greg searle rowing.jpg

Greg Searle

Testimonials

VP & General Manager, EMEA at Cohesity

“A huge thank you to Greg Searle for inspiring the EMEA Cohesity team at our regional SKO with the compelling story of his path to Olympic rowing glory, there were so many relevant takeaways - target and goal oriented, data driven, teamwork, passion for feedback, learning from failures, focus and accountability and the importance of having the right attitude. Greg is someone who shows all of the attributes of a Champion. Thank you for inspiring us.”

SVP International Markets (McDonald’s Division of The Coca-Cola Company)

“We had the opportunity to work with Greg in March 2021 during a virtual international summit with a team of over 100 associates covering 5 continents and multiple time zones.  Greg’s experience and message delivery was spot-on, inspiring our new networked teams to unlearn old ways of working and adopt new approaches and thinking, to perform at the highest level in a global network.  His curiosity to fully understand our organisational challenges and the changes we’re looking to achieve was paramount in his meticulous preparation to land a message on the day that was crowd-pleasing and inspiring. I would highly recommend Greg to help anyone achieve their team or organisational goals through his engaging story-telling and ability to intertwine these with your own corporate messages and objectives.”

Organisational Development Manager
Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

 “Greg spoke at one of our Leadership Network Events recently, and was pitch perfect. A combination of being  motivational, empathetic, and offering his message in a way that  was relevant to our organisational context culminated in our leaders really listening to what he had to say,  and offering us some learning that was truly inspiring.”

MBA Career Services & Employer Alliance

“I thought Greg’s keynote was exceptional. Carefully delivered, well researched in terms of the needs of the audience, extremely well crafted, balancing content between sporting achievement and wider performance themes. The slides were informative and included theory models which worked very well with this type of Business School audience. I think the ‘break out’ sections with the audience worked well and no mean achievement to do that with 170 people in the room and the timing was pretty much perfect.” 

Regional Director, HSBC

“Greg has attended and presented at a number of internal and external meetings, supporting us in engaging, inspiring and entertaining attendees with his personal experiences and insights. On each occasion, Greg gauged our requirements well and adapted his messages with ease and style. The feedback has unanimously been extremely positive and his inspiration resonates for a long time subsequently.”

 

Information Technology and Services, Sky

“The feedback on your session yesterday has been universally positive. They’re sometimes a hard crowd to please but, as someone described it, you had them mesmerised! I think everyone took away their own message to put into practice back in the office.  Thanks for working with me to get the session prepared and I very much hope to see you back at Sky sometime.”

NHS – South Staffordshire & Shropshire Healthcare

“Thank you for your quite brilliant contribution to our leadership conference last week – we so enjoyed having you with us and thank you for being so generous with your time. We have had terrific feedback across all disciplines and organisations and many have commented on how inspired they were by your session which was delivered in such a skilful, fun and personal way. One of our team leaders wanted me to pass on the following feedback… ‘It was well worth attending on my day off! A great learning experience with exceptional guest speakers.’ I plan to talk with senior leaders to see how we can further develop our learning from the day and hope we can explore involving you further in the future.”

 

Leadership Capability & Change Team, Home Office

“On behalf of the Home Office, I would like to thank you for the inspirational, thought-provoking and engaging session you led for us. I’ve never been that close to a gold medal before –  it was an honour! We have had amazing feedback from the session and it’s created a real buzz around the possibilities you spoke about – If not now, when?. This is particularly apt for us and I know Peter Kane in his round-up this week is urging everyone to take a leaf out of your book and begin to go that extra mile. Once again, thank you for a truly memorable and inspiring evening.”

 

Head of Organisational Capability, Nestle UK

“I worked with Greg on a number of team builds and coaching activities. For someone who has achieved so much, Greg’s natural modesty and humility allow him to interact well at all levels and get the best out of the groups and teams he is dealing with. Greg’s got some great experiences that correlate well with the challenges many leaders face, dealing with adversity, sustaining performance and building great teams. Greg can illuminate these subjects and challenge the audience to firstly reflect and then create change options for the future in a very motivating way”.

 

HR Director, London Olympic Organising Committee

“Greg you are an extraordinary person and I am extremely proud of you. I remember listening to you a few years ago saying just how much you wanted to be in your hometown Olympics and now you are. I think you are an amazing example of everything you teach and espouse. I recently saw you and your brother on TV and thought is was great to see you then (previous Games) and now, of course looking even younger. You have done it - the time, determination, effort, drive, the future you envisaged – how fantastic. I wish you every success I will be watching you very closely. Good luck and thanks for all your support”.

 

Coca Cola

“I have worked with Greg Searle on a number of occasions such as customer meetings, team development workshops and Olympic planning sessions and he has always been an inspirational and charismatic individual. Greg’s achievements are phenomenal yet he continues to be a polite and superbly unassuming individual. I shall definitely be looking to work with Greg again and can thoroughly recommend him as a top class person to work with”.

 

CEO, Celaton

“Greg is a unique individual who has achieved far more than many athletes and yet he is incredibly humble of his achievements. His blend of confidence and humility endears him to all who meet him. However, it is his generosity, not only in encouraging and inspiring other athletes but in transferring that skill to Celaton’s world with such a relevant and meaningful approach. His depth and breadth of experience in both sport and business shines through in the way he engages with my entire team. He is a role model to many in my company and I’m proud of his involvement in Celaton and hugely impressed with the impact he continues to have in my company.”

 

HR, Nestle Cereal Partners UK

“How to sum up Greg?  its got to be OARS

Open – has great personal stories and experiences, which really help bring the theories to life.

Approachable & Adaptable - he has connected with everyone in our business from shop floor to MD, in a number of different capacities

Rower - Speaks for itself!!

Supportive - really wants to help organisations/teams/individuals to grow and has indeed helped improve our performance.

 “Greg has really helped us to understand what being a high performing organisation is all about and has helped me personally be a much better facilitator. He is also a very inspirational speaker with real presence, tempered by an obvious humility, who has connected with everyone in our organisation”.

 CoreNET Global

“Very powerful session which I could relate to, lots of good tips on changes to teams and circumstances, Excellent.”

 “Inspirational and an interesting insight into how sports psychology could translate into business.”

 “Greg Searle was inspirational – an excellent speaker.”

 Dell

“Greg's Performing During Change was the best session of the day.”

 Clydesdale Bank

“Greg absolutely blew the audience away.  He related sports to business in a way I have not seen a speaker do in the past. He has been a true professional and gent to deal with. Thank you so much.”

Tesco

“Greg delivered his presentation in a very personable and professional way. Greg presented his material well and the piece around emotional engagement was very thought provoking.”

 Homebase

“Greg’s approach was authentic, relaxed, approachable, humorous, professional and relevant. Whilst Greg’s story in itself was inspiring, what was equally impressive and much appreciated was the effort he put in to adapt it and personalise it to suit our language, challenges and situation. Greg created a strong bond and rapport with the audience.  Without exception, every person I have spoken to was impressed, inspired and energised. He helped us build an energy, enthusiasm and platform to drive our business forward in the New Year.”

 Keith Wishart, Cosine UK

“Everyone is still buzzing from Greg’s inspirational session..”

 

Head of Customer Marketing, Pfizer UK

“Greg’s very happy to share stories of how he got it wrong as well as how he got it right, which you don’t always get from people who’ve been as successful as he has.”

 

Customer Operations Director, Pfizer UK

“It was so inspirational to hear you speak, not simply of trophies and being the best you can be, but of successes and failures, personal struggles and outstanding commitment and bravery. We have taken inspiration from you and from Team GB, and are now thinking about all the different disciplines contributing to the OnePfizer Team. Thank you for some simple messages which can make a big difference, we are striving to go 0.2 seconds faster every day!”

GP Partner, NHS

“If not you - who? if not now - when? If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far go together.” Greg was a fabulous speaker and his life story was really relevant to the work we were doing on the day.”

Associate Director of Quality Governance - North Bristol NHS Trust

“Within our system-wide leadership programme I benefited from the engaging and pertinent real world stories from Greg within his Olympic context. He picked out some really helpful development points that are applicable into our circumstances, for example the ease with which we can become fixed in mind-set and need to retain an open learning approach (including 'unlearning'), the need to take risks when innovating and the significance of building a quality team in a very deliberate way. I was also really impressed that Greg took time beyond his own slot to participate in ongoing conversations we had with other leaders, which illustrated his own curiosity in the health and social care challenges we were discussing.”

Head of Children’s Services, Therapies, Autism and SEND (BNSSG) - NHS

“I thoroughly enjoyed Greg’s presentation – I found him engaging, authentic and interesting and his journey and his reflection on his personal learning really made me think about how we can lever changes with sticky system problems.”

 Assistant Director Learning & Development, Samaritans

“Greg recently ran a session at our Senior Leadership Team Meeting where he provided a number of valuable learning points, including the criticality of having a clear purpose and making better connections, in order to build trust, create successful teams and greater collaboration. Greg is relaxed and humorous but also incredibly inspiring and engaging. Many thanks again for a great session Greg.”

CEO, Telent

“Greg takes his inspirational sporting story and translates it into business focussed tools and techniques in an entirely authentic and relatable way. He jointly facilitated our recent Leadership Conference and the hard work, enthusiasm and learning he imparted completely engaged our team and left everyone motivated to go further together. He is also great company and an ideal quiz team member!"

NHS – Health and Wellbeing Festival

"Greg Searle delivered a highly engaging presentation for our health and wellbeing festival. Such an energetic and thought-provoking session on the subject of Motivation, Communication, Change and Teamwork.  Some real insights on how to channel your team performance to achieve results and overcome set-backs in trying times and especially needed in the NHS right now!"

Greg Searle’s talk was really captivating, mixed with humour and positivity and showed a real human side to him and his abilities as an Olympian as well as the vulnerability that people can feel at times even for someone of his standing.  it was especially good to hear life stories and how they were beaten by another team with their cox using the names of the team members children to  push them further.  I wouldn’t hesitate to hear him speak again."