Felix Riley

Felix Riley is a Business Strategist, author and speaker on Brilliant Thinking and How to think Bigger in Business and Life.

Felix Riley started out as a comedy writer at the BBC and was part of the ‘crew’ on Zoe Ball’s Radio 1 Breakfast Show, before embarking on a career in the City. He then set up his own company which he later sold to an NYSE-listed American brokerage where he worked as a Managing Director as well as joining their Global Executive Board.

In a varied career he mined copper in Zambia before helping to turn around a friend’s business here in UK and having several thrillers published with Penguin.

For the past decade Felix has been a Business Strategist, working with a wide variety of companies – from media agencies to e-Commerce to health and social care to start-ups to agricultural consultants to creatives.

His role has been as a coach, mentor, and motivator – with a heavy focus on creative thinking, which Felix believes is key to accelerating growth and turning around struggling companies.

Felix’s approach with clients is to take them from a ‘Good enough’ mindset to a ‘What’s the absolute best we can do here?’ mindset.  This is done through three steps – agitation, imagination, and motivation:

• Agitation.  Ask the difficult questions that take clients out of their comfort zone, to break through the thinking they find themselves stuck in.
• Imagination.  Put every idea on the table with a boundary-pushing brainstorm that arrives at bigger and bolder decisions.
• Motivation.  Give clients the confidence required – the shot in the arm – to go and execute on their new plans.

FELIX RILEY SPEAKING TOPICS 

The Flea Jar:  What Traps Our Thinking, How To Untrap Our Thinking – And How To Do Brilliant Thinking Instead.  A fast, story-driven, entertaining keynote on innovative thinking – showing how even the smartest leaders and teams accidentally limit themselves, and how to break free. It blends sharp insight, practical strategies, and memorable storytelling. 

Lawyers vs The Machine:  Why AI will transform law – and why the future belongs to the human lawyer. A provocative, intelligent keynote that confronts the AI revolution head-on – revealing how artificial intelligence is already reshaping the legal profession, and why the best lawyers won’t compete with AI, they’ll lead it. This talk transforms existential anxiety into strategic opportunity, showing why judgment, empathy, and trust will become more valuable, not less.

Failing Upwards – Why failure is the essential ingredient of creativity, innovation and growth. A fun but unflinching talk that reveals how fear quietly drives too many of our decisions – and why the smartest leaders flip that script, embracing mistakes as their greatest teacher and the gateway to bold, brilliant thinking

Once Upon A Business – The storytelling secrets that turn strategy into persuasion and purpose. The talk reveals why storytelling is one of the most powerful tools in leadership and commerce. Stories don’t just inspire and align teams – they cut through complexity, make ideas memorable, and build trust. For customers, stories transform transactions into relationships, helping organisations connect on a deeper, more human level and stand out in crowded markets.