Anna Hemmings MBE

Anna Hemmings MBE, OLY is best known as Britain’s most successful female marathon kayaker, a 2 time Olympian and 6 times World Champion.

Anna inspires audiences with anecdotes from the World Championship and Olympic Games; hers is really a tale of triumph over adversity… At the peak of her career, Anna was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and told by medical experts she might never race again. But she battled her way to full recovery and between 2005 and 2007 she went on to win three world titles in a row and compete at her second Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. Anna has a staggering eleven World and European Championship medals.

After retiring from the world of sport she founded Beyond the Barriers, a high performance training consultancy; Anna saw a great opportunity to use her experience at the highest level of sport to inspire people and help them overcome their own barriers and fulfil their potential

Anna works globally as a training consultant, executive coach and keynote speaker. She is adept at translating the lessons that she learned in sport into the business world and has developed a reputation for helping individuals and teams unlock potential by breaking down those barriers that may prevent change and improvement. She aims to help others build personal resilience, meet challenges head on and achieve results.

Anna’s unique combination of experience in sport combined with 10 years leading a successful training consultancy gives her a broad understanding of the challenges that individuals, teams and leaders face and how to overcome them to maximise performance.

Anna’s achievements were recognised at the Sunday Times Sports Woman of the Year Awards, where she won the 2005 Champions Award and then again in 2007 when she was voted BBC London Sports Personality of the Year.  She was then awarded an MBE in the 2010 New Year’s honours list for her services to sport.

Anna has a proven track record as an accomplished, entertaining and humble speaker. Her fascinating journey has been enjoyed by thousands across different industries from banking and telecoms, to healthcare and retail. Anna shares the insights and strategies that helped her reach the highest level, deal with adversity and return to the pinnacle of her sport again. Key themes include, sustaining high performance, resilience, cohesive teams, motivation, mindset and performing under pressure.

If you want a speaker who motivates, captivates and engages then Anna is your lady. Her inspirational story makes audiences walk away feeling energised with a renewed desire to improve, teams want to connect and collaborate and leaders want to challenge and engage. Anna makes sure that she has a clear understanding of the audience, the company and their industry; ensuring that each speech is designed and made specifically for the client. Anna’s story translates well into every arena because she has the ability to interact with a wide range of individuals and inspire all types of audiences.

As well as leadership and team development Anna is also a speaker on Health and Wellbeing. Having experienced her own health challenges she talks from personal experience combined with scientific research on the following subjects:

• Energy management – managing your energy for optimal performance and health
• The Resilient Performer – building resilience for optimal performance and wellbeing

Anna presented to an international audience of 250 Sony staff. She is a brilliant speaker – the audience was completely engaged, inspired and motivated – I was spellbound. The feedback was the best I’ve ever had. Anna has the ability to tell a great story whilst making useful connections to personal and business issues.