James Kerr is a superb presenter and a natural storyteller who speaks on a mixture of topics including sports psychology, leadership practice and organisational science, with a compelling narrative. Kerr is the author behind the global best-seller Legacy, revealing the simple secrets of success behind some of the world’s elite business, sports and military organisations. 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.
James Kerr explores the driving forces behind best teams to extraordinary results including a focus on excellence, a collective commitment, a high degree of autonomy, trust and 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 organisations 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, James 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.
RECENT TESTIMONIALS:
"James Kerr was excellent - he came across really well, got referenced several times across the week and I’ve had several comments back to me on how much people enjoyed his session. I saw our Global CEO make a beeline for him as soon as he finished so that’s a good endorsement! My EMEA CEO really enjoyed it and mentioned humility / excellence/ respect several times. It was a really inspirational presentation and I was really pleased how well it down with everyone, not just rugby fans."
Regional Head of Customer Insight EMEA, AIG
"The event was a total success. We had a full house, and the feedback was amazing. Everybody loved the keynote and interacting with James Kerr before and after."
Confederação Brasileira de Rugby
"94% felt the meeting… inspired them to act as a transformative leader. James was really able to translate the All Blacks ethos and approach into something very relevant, not just for business generally, but for Roche in particular. His presentation was inspiring and also raised some questions to think about.”
Roche
"It is the second time I have seen James and the messages that he is able to convey using the examples from the All Blacks are extremely powerful and transferrable into the business environment. The session went down very well with the team."
Head of Telecoms, Post Office
"James Kerr was a delight to work from an event organisers point of view and he gave our members a fascinating insight into the culture of the world’s most successful sporting team. The parallels drawn between leadership in sport and business where both insightful and inspirational and the event feedback we received was exceptional: “just about the best event I have attended”, “one of the best learning events I’ve attended” and “having completed numerous management training sessions I can honestly say I've taken more away from this morning than the last course which lasted eight days!!”."
Chief Executive, Entrepreneurs Forum
