Corporate event featuring Roger Black MBE

Yesterday I was shooting a corporate event at which the guest speaker was Roger Black MBE. Roger is an Olympic runner, winning many championships for Great Britain, including Olympic medals in both solo and team events.

I very briefly met Roger in a corner of the hotel lobby during a break before his talk and grabbed the picture here. I knew this was going to be my only chance with half decent light because the main hall was very poorly lit.

Roger’s tales of highs and lows in the pursuit of his Olympic goals were engaging, entertaining, amusing and very moving. He’s a relaxed, charismatic talker with a great sense of humour and a slightly cocky delivery but there’s always a twinkle in his eye so you suspect he’s just playing with you.

As a corporate motivational speaker, he has to be up there with the best. His magnificent achievements are indisputable and the parallels he draws for teamwork and goal setting in business are clear and powerful.

His talk was punctuated with pictures and video clips of his races and you couldn’t fail to be moved – getting much applause from the audience.

I have no doubt that the members of the company running this event left feeling inspired, lifted and keen to deal with the issues covered by other talks during the day.

I certainly left on a high.