James Kerr

James Kerr is a superb presenter and a natural storyteller who speaks on a mixture of topics, including sports psychology, leadership practice, and organizational science, with a compelling narrative. Kerr is the author behind the global best-seller "Legacy," revealing the simple secrets of the success behind some of the world's elite business, sports, and military organizations. In "Legacy," Kerr unpicks the secrets of the world's most successful sporting team, the All Blacks. The book has been described as 'seminal' by the Independent newspaper and 'unputdownable' by Bloomberg. The Daily Telegraph newspaper called it the ‘modern version of Vince Lombardi’s guides to coaching' and says 'for those searching for genuine keys to team culture, it is manna from heaven.'

Kerr explores the driving forces behind the best teams to extraordinary results, including a focus on excellence, a collective commitment, a high degree of autonomy, trust, individual initiative, compelling communication, individual accountability, integrity, and humility, all underpinned by a climate in which 'leaders create leaders.' There is an impressive list of teams and corporations that have sought Kerr’s expertise, including US and UK Tier One Special Forces, Formula 1 teams, America’s Cup crews, Premier League football managers, Olympic Performance Directors, Google, PayPal, Dyson, Red Bull, Shell, and Boeing.

As well as small, elite teams, Kerr addresses the specific challenges faced by larger, more diverse organizations today, including the impact that female leaders can have in previously male dominated environments, the challenges of engaging millennials, the shift from a transactional towards a transformative leadership style, personal leadership, ethics and integrity, marginal gains and incremental improvement, values and vision-setting, and resilience in adversity.

He is currently working on two books: "Where the Earth Meets the Sky" is about the Everest Basecamp disaster and what it takes to overcome adversity in order to reach the top. "The Legacy Workbook, a Curriculum for Change" addresses the practical challenges leaders face in implementing change. He regularly advises elite clients on galvanising teams, resetting standards, and rebooting a winning culture and mindset.

As well as keynotes and inspiring team talks, Kerr also runs highly interactive LegacyLabs-masterclasses in which participants design their own high performance culture and personal leadership story. In these sessions, Kerr challenges participants to first design, and then take responsibility for delivering, the marginal gains that deliver breakthrough results. Acting as a creative catalyst, Kerr unlocks the latent potential within the team, helping develop agility, resilience, connection, cohesion and common purpose.