Anna Hemmings MBE

Anna is best known as Britain’s most successful female marathon kayaker. She 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.

In 2009 she founded Beyond the Barriers, a high performance training consultancy and now Anna works globally developing leaders and teams, she is an Executive Coach and keynote speaker. She is adept at translating the lessons that she learned in sport into the business world. Anna has a proven track record as an accomplished, entertaining and humble speaker. Her most popular keynote speeches are:

Getting the Competitive Edge: 

• How to reach the highest level, sustain it and keep moving forward in the face of change and challenges
• How to develop the winning mindset
• Discover key motivational drivers and how to use the power of a vision and goal setting
• Key behaviors of high performing teams (including feedback, communication and healthy conflict)

Resilient Leaders: 

• The importance of clarity of direction and how to create a unifying purpose
• How to develop leadership presence so you can have impact and build strong relationships
• How to engage and motivate teams by understanding what drives us and others in our teams
• Strategies for resilient decision making and thinking correctly under pressure

Building Resilience – learning to thrive not just survive: 

• How to develop a resilient mindset
• Strategies for overcoming setback and failure
• Techniques to perform under pressure
• The importance of balancing pressure, stress and recovery

All of these messages are brought to life through personal anecdotes from Anna’s journey in sport and business. 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 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.

“Anna was a joy to listen to, her top tips for ‘getting the competitive edge’, learned from a career in sport, are practical,
relevant and directly applicable to any business.”
Anna Achene, Revenue Planning Manager, British Airways