“Transformation requires leaders skilled in operating far beyond the familiar, and an organisation that can trust, take ownership and adapt.”
Jim Lawless is a pioneering thought leader and world-class C-suite advisor on strategy execution and high-stakes transformation.
A record-breaking freediver, Jim stands as a global top 10 keynote speaker who has transformed the mindsets of over one million people in 400 countries on five continents.
Jim Lawless has spent over 25 years partnering with CEOs, executive teams, and senior leaders to deliver transformation. His client list includes top brands such as Apple and Diageo, and also Olympic athletes, and clients in the pharma and nuclear world.
Originally training as a commercial lawyer in the City of London, Jim built a successful corporate career before dedicating himself to understanding human behaviour. In his 30s, he started studying at the Guildford School of Acting so he could deepen his understanding of communication, human connection, and storytelling. He was even elected Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts in recognition of his contribution to business writing and thought leadership. He became the deepest freediver in British history, taking just eight months from learning to diving (an impressive 101 metres), and even became a televised jockey just 12 months after starting to ride. Both transformations were delivered alongside his day job.
This unusual combination of performance training, commercial expertise, and lived experience gives him a rare ability to connect with audiences in a memorable way.
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In 2012, Jim released his book Taming Tigers: Do Things You Never Thought You Could. In the book, Jim shares his proven and inspirational training programme to help you achieve your dreams by ‘taming the Tiger’ in your life.
He is, surprisingly, one of Ukraine’s highest selling authors, with his Ukrainian royalties supporting the country’s children and wounded. He also works inside Ukraine, delivering a Moonshot strategy of global significance.
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Jim offers a sleeves-rolled-up partnership with CEOs and executive teams for when execution matters, certainty is unavailable, and tension is high. Instead of focussing on vision, frameworks, programmes, and initiatives, he focusses on building clarity, accountability, and disciplined decision-making, so strategy translates into action at pace and scale.
He is now a highly sought-after global keynote speaker, leading his audiences through a series of breakthroughs and bold questions that encourage strategic action, exploring what commitment to transformation really looks like.
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The Dare Loop: Supercharging your event’s impact, Jim gives your people the map to navigate ‘outside the comfort zone’, takes them freediving to prove it works, and builds the courage to face into uncertainty and transform. Perfect for people who need to adapt, own, perform, and transform.
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The CXO’s Wicked Problem: Executing strategy is now a wicked problem, not a command exercise. Every move the executive team make sends ripples through the system and impacts thousands of decisions, actions, results, and the willingness to evaluate honest and iterate fast. Perfect for the CEO, executive team, people team, and Top 100.
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Leading Disruption and Change: How do you design a future-fit organisation when you don’t know what the future is? Drawing on Jim’s global portfolio, discover how global brands are architecting an agile, empowered organism, optimised for speed and adaptability in uncertainty. Perfect for the CEO, executive team, people team, and Top 100.
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– Understand the psychology of fear and resistance to change
– Develop agile thinking
– Develop adaptability
– Build confidence during uncertainty
– Challenge limiting assumptions and behaviours
– Create momentum within teams
– Strengthen leadership communication
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I asked Jim to partner with me to create a design that would transform the FTSE Top 10, global IT function I inherited into a data led, AI-ready business unit impacting results. My teams and I implemented our plan ourselves without any ‘consultants’. Our success was dramatic, had a huge impact on our performance and rocketed our people engagement scores to the top of the organisation.
Benedetto Conversano, CIO Diageo plc.
Jim worked with me to design and build a leadership team that would deliver self-sustaining high performance to achieve defined individual and team results. We did the work online during COVID, adding extra complexity. The results were outstanding and the design we created became the foundation of the enormous successes the team enjoyed together.
Joacim Damgard, President, Microsoft Europe North
Jim’s session was inspiring and motivating, resulting in unanimous positive feedback from our attendees. Thank you, Jim, for an entertaining and powerful speech.
Maria Sebastian, Director of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, Virgin
At Apple we pride ourselves in thinking differently, this is why we work in partnership with Jim. Our big conference pitches and our key sales presentations have both been inspired by the Lawless touch.
Ishbel Morrison, Human Resources Director, Apple
I would without hesitation highly recommend Jim. He made a real impact understanding and adapting to our business and objectives and with great attention to detail and care for our priorities. I was personally impressed and received unanimous positive feedback.
David Lavorel, CEO, SITA
Jim is a true source of inspiration, easy to connect with and triggers the mindset shift required to enable transformations! He captivated the audience with a wonderful blend of humility and humour, instilling in us confidence to do things we never thought we could.
Constanze Rieck, Head of Strategy/Chief of Staff, Novartis
Fantastic, funny, energetic, inspiring, and real. He managed to have us in stitches of laughter but at the same time got us to reflect and ask ourselves what we have in our control and what we can do differently. Even now, months after the event, people are still quoting you and pushing themselves in ways they wouldn’t have dreamed of before.
Lisa Munford, HR, E.On
Jim was a highlight of our Legal Conference. The delegates were captivated by the story you had to tell – and its not easy to capture the imagination of a group of hard-bitten (well, some of them) in-house lawyers.
Ian Storey, UK Legal Counsel, AstraZeneca
Jim delivered an outstanding keynote. He immediately connected with the very senior-level delegates and inspired them through his own incredible personal journey. Our partners and directors left feeling energised and ready to take ownership and continue to build on our business success to date
Paul Terrington, UK and EMEA Head on Consulting, PWC
Jim came along and really inspired all of the team, not just with his message of empowerment to drive change, but also through his humour and captivating delivery. I cannot overestimate the positive impact he had at a time when we needed it the most.
Andy Blackett, Senior Buying Manager, Tesco
We were looking for something to motivate and energise our salesforce in this challenging environment, and we had high expectations. The results were fantastic. The feedback scores are the best we’ve ever seen either for an external or an internal speaker. The benefits are already visible just weeks after the conference.
Nick Frazer, General Manager Business Marketing, Experian
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