Olympic Champion Derek Redmond inspires Openreach leadership team via virtual event
The Brief
Openreach, one of the biggest broadband and telecoms companies in the UK, was on a search to find a motivational guest speaker for their virtual team event. With over 120 senior company leaders scheduled to attend, this event required somebody with personal experience in a high-performance role, with the added capability to motivate and educate professional teams to success.
Solution
Upon a quick star search on the Pickstar platform, it was evident to Openreach that a sports personality would be a perfect fit for their virtual event, but they were unsure on who and if their budget would fit the bill. Nevertheless, they submitted a request, detailing their budget and event details along with their preferences for a motivational guest speaker.
The Pickstar team then read this request and immediately, shortlisted British World Champion Athlete, Derek Redmond for the job.
Derek is most famously known for his part in the Team GB relay squad in the 1980s and 1990s, he is a proud gold medalist that has competed in both World and European Championships for his country. But that's not all, Derek is renowned for his unfortunate injury at the 1992 Olympics, whereby he astonished the crowd by finishing an Olympic race on a torn hamstring. Despite this ending his athletics career, he has achieved amazing accomplishments in a range of sports and today, he is an award-winning motivational speaker and business performance coach – making him a perfect star for this particular event.
With that said, after shortlisting Derek to the team at Openreach, the Pickstar platform takes over and streamlines the entire booking process for both parties. Whether it’s communicating ahead of the event, finalising event details or processing payment, everything is recorded through Pickstar to ensure the event goes ahead as planned.
And it was a huge success!
Outcome
On the day of the virtual event, many of the attendees were pleased with the surprise guest appearance of Derek Redmond. He presented an educational and inspiring hour-long set, that included an engaging 15 min Q&A with the virtual audience.
Positive feedback on the session included…
‘The Derek Redmond component was a massive educational experience. Everything he said made perfect sense.’
‘It was good to hear Derek relate his performance in sport to how it can be applied in business. Not only was it useful, concise and inspiring but an excellent addition to the event.’
‘Without a shadow of a doubt, Mr. Redmond delivered a priceless experience for the team to hear. A lot of what he said on having a challenger mindset resonated well, even more so, his comments on extending comfort zones and how we should adapt to an evolving mentality rather than changing. Truly insightful.’