Speaking
Are your team ready for the challenges ahead?
Challenges are inevitable: being defeated is optional.
Alex Staniforth is an expert on overcoming challenges, resilience and mental well-being.
As an inspirational and international keynote speaker, he has helped leading companies including Rolls-Royce, Samsung, Accenture and Bank of America build the resilience to thrive through adversity and change.
Combining hard-earned lessons with practical resilience and mindset tools, Alex empowers teams and leaders to embrace setbacks, uncertainty and pressure so they can achieve the extraordinary.
His story brings a powerful and relatable dose of honesty and vulnerability that bridges the gap between mental health and resilience, proving that wellbeing isn’t a barrier to achievement — it’s the foundation of sustainable performance.
Alex Staniforth is not your typical motivational speaker.
He’s a record-breaking adventurer, ultra-runner, author, and charity founder from Chester. No stranger to adversity, Alex has overcome more than most will in a lifetime—including surviving the two biggest disasters in Mount Everest history as a teenager. His greatest challenges have been even closer to home: living with epilepsy, stammering, bullying, and mental ill health since childhood.
Being defeated, however, was not an option. After single-handedly raising over £35,000 in corporate sponsorship whilst still at school, Alex’s first attempt to climb Mount Everest in 2014 was abandoned following a tragic avalanche that took sixteen lives. In 2015 he was trapped at Camp 1 for two days following the Nepal earthquake and an avalanche which took the lives of three team-mates at Base Camp.
Alex has never stopped pushing limits to inspire others. He is the first and fastest person ever to run and cycle all 446 mountains in England & Wales in just 45 days, has written two books (Icefall and Another Peak), and founded Mind Over Mountains, a charity restoring mental well-being through outdoor experiences. His other endurance feats include running the National Three Peaks Challenge – covering 452 miles (17 marathons) in just 9 days and 12 hours, and climbing all 100 UK county tops in 72 days, the fastest time ever. He has raised over £150,000 for charity and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Chester in 2025 for his contribution to young people’s mental health.
"The universal feedback from all delegates was that the session was inspirational, stunning, awesome and engaging delivered by a stand-out speaker" - SASCAL Conference
Alex's most popular keynotes:
Resilience through Adversity
How to embrace the unexpected
Challenges and change are inevitable; being defeated is optional. In our rapidly changing world, resilience isn’t simply about bouncing back or enduring to breaking point: it’s how we recharge, prepare and move forward – even when we can’t see the top of the mountain.
Drawing lessons and insight from his extreme adventures and ultra-endurance challenges, Alex will share the tools in his ‘Resilience Rucksack’ for anyone to adapt and maintain performance during setbacks, failure, uncertainty and pressure – when the whole team depends on it.
Achieving our Everest
Why staying at Base Camp kills our potential
We all have our own ‘Everest’ to climb. However, fear of failure and uncertainty often prevents us from taking the first step and achieving our full potential – when staying at Base Camp might be the biggest risk of all.
Recalling two near-death experiences on Everest and challenges closer to home, Alex’s story offers a different perspective on success and failure to help us discover opportunities during adversity and change.
Alex will share a relatable insight into growth mindset, goal-setting, teamwork and motivation so that we can overcome setbacks and achieve our own ‘Everest’. Can you afford to stay at Base Camp?
Mountains in the Mind
how to build our mental fitness
High performance isn’t sustainable without prioritising our well-being too. With a refreshing vulnerability, Alex openly shares his own mental health journey as a young man to encourage open conversations about mental health, whilst challenging the myths and stigma that costs thousands of lives each year. For leaders, supporting the team often starts by putting our hand up first.
Drawing from his ultra-endurance challenges and lived experience, Alex shares how to build our mental fitness so we can manage stress, spot the warning signs of poor mental health and avoid burnout – one small step at a time.
Transform Challenges into Triumphs through Resilience, Motivation, and Well-being
Alex will work tirelessly with your brief to identify what success looks like, and how your audience will think, feel and act as a result.
His key topics include:
- Mental Resilience – build the tools to thrive during setbacks, change & pressure
- Overcoming Adversity – turn adversity into opportunity with a growth mindset
- Motivation & Goalsetting – overcome fear of failure to achieve the extraordinary
- Mental Well-being – prevent burnout and open conversations about mental health
- Managing Change – maintain focus and performance when the goalposts are shifting
What goals and challenges are your team facing?
Let Alex help them take the first step.
How can Alex help you?
Keynote Talks
With a relatable and authentic style, Alex’s story is a powerful addition to team meetings, conferences, leadership programmes, awareness days, off-sites, award events and more. He carefully combines personal anecdotes with practical tools as a certified Gazing Red2Blue coach to perform under pressure.
Virtual & Hybrid
Whether on a stage, virtually or hybrid, Alex’s home studio delivers the same high engagement and impact; from 10 to 2,000+ people.
Bring Alex’s story to your team, wherever they are in the world.
Immersive Workshops
Alex has partnered with The Audax Generation, to create a series of tailored keynotes and workshops which blend his real-life stories with coaching, innovative games and metaphors – designed to inspire, energise, and galvanise your team to be audacious for whatever challenges they face.
Thanks so much for coming down to talk with the team. You absolutely hit the brief – everyone has been talking about it ever since. It also encouraged one or two people to open up about their own anxieties and stories later in the day. And we had some really healthy conversations.”
– Gas Contract Manager, National Grid
I started working with Alex earlier this year, and his coaching has been incredibly impactful. His coaching style is really intuitive, I feel like he always knows how to meet me where I am. Even when I go into a coaching session without a clear agenda, I leave with clarity, a sense of direction, and practical action steps to take forward. What I appreciate most is how he helps me stay accountable and regularly realign my goals, so I don’t lose track of the bigger picture. Because of that, I’ve already achieved so much more than I expected in this time. The fact that he is also a really nice guy with a wealth of experience in the very fields I’m pursuing (mountaineering and long-distance running), is a great bonus. Alex can always relate to my pain points, from injuries to loss of motivation to life getting in the way – which makes me feel that whatever stage I’m at is valid and normal.
Sandra Kaulfuss
I was particularly impressed with the preparation and tailoring Alex was able to do to make the message even more pertinent to our business – it was a truly inspirational session summed up by one comment “I can’t believe you just paid us to listen to that!”
– Robert Neale, GM Core Manufacture, Rolls-Royce Submarines
The team were blown away and left feeling incredibly inspired. I know for some in my team who are struggling at the moment it would have resonated even more. I also know everyone has left feeling and thinking differently because of you, in a really positive way.
— Sue Harries, Digital Director, Screwfix
Alex collaborated with my team in preparing for the event in such attention to detail, ensuring his talk would not only resonate but inspire the audience. And that it did! Feedback received from participants was exceptional, so many inspired to push outside of their comfort zone and to see what opportunities lie ahead.
Natalie Prempeh - People Director, Samsung Electronics UK
Sometimes the approach to mental health within organisations as big and cumbersome as ours can feel a bit of a tick box exercise, but your sessions felt very different, very humble, very real and very authentic.”
– Chris Mead, Chief Superintendent, Cambridgeshire Constabulary
What a refreshing delight Alex is! Authentic, funny, passionate and simply genuine in every word of his heartening journey shared. If you’re looking for a real example of resilience and winning in the face of adversity – Alex is your man.
– UK Sales Director, Kellanova
Alex’s story of resilience, courage, and overcoming adversity is nothing short of extraordinary. His ability to connect deeply with each member of the audience, sharing practical takeaways on perseverance and mental strength, was impactful and memorable.
– Jamie Radford, CEO, Accounts Payable Association
Your session was fantastic and the content still buzzing around the room today, and I have to admit I re-quoted a few key messages in my closing remarks too. Lasting memory and something I will take back to practice ‘just think what we can achieve if we pull in the same direction’ – inspired!”
— National Chair, HEFMA Leadership Forum
His ability to quickly grasp the messages specific to our team and then weave this into his delivery was impressive. His authentic and humble articulation enabled there to be something in the messaging for everyone”
– Jonathan Ford, Off Trade Director, Heineken UK
Global companies trust Alex
What challenges are you facing?
Alex would love to help you take that first step.