Roger Black – Keynote Speaker

Roger Black was part of the famous team that clinched gold from the Americans in the World Championship 4 x 400m relay in Tokyo.

After contending with numerous injuries and serious illness, including a leaking heart valve diagnosed at the age of eleven, Roger collected 15 major honours in total. He won two Olympic silver medals, beaten only by Michael Johnson in the 400m.

Having achieved success both individually and as part of a team, Roger understands what it takes to become a champion. He talks about how to develop the mindset by applying his ‘Five Fundamentals’ for success: a desire to reach your full potential, low fear of failure, goal-setting, a set training programme and an ability to perform under pressure.

As a television presenter, Roger Black has fronted athletics coverage and appeared on shows from Tomorrow’s World to Strictly Come Dancing. He also markets his own range of fitness products and acted as an ambassador for Team GB at London 2012.

His standard speech is designed to engage the audience in the lessons learnt throughout his athletics career, which resulted in him achieving his dream of standing on the Olympic rostrum in Atlanta in 1996. The session includes a selection of Olympic images and archive race footage of the Gold Medal Winning 1991 World Championships 4x400m Relay. Audience members can also reflect and learn from the performance lessons of Team GB, who delivered on the greatest stage of all – the London 2012 Olympic Games.

There are many similarities between high performance in the worlds of sport and business. His particular areas of interest are:
• The space between talent and performance, the attitude and behaviours of
world class performers
• The balance between individual and team success.