Damian Hughes
Damian Hughes is a bestselling author who combines his practical and academic background within sport, organisational development and change psychology, to help organisations and teams to create a high performing culture.
He is the author of eight best-selling business books, including Liquid Thinking, Liquid Leadership, How to Change Absolutely Anything, How to Think Like Sir Alex Ferguson and The Five STEPS to a Winning Mindset.
His latest books, High Performance: Lessons from the Best on Becoming Your Best and How to Change Your Life, have both been number one Sunday Times best sellers. His work has been translated into twelve languages.
He has also been nominated for the 2007 William Hill Sports book of the year award for Peerless, his biography of boxing great Sugar Ray Robinson. He co-authored a critically acclaimed biography of boxing legend, Thomas Hearns and in 2013, his book, Marvelous Marvin Hagler became the UK’s best-selling sports biography.
He was appointed as a visiting Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Change for Manchester Metropolitan University in September 2010.
He is the co-host of The High Performance Podcast, an acclaimed series of interviews with elite performers from business, sport and the arts, exploring the psychology behind sustained high performance. The podcast has over 300 million downloads.
He has served as a member of the coaching team for England Rugby League, England Roses, Scotland Rugby Union and a wide range of international and national sporting teams.
He is also the founder of The School Coat Charity, a charity which addresses the challenges of children living in poverty, by providing coats for those most in need.
SPEAKING TOPICS
Bring world-class high-performance thinking to your event.
Damian delivers keynote experiences that don’t just inform – they transform. Drawing on decades working with elite sport, business, and education leaders, he shares accessible, practical, proven tools to build winning cultures and unlock sustained success.
Whether you’re hosting a leadership summit, all-staff conference, awards evening or team development day, Damian equips audiences with the mindset and behaviours to raise standards – and keep them there.
Keynote themes include:
- Unlocking the DNA of High-Performance Culture
- The Winning Mindset
- The Business of Success — and Staying Successful
- Lessons in Transformation
- Microhabits for Life and Work
He was great — very inspiring. He connected with delegates and didn’t make them feel like failures (which some speakers unintentionally do). Gave us real insight into behaviour.
— Mint Communications
"Very engaging. Felt like one of us. Not preachy — just very real and actionable."
— The Lemon Lane
"Damian’s session was excellent and well-pitched to the audience. It went down very well with the audience and scored the most favourably of all our sessions in the event feedback – 98% Excellent/Good. Damian brilliant. I love the Damian session – something OR needs more of. The session with professor Damien was excellent and thought-provoking. Damian Hughes' session was interesting but he bounced around from one story to the next and it didn't hang together particularly well with his theme of keeping things simple."
— Openreach
