With another New Year comes that great British institution – The New Year’s honours list. Numerous people have been honoured this year, and JLA would like to congratulate them all. And there are some extraordinarily talented people receiving honours this year who JLA have had the pleasure of working with multiple times over the years, who could easily be one of the keynote speakers at your upcoming 2022 events!
Everybody at JLA is absolutely thrilled in the first instance for the newly honoured Dame Joanna Lumley whose response to the honour as ‘the kindest and most beautiful present’ was totally heart-warming. JLA boasts some of Dame Joanna’s top fans at JLA and we wish her our many congratulations. Contact your JLA account manager to enquire about having the wonderful Dame Joanna attend your event in 2022.
After his exceptional performance at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics which took place in summer 2021, it’s no wonder that Tom Daleywas awarded an OBE in the honours list. Tom truly embodies keeping calm and carrying on, training throughout the pandemic to fulfil his goal of winning Olympic gold, while bringing up his son, championing LGBTQ+ rights, all while getting the nation hooked on knitting.
Not to be outdone on the Olympics front, JLA congratulates Dame Laura Kenny and Sir Jason Kenny who were both awarded honours simultaneously in the most recent New Year’s honours list, in what is thought to be first time a married couple have been honoured at the same time. We are pleased to be able to offer this gold standard couple as a team on the keynote speakers circuit too, and recently saw them take part in the 2021 British Business Excellence Awards. They can also be booked individually, and are record holders in more ways than one with Sir Jason even overtaking Sir Chris Hoy as the holder of most Olympic golds and medals for cycling, and Dame Kenny the first female athlete in history to win five Olympic gold medals for Team GB.
Should your budget be extremely generous, it may be possible to organise some exceptionally well known and well renowned newly honoured keynote speakers for your 2022 event. The full list is here though there is no doubt that some will be extremely popular after their achievements and endeavours in what was quite a busy 2021, not least Professors Chris Whitty and Jonathan Van-Tam, who as Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Chief Medical Officer, newly knighted and certainly somewhat thrust into the spotlight. Both have become very well recognised, and Sir Jonathan clearly isn’t shy of the spotlight if his well received Royal Institution Christmas Lecture is anything to go by!
Though JLA has plenty to offer every budget, and conference speakers certainly shouldn’t be judged by their titles, not least as JLA seeks the best in inspiring, motivating speakers for any number of events, and the honours list becomes more and more contentious a subject with each passing year (and, probably, PM). Equally, so many honours have been bestowed on so many different members of our communities, and many of these people would never want to draw attention to themselves behind the podium, though this doesn’t mean we haven’t the best of the British to offer you and, if it’s star power you’re after, then you could always book Bond…