Anna Hemmings
Video
Anna Hemmings - Motivational and Keynote Speaker, Performance Coach & Olympic Gold Medallist.
Inspirational Speaker Showreel
Speaking Topics
Sustaining Success – The High Performance Mindset
Resilience – Success in the face of adversity
Building World Class teams
Built to Thrive: sustaining excellence in the face of change and uncertainty
The Resilient Leaders Toolkit
Bio
Anna Hemmings is a leading authority on sustained high performance. She helps leaders and teams achieve excellence, and maintain it, through a fusion of proven elite sport strategies and behavioural science. Drawing on her background as a 6 x World Champion and 2 x Olympian, she delivers practical business-ready tools that drive instant change.
Anna’s journey is a masterclass in resilience. After being told by the British head coach that she wasn’t big enough or strong enough to reach the top, she became a 3 time World Champion and Olympian by age 24. At the peak of her career, Anna was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Medical experts told her she might never race again. She battled her way to full recovery and to win 3 more world titles and compete at her second Olympic Games in Beijing 2008. She retired with a staggering 11 World and European Championship medals - 9 of them gold, becoming Britain’s most successful female kayaker and earning her an MBE for her services to sport.
Since retiring from sport, Anna has specialized in helping leaders and teams build the mindset, habits and culture needed to thrive and stay at the top of their game. She's an accredited Leadership Coach and founded Beyond the Barriers training consultancy, designing and delivering programmes on resilience, leadership and high-performing teams for organisations worldwide.
Her expertise sits at the intersection of elite sports performance and corporate reality. With 15 years of experience working closely with senior leaders she understands the intensity of the corporate environment: stretch targets, constant change, limited resources under relentless pressure. She brings the discipline and mindset of world-class sport together with actionable tools to drive sustained excellence.
With 18 years' of speaking experience across more than 40 countries and multiple industries, Anna is more than an entertaining storyteller.
She delivers energizing and high impact keynotes that go beyond inspiring insights from elite sport. She connects elite performance principles directly to the challenges her audiences face, providing practical frameworks to navigate constant change and high pressure targets. Clients consistently praise her warmth, authenticity and ability to shift both mindset and capability in the room.
Anna's collaborative approach ensures a seamless experience for event planners and an unforgettable one for attendees. Beyond thought-provoking keynotes, she offers podcasts and firesides chats as well as breakout sessions, follow up workshops and leadership and team development training to embed learning and maximise impact.
Partner – Corporate Affairs and Communication, Roche India
“Roche Pharma India had the absolute pleasure of hosting Anna Hemmings at our annual strategy kick-off, in January 2022. Anna delivered her address with great passion and left the audience inspired. It was a pleasure dealing with Anna, she was so open to ideas and suggestions. Anna's subtle sense of humour resonated well with the audience. Her powerful personality, and her articulate way of speaking, made her keynote session extremely memorable. I would highly recommend Anna as a guest speaker for large scaled events, where the intent is to inspire and enthrall the audience. Anna's ability to understand the business context, and moderate her messaging accordingly, is a sheer delight for any client. Thank you for making such a great impact at our event!”
Communications Director, Hitachi ABB Power Grids
“One of the best motivational talks translating high performance in sports into the business world that I’ve heard!”
Global Training and Development Manager, Novartis
“Anna told us her story in such a charismatic, authentic, and inspiring way that I am still receiving positive feedback from around the organization and requests to watch it back. Everyone could walk away from this speech with something. Anna listened attentively when we spoke and included everything we had discussed to make her journey so beautifully in sync with ours. It was like she was speaking as a part of our organization.”
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