Paul McVeigh Profile Picture

Keynote SpeakerPaul McVeigh

Premier League Footballer & Expert in Elite Performance

Paul McVeigh is a Performance Psychologist and previously played professional football for nearly 20 years in the English Premier League. He has competed with and against some of the best players in the world like Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Paul Scholes, David Ginola, Jurgen Klinsmann and Zlatan... Read more

Biography

Paul McVeigh is a Performance Psychologist and previously played professional football for nearly 20 years in the English Premier League. He has competed with and against some of the best players in the world like Cristiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry, Andres Iniesta, Xavi, Paul Scholes, David Ginola, Jurgen Klinsmann and Zlatan Ibrahimović. These tacit lessons have elevated Paul’s understanding of what it takes to be an elite performer on a global scale.

Very few people have the unique insights of what it takes to be an elite athlete in the number one sport in the world and, yet unlike lots of other speakers, Paul’s credibility comes from the unique combination of reaching the pinnacle of elite sport as well as being the first English Premier League player to qualify with a Master’s Degree in Psychology.

Paul’s Irish charm allows him to engage his audiences through his natural storytelling ability, combined with his psychological framework that originated from growing up during ‘The Troubles’ of the 1970s & 80s in war-torn Belfast, Ireland alongside the mental strategies he implemented performing under the intense scrutiny of 75,000 fans across the world. He is also an established broadcaster on TV and radio with the BBC, Sky Sports, BT Sport, and a published author with Bloomsbury of the ironically entitled book ‘The Stupid Footballer is Dead’.

Paul’s desire to continuously evolve and improve has led to him, and his world-class team of elite performers, delivering numerous leadership programs to the executive committees and SLTs of multi-nationals that showcases the mindset of world champions and transposes it into a methodology required to elevate the performance of leaders and teams. He has recently worked with Rolls Royce, PWC, Grant Thornton, Aviva, Barclays, KPMG, Accenture, Deutsche Bank, Invesco, Swiss Reinsurance, Nat West, Cisco, Microsoft, Volvo, Investec, NHS, BT, GlaxoSmithKline and many more.

In these programs, Paul is able to bring together a collection of the best thought leaders in the world to unlock the latent potential that we all have as leaders.

“It was phenomenal and inspiring. Powerful session - loaded with insight and techniques for an application that has been applied to make our team more resilient”! Verdayne Nunis, Chief of Staff, Asia, Microsoft
“Paul underlined that we will learn technical skills but it is the broader skills that we need to succeed..resilience, tenacity, and confidence in ourselves so thank you, Paul”! Lynne Rainey, Partner (Forensic Services), PWC
“We have learned a lot and have a lot of key takeaways...I don’t think this is something our teams would have thought about before..they think about what we do practically, what we have to learn technically but we don’t go to work and think what should I be doing psychologically so this was hugely impactful for all of us”! Sarah Eccleston: Managing Director & Global CTO, Cisco
“I thought Paul’s session was amazing, absolutely fantastic! It was exactly what we were looking for. We wanted to better understand what really drove success and what the difference was between average performance and really, really top performance, and Paul’s insights and personality drove that home to us in abundance today”. Terry Robb, Head of Personal Banking, Ulster Bank

Popular Talks by Paul McVeigh

  • Psychology of Teamwork
    The highest-performing teams on the planet share an ethos that is consistent, tangible and methodical. Understanding what is required from each other is crucial to success. Building upon our tried and tested P.A.C.E. (Performance, Accountability, Confidence & Execution) framework, helps each team player engage and flourish to develop them as...
  • Psychology of Performance
    Performance involves numerous, multi-faceted principles that can be broken down to measure progress. Many top organisations consistently work on the technical component and yet, the psychological approach is invariably the biggest differential between proposed objectives and actual outcomes. I use my expertise to engage your staff to consciously improve their...
  • Psychology of Leadership
    The latest empirical research is redefining what a leader is, what they do and how they do it. Implementing these 5 key principles can help shape the leaders of the future; belief, accountability, pillars of change, identity and empathy. However, you can’t get the best out of others until you...