Mark Denton

Background

About Mark Denton

I am a Leadership, Team, Resilience and Navigating Change Expert, and multi-award winning keynote speaker. As a professional sailor and Captain, I've raced in many of the sport's most gruelling events. But it was the opportunity to lead an amateur team in the ‘world's toughest’ around-the-world yacht race that was to be my making, an experience so rich that it’s my sole focus for my speeches. This epic event sees 12 teams in identical yachts vying for glory across 10 months and miles, the ‘wrong way’ around the world. But these are not crewed by hardy professionals from the rarefied world of elite sport. Rather 100% amateurs, male and female, of different ages, backgrounds and nationalities, 70 % having never sailed before! It’s the toughest Leadership and Team challenge in the book, and the ultimate laboratory to discover what culture really allows a disparate group of people to achieve the extraordinary when facing constant adversity, change and competition. And the results were surprising, in many ways rewriting the rules of how Leaders and Teams need to be to thrive in a brave new world. And so it’s been my mission since to share the learning, recognising that the parallels for business were remarkable. And audiences from many of the world's greatest Organisations agree, captivating them in over 31 countries to date, and with consistent 5 star verified reviews. I'm also the Managing Director of Storming Performance, which is the programme that combines my captivating speeches with follow on interventions that embed the learning, focussed on 3 main factors. Mindset, Culture and Transition Effectiveness. My speeches address the first factor as they challenge Mindsets by 'rewriting the rules of Leadership, Teamwork and Resilience. A key theme that comes from that is the importance of building Psychological Safety. It's the foundation of high performing Teams and Organisations, and that's what we address within the 2nd Culture factor, based on the insight and methodology of Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson's 'Fearless Organisation' who we are partners with. And finally for the 3rd factor, Transition Effectiveness, we apply the amazing Executive Arts Transition Maps to a Team or Organisations 'best problems', to get them unstuck, no matter how challenging or confounding. And we can also teach Leaders these in unique performance focussed Leadership Development programmes, with learning coming as a by-product of delivery. So if you want to help your Organisation navigate towards the brightest tomorrow, you've just found the answer.