Former England Rugby International • British & Irish Lion • Broadcaster • Author • Comedian • DJ • Speaker
James Haskell spent nearly two decades in professional rugby, competing at the highest level of one of the world’s most demanding sports.
During a career that took him across England, France, Japan and New Zealand, James earned 77 caps for England, represented the British & Irish Lions, played in two Rugby World Cups and won three Six Nations titles, including the 2016 Grand Slam. That same year, he was named Man of the Series as England secured a historic series victory in Australia.
But James’s story has never just been about rugby.
He has been speaking to audiences since his early twenties and has developed a reputation for doing things rather differently from the traditional corporate speaker.
High energy, brutally self-aware, funny and occasionally provocative, James combines the lessons of elite sport with the reality of what happens when things don’t go to plan.
His keynote talks explore high performance, leadership, resilience, accountability, communication, mental health and building winning teams. Rather than presenting polished theories from a textbook, James draws on nearly 20 years inside elite dressing rooms: environments where feedback is immediate, pressure is unavoidable, standards matter and everybody is ultimately accountable for their performance.
His central philosophy is simple: high performance isn’t about being perfect. It’s about understanding yourself, taking responsibility, communicating honestly and consistently doing the things that give you and the people around you the best chance of succeeding.
And then there is the humour.
James has never been particularly interested in being the perfectly polished, carefully scripted corporate speaker. A child of the 1980s with nearly two decades spent inside professional rugby dressing rooms, his sense of humour is irreverent, self-deprecating, occasionally controversial and never contrived.
Whether the brief is a serious keynote on leadership, resilience or mental health, or an after-dinner speech where the only objective is to make the room laugh, James adapts to the audience without losing what makes him entertaining in the first place.
If you want substance, there is plenty of it. If you want a laugh, you will get one. If you want both, even better. You may occasionally be shocked, but you are unlikely to be bored.
Since retiring from rugby, James has built a career across entertainment and media. He is a bestselling author, broadcaster and podcaster, a live performer and stand-up comedian, as well as an international DJ and music producer.
That unusual combination means audiences should not expect a conventional motivational speech.
Expect stories. Expect honesty. Expect plenty of laughs. And expect to leave with a few uncomfortable questions about your own standards, habits and accountability.
James’s speaking is motivating without being preachy, challenging without being corporate, controversial without being contrived, and funny without sacrificing the point.
Because after almost two decades in elite sport, one lesson stands above everything else:
Talent gets you into the room. What you do when you’re there determines how long you stay.
