eight-week slog to Christmas. In the corporate world where… Read More

This week JLA director Jeremy Lee and our office appeared on primetime BBC for the second time in two years (Check out BBC 2’s Funny Business from 2013 too.). In this Friday’s… Read More

There was a time when Tim Minchin regularly worked with speaker agencies.  A time before the sell-out arena tours, Olivier award winning musicals and armies of obsessional fans, when he was a… Read More

Trying to explain to people exactly what my job is has turned out to be more challenging than I’d originally expected. I’m an assistant in a Speaker Bureau, but to those not… Read More

Andrew McMillan headed the John Lewis Intelligence Team, with responsibility for customer service and analysis of demographic trends. He is now JLA’s most popular speaker on creating a culture in which the customer… Read More