World Class Performance Conference 2023

Laura Massaro MBE is Great Britain’s most successful ever female squash player. A former World Champion, World No.1 and triple Commonwealth Games silver medallist, in 2017 she became the first female English player since 1951 to win the prestigious British Open twice.

In an illustrious career Massaro won a total of 23 professional tour titles, including two World Series Finals crowns in 2016 and 2017. She is also a four-time British National champion.

In 2019 the Lancastrian, based in Chorley, was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for Services to Squash

Massaro retired from professional squash in May 2019 and in 2021 welcomed to the world her first child, Leo, with husband and former coach, Danny Massaro.

Kelly Brown is a former Scottish international rugby player and an inspirational and engaging public speaker.

His senior rugby club career lasted from 2004 – 2017 during which time he played for Border Reivers, Glasgow Warriors, and finally Saracens, amassing over 350 professional appearances in total.

It was at Saracens that Kelly enjoyed his greatest club successes winning the English Premiership on three occasions and the European Champions Cup twice.

He made his international debut for Scotland in 2005 and went on to win 64 caps.

He was appointed captain of Scotland in January 2012, only to miss out due to a dislocated fibula playing for Saracens.

He returned from injury in the following autumn and won his 50^th cap, and first as captain against the New Zealand All Blacks in November 2012.

In all he captained Scotland on fourteen occasions before retiring from international rugby after his final cap against Canada in June 2014.

On a personal level from the moment he started to speak Kelly had a debilitating stammer.  He overcame that difficulty through determination, perseverance and hard work, using among other techniques the McGuire Programme

His inspirational story is a great example of overcoming obstacles, resilience, and taking responsibility for one’s own destiny.   Coupled with his experience of international captaincy Kelly has a deep understanding of the psychology behind what it takes to build a team and its culture through great leadership.

Kate Walsh is an English Hockey gold medallist. A former captain for Great Britain and England, Walsh has dedicated her life to Hockey. As an active sports person, Walsh has won Hockey Writers Club UK Player Of The Year twice. In 2003, Walsh shortlisted for the World Player Of The Year Award and later on, in 2007, Walsh was named Great Britain Hockey Athlete Of The Year. Walsh made both her England and Great Britain debuts in 1999 and has gone on to play a full range of international tournaments including four summer Olympics, four Hockey World Cups and four Commonwealth Games.

As a defender, Walsh has twice won medals at International tournaments at her hometown of Manchester – silver at the 2002 Commonwealth Games and bronze at the 2007 EuroHockey Nations Championships. During the 2012 London Summer Olympics, Walsh was hit by a stick in the team’s opening match against Japan and suffered a broken jaw, which was expected to end her journey in the Olympic games. However, despite all odds, after missing two matches, she returned to play in their penultimate group game against China.

Alongside playing for England and Team GB, Walsh has also played club hockey for Reading in the England Hockey League Premier Division. Walsh awarded an OBE in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to hockey. On February 2016, Walsh became the most capped female in Great Britain during test matches in Australia when she overtook Karen Brown who had 355 caps.

Also in 2016, the British women’s field hockey team won gold at the Olympics; as Kate and Helen Richardson were both on that team, this made them the first same-sex married couple to win Olympic medals. A brilliant motivational speaker, Kate Walsh is a prime example of one person can achieve. Through sheer determination, success and failure, Walsh has showed the right attitude that has allowed her to be so successful in what she loves doing best; hockey.

Ben Ryan was the coach of the Fiji Rugby & team that won Gold at the 2016 Olympics and is a keynote speaker on peak performance and teamwork

Ben Ryan brings the kind of A-game and stage presence event organisers crave. His insights into the mindful development of people, open communication, and how to create positive cultures are truly legendary. He shares with companies worldwide the most effective ways to channel motivation and unlock peak performance within teams.

Ben’s extraordinary experience coaching the Fiji Rugby 7s team to their gold medal at the Rio Olympics provides rich learnings, and the kind of insights and messages apply to any organisation or group.

In his keynotes, Ben highlights essential factors for establishing and sustaining the right environments that cultivate success and genuine engagement, including the critical need to collaboratively align values and vision with courageous conversations.

He discusses the importance of adaptive leadership, agile responsiveness to tap into the deepest areas of personal potential, as well as practical ways to build trust. To thrive in today’s competitive world, leaders must be able to mobilise all their resources and utilise the techniques that bring out the very best from every team member.

As the author of the best- selling book Sevens Heaven: The beautiful chaos of Fiji’s Olympic dream, Ben shares the incredible journey from Pacific island sand dunes to gold medal history, revealing the authentic lessons required for developing empowered teams and champions.

Ben’s methods help companies and audiences to maximise performance both personally and in business, resulting in even more meaningful outcomes – and a great big dose of passion along the way.

Ben’s face and historic gold medal (the first medal of any kind for Fiji) moment are depicted on both the Fijian .50 cent piece and the seven-dollar bill.

Shaun has been involved in Rugby League for most of his life. He started his career as a player at Wigan RLFC in the 1980’s, then after a spell at Leeds and Workington, he moved into a coaching role once he retired from playing due to injury. He was able to work his way through the coaching ranks at Wigan, eventually achieving his dream of becoming Head Coach of his hometown club in 2012.

Shaun has experienced great success, both as a player and as a leader, highlighting some of his coaching career achievements:
– 3 times Grand Final Winner and 2 times Grand Finalist
– Challenge Cup Winner and Challenge Cup Finalist
– League Leaders Shield Winner
– Super League Coach of the Year 2018
– World champions 2017

He has achieved the best win ratio of any Super League Coach in its history – second best win ratio in professional world rugby league.
Acknowledging this success, Shaun was made Head Coach of his National Team in Feb 2020. He is now working hard to lead England to success in the Rugby League World Cup in Oct 2022.

Eve Muirhead is one of the world’s most successful curlers – most recently becoming Olympic Champion as skip for the British team in 2022 at the Beijing Winter Olympics in February 2022 and World Champion in the Mixed Doubles in May 2022.

She also carried the flag for her country at the 2022 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.

She is a Olympic Champion, World Champion, European Champion and won her first Olympic bronze medal in 2014– in addition to being a highly accomplished golfer and bagpiper.

Her achievements began at an early age when she won the World Junior Curling Championships, aged just 17. She went onto win that tournament four times in total. In addition, she has performed to a consistently high standard in the World Championships – winning a silver medal in 2010, a gold in 2013 and a bronze in 2017, and in the European Championships, where she has won two bronze, four silver and three gold medals since 2010.

Eve, who was born into a farming family in Blair Atholl, has strong connections with the local area. She is a member of curling and golf clubs in Perthshire, and also regularly trains at the National Curling Academy in Stirling.

Outside of curling, Eve has piped at four World Championships, and plays off a very low handicap at golf, having turned down the opportunity to become a professional golfer in 2010. She has also received the award of Doctor of the University from Stirling University and an OBE from the British Government in recognition of her outstanding contribution to British sport. She has recently retired from curling professionally and is enjoying figuring out what she wants to do next!

Christian Luthardt has been working as a sport psychologist in elite football for over 15 years.

He started his professional career at Seville FC, providing one-on-one counselling and coaching to the players, developing the team and working with the coaches of the Youth Academy.

From Seville, he moved back to his native Germany and became the first team sport psychologist and Head of Sport Psychology at Bayer 04 Leverkusen. During his 7 years at the club, they rose to runners up in the Bundesliga and qualified for the UEFA Champions League on five occasions.

In 2017, Christian was recruited by FC Bayern Munich to become their sport psychologist. During his tenure so far, he has creating spaces for learning, connection and personal growth for players, coaches & staff with the goal of developing a psychologically safe and psychologically informed world class environment for talent development.

He facilitates coach development with a focus on self-knowledge, building sustainable and healthy interactions and relationships and improving the quality of decision-making in training and competition

He also creates a safe space for athletes to talk, to work on their mental skills and develop a stronger and broader sense of identity in order to equip them with the necessary skills and character strengths to deal successfully with challenges inside and outside of sport

Christian also contributes to effective multidisciplinary teamwork and a holistic understanding of talent development, learning from and with experts from different disciplines, and facilitates reflection, critical thinking, dialogue and discussion in order to help build a learning organisation.

Simon Hartley is a globally respected sport psychology consultant and performance coach. For over 25 years, Simon has worked with gold medallists, world record holders, world champions, top five world-ranked professional athletes, Olympians and championship winning teams.

Since 2011, Simon has published eight books, including How To Herd Cats; Leading A Team of Independent Thinkers and Stronger Together; How Great Teams Work.

During the last 15 years, Simon has also applied the principles of sport psychology to business, education, healthcare, the military and the charity sector. This has included projects with some of the world’s leading corporations and foremost executives. He is also an international professional speaker, delivering keynotes throughout the world.

For more information on Simon, please visit www.be-world-class.com