Keynote speakers

Keynote

Sport England and CIMSPA - a vital partnership

Tim Hollingsworth, CEO, Sport England

With Sport England currently working to develop a new strategy to transform lives through sport and physical activity, hear from CEO Tim Hollingsworth about the opportunities this provides for the workforce development community. Now more than a year into the role, Tim will share his observations of the current landscape and highlight the themes that are emerging from the strategy process so far – including the importance of building and sustaining a workforce that is better able to provide for truly engaging for the nation in sport and physical activity.

About Tim
For seven years, Tim was Chief Executive at the British Paralympic Association, the National Paralympic Committee for the United Kingdom. He has also served as Secretary General for ParalympicsGB at the PyeongChang 2018, Rio 2016, Sochi 2014 and London 2012 Paralympic Games.

Prior to that, Tim was first Director of Policy & Communications and then Chief Operating Officer at UK Sport. Previously, Tim worked for four years as a Director of a strategic communications consultancy, HBL Media, for two years as Head of Corporate Media and Internal Communications at Granada Media plc, and spent five years as Head of Media Relations at the Confederation of British Industry.

Tim is a Trustee of the Football Foundation and a Member of the International Paralympic Committee’s Paralympic Games Committee. He is a former Board Director of the Youth Sport Trust and the National Paralympic Heritage Trust. He holds Honorary Degrees from both Bath and Exeter University as well as a Masters Degree in Drama from Exeter. He received an OBE in the 2017 Queen’s New Year Honours List.

Keynote

Unlocking the potential of our sector

David Thomson, Behavioural change advocate

As a sector, we are constantly pursuing real participation growth. This means tackling the 25% of the UK’s population who are “pre-contemplative” about physical activity and encouraging them to change their behaviour and attitudes. To help us in this mission, CIMSPA and Quest NBS are pleased to introduce David Thomson - behaviour change expert.

David is on a personal mission to create a global paradigm shift in the way persuasion and influence is taught. He skillfully weaves personal, often humorous, stories into his presentations, which enthuse participants and motivate individuals to apply his new and influential methods in marketing, leadership, and sales.

A Napoleon Hill certified instructor, qualified life coach, and self-made businessman with 27 years’ experience in sales. David joined the British Army to become a soldier aged 16, where he also became a boxing champion, and realised that self-discipline and expert training were his path to success.

Having transitioned to civilian life, David began his career selling mortgages to home buyers, and soon became a financial adviser with Royal & Sun Alliance. Within two years, he became the number-one selling financial adviser from their 650 offices in the United Kingdom, and maintained that position throughout the 1990’s. In the new millennium David founded his own businesses, offering his expertise directly to the consumer market, and extending into property sales, insurance, mortgages, and eventually law.

After consolidating all of these experiences David established The Hannah Corporation and later, Hannah Training - where David found his true calling. Having nurtured The Hannah Corporation, David sold the company in a multi-million pound transaction in order to pursue his passion of training the science of persuasion and influence. Today, he is one of only 18 trainers personally trained and endorsed by Dr. Robert Cialdini (best selling author of ‘Influence’) to teach his Principles of Persuasion (POP) Workshop and one of only six people licensed to deliver Cialdini’s latest ‘pre-suasion’ techniques which allow you to pre-determine how you would like people receive your message before you’ve even delivered it.

Alongside these evidence based theories, David will share with you how to encourage behavioural change in anybody that you meet, regardless of their personality type, background or environment.

David will bring together his extensive years of learning and expertise to deliver a powerful and practical presentation that will explore how to “turn the key” and apply his new and compelling methods personally, professionally and to your organisation.



About David

David Thomson is a global leader in the fields of persuasion and influence. Born on the West Coast of Scotland in what was titled by Sky News ‘the Worst Village in Great Britain’, David fought through an abusive childhood and a lack of education to become a practised and passionate speaker, coach, consultant and advisor with over 27 years of sales experience. The drive and determination that got him to this point was drilled into him when he joined the British Army at 16 years old. It was here that he realised that expert training and self-discipline were his path to success.

After the army, he gained exceptional business experience as a mortgage consultant. David worked hard to understand the products he was selling and within two years he was the company’s top selling broker. From there, he went onto set-up his own business selling insurance. It was soon turning over £1 million. Within three years it was worth £4 million.

Outside of his exceptional business experience, David is a Napoleon Hill certified instructor, a qualified life coach, and one of only 19 trainers personally trained and endorsed by Dr Robert Cialdini to teach his POP (Principles of Persuasion) workshop. David’s 12 week transformation course is focused on helping participants to increase their sales and grow their businesses. Covering all of the essential facets of sales, the course covers positive mental attitude, negotiation, influence, questions are the answer, fact finding, framing, neuro-linguistic programming, opening, pitching, memory, socrates, and closing. For the last year David has been honing and perfecting the delivery of his programme in an interim role for BSI globally. The results have been staggering, with up to a 40+% uplift in sales.