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Anna Hemmings is a leading authority on sustained high performance.
She helps leaders and teams achieve excellence, and maintain it, through a fusion of proven elite sport strategies and behavioural science. Drawing on her background as a 6 x World Champion and 2 x Olympian, she delivers practical business-ready tools that drive instant change.
The Power of Mindset
Anna’s journey is a masterclass in resilience. After being told by the British head coach that she wasn’t big enough or strong enough to reach the top, she became a 3 time World Champion and Olympian by age 24. At the peak of her career, Anna was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Medical experts told her she might never race again. She battled her way to full recovery and to win 3 more world titles and compete at her second Olympic Games in Beijing 2008. She retired with a staggering 11 World and European Championship medals – 9 of them gold, becoming Britain’s most successful female kayaker and earning her an MBE for her services to sport.
High performance specialist
Since retiring from sport, Anna has specialized in helping leaders and teams build the mindset, habits and culture needed to thrive and stay at the top of their game. She’s an accredited Leadership Coach and founded Beyond the Barriers training consultancy, designing and delivering programmes on resilience, leadership and high-performing teams for organisations worldwide.
Her expertise sits at the intersection of elite sports performance and corporate reality. With 15 years of experience working closely with senior leaders she understands the intensity of the corporate environment: stretch targets, constant change, limited resources under relentless pressure. She brings the discipline and mindset of world-class sport together with actionable tools to drive sustained excellence.
Speaking: With 18 years’ of speaking experience across more than 40 countries and multiple industries, Anna is more than an entertaining storyteller.
She delivers energizing and high impact keynotes that go beyond inspiring insights from elite sport. She connects elite performance principles directly to the challenges her audiences face, providing practical frameworks to navigate constant change and high pressure targets. Clients consistently praise her warmth, authenticity and ability to shift both mindset and capability in the room and this is why Anna’s keynotes are a consistent favourite with powerful global brands including Amazon, Coca-Cola, Rolls Royce, Coutts Bank, IBM, Red Bull, JP Morgan, Ernst Young, Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Sony and many more.
Anna’s collaborative approach ensures a seamless experience for event planners and an unforgettable one for attendees. Beyond thought-provoking keynotes, she offers podcasts and firesides chats as well as breakout sessions, follow up workshops and leadership and team development training to embed learning and maximise impact.
Exceptional individuals are not born they are made. Anna’s mission is to provide clients with the key skills and mindset required to succeed at the highest level. In this inspiring speech she reveals the thinking, methodology and techniques she used to become a world champion 6 times and how those strategies can be applied directly to the business world.
Having had her own struggles and overcome adversity, performed under pressure in challenging environments and studied and worked with resilient leaders and teams over the last 14 years, Anna knows how to support organisations and equip them with the tools to boost resilience. In this inspiring keynote she presents highly effective and practical techniques to ensure you are well equipped to thrive through turbulent times.
High performing teams are finely tuned, they consistently perform at a high level, they achieve outstanding results and it doesn’t happen overnight but with the right tools and mindset it is possible. Anna’s simple, practical and powerful tools are a fusion of the latest research and science of performance together with pioneering principles from the world of elite sport for the development of high performance teams in the business world.
The core of this speech is built around the framework of the 5 Behaviours of a Cohesive Team Model (which Anna is an accredited trainer) and is illustrated through inspiring anecdotes from Anna’s journey in sport and business.
The businesses who thrive through periods of adversity and rapid change are the ones who have resilient leaders who drive them forward. Resilience leaders are more effective under pressure, have the ability to think clearly and make rational decisions in the face of challenge and create opportunities for growth. Using the Resilient Leaders Elements framework Anna will share how you can become a resilient leader. She will take you on an inspiring journey and reveal the behaviours, actions and strategies that leaders need to be resilient and have impact.
Confidence is one of the key factors underpinning high performance; it provides you with a strong foundation for getting the best out of yourself, for dealing with pressure and for bouncing back strong from adversity.
In this inspiring and engaging speech Anna reveals the thinking, methodology and techniques that she used to fulfil her dream of becoming an Olympian and how she won 6 world championship gold medals and more importantly, how those strategies can be applied directly to your world. In this new speech, developed specifically for the Paris 2024 Olympic Year, Anna will ensure that delegates walk away ready to unleash their inner Olympian, feeling empowered and with belief in themselves and their ability to achieve more than they imagined.
Key insights from this thought provoking speech are brought to life through entertaining anecdotes from her journey as a two time Olympian and multiple World Champion.
Key takeaways include: Develop a winning mindset, Build unshakable confidence, Thrive under pressure, Develop the non-negotiable behaviours of an Olympian and Overcome fear and step out of your comfort zone
We were totally blown away by Anna’s speech. The focus on the importance of mindset, setting goals, resilience and team work was inspirational for the team. Seeing how an Olympian athlete addresses the challenges we all face day to day opened everyone’s minds to the power of mindset and being part of a team. I would definitely recommend Anna to any team who are looking grow & improve performance!!
Anna’s speech was the highlight of the conference. Her storytelling was compelling and her authenticity really drew the audience in. Her material is something that we are using to help build on post conference with some very clear and tangible actions leaders can take for themselves and their teams to enable high performance.
