OVERVIEW

Geoff’s work today is truly global. He is a very much sought-after speaker, strategic advisor and consultant.
He inspires and provokes organizations around the world to put purpose and wellbeing at the centre of everything they do. His experience in Unilever, under the pupilage of Paul Polman, allows him to provide very practical insights and to speak on how to go about truly embedding PURPOSE and how to address the taboo associated with wellbeing (particularly mental health) within a large global multi-national organization. With this experience comes some real learning on what may or may not work.

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SPEAKER ENGAGEMENTS

​Geoff has spoken at several Universities including Cambridge, Oxford, Bologna and Warwick and has had the opportunity to engage with Pope Francis on how we create a more sustainable and inclusive economy through his work with the Global Foundation.
He has spoken also at many corporate events across Australia, Japan, North America, Europe, South Africa, Turkey and Eastern Europe and recently was invited to speak at the YPO Converge Event in London where previous speakers have included HM Queen Rania Abdullah, former British Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair, Sir Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Steve Wozniak and Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong.

He is a very active campaigner for breaking the stigma associated with Mental Health in the Corporate world and has participated in a number of BBC programmes and campaigns regarding this subject, as well as writing and producing articles for the Huffington Post, the Financial Times and HR-related journals. He previously convened a meeting at No 10 Downing Street with Prime Minister David Cameron and CEOs from Footsie 100 Companies to address their role and agree actions to break stigma in the corporate world. He also provided some support to the Royal Foundation (The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex) in their mental health campaign.

Geoff was a Co-Founder of the Charity ‘Minds@Work’, a network set up with the purpose being to inspire and equip individuals to break the stigma of mental ill-health in the organizations they work in.

He was previously a Trustee of the global campaign ‘It’s a Penalty’, combating the exploitation of young children around the world and was a Trustee of ‘Family Links’, a Charity promoting and educating parents and teachers to develop emotionally healthy children and young adults. He was also a Member of the Prince’s Trust Youth Opportunity Taskforce with the purpose of creating change to unlock the potential in the UK’s youth and was on the Advisory Board of City Mental Health Alliance.

He is currently a Patron of the International Stress Management Association and an appointed Advisor to a number of small Tech Start-Ups looking at how technology can pro-actively enhance the mental health and wellbeing of individuals. He is a Trustee of two mental health charities, namely the Burnt Chef Project and the Baton of Hope.

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CAREER

Geoff’s background in teaching, HR, marketing, communications and sustainability is considerable. His experience during his 25 years with Unilever (a global corporation with a turnover of £50 billion and 170,000 employees in 90 countries worldwide), has taken him around the world, working across Africa, the Middle East and Turkey, Australasia and Asia, Europe and the Americas.
His HR experience has spanned leadership and talent development, organization change, capability development with a particular reference to marketing, and business transformation with purpose at its core. Early in his career he was responsible for graduate recruitment and development, talent, acquisitions and development across Unilever’s emerging markets. Under his leadership he developed Unilever’s global talent and leadership centre of expertise. More recently he devoted his time, energy, and effort to leading ground-breaking work where the HR function has played a central role in transforming Unilever’s business model with purpose at its core.

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TOPICS THAT GEOFF SPEAKS AND ADVISES ON

Organization purpose as driver of Business Performance
Key Messages are:
* The Unilever story and how Purpose drove business performance
* What does it take to rediscover an organization’s Purpose?
* What does it take to embed and live ‘organization purpose’?
* What does that change/transformation programme look like and entail?

Mental Health and Wellbeing - a competitive Advantage
Key Messages are:
* The power of being able to speak up and ask for support if suffering from mental il-health
* How to break the stigma of mental ill-health in a workplace
* How to maintain good mental health as an individual
* How to realise a competitive advantage through mental health and wellbeing in a workplace
* How to elevate the health of employees to being a strategic priority at Board/Executive level

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PERSONAL

Geoff is married with two daughters and loves the outdoors. He is a passionate cyclist and swimmer and has completed several ultra-cycling and swimming events.