Theme: Be the best you can be

We are very excited to be launching TEDxGuildford this year.

We’re bringing together an exceptional group of speakers to share their work, vision and ideas with us.

We’re gathering at the RGS, in the heart of Guildford, to share inspiration and explore different ways of how we can be the best we can be to make a positive difference in our lives, our communities and the world around us.

The Royal Grammar School
High Street
Guildford
Surrey, Surrey, GU1 3BB
United Kingdom

Andy Russell

Sustainability Communications

Originally from Essex, Andy was studying Geography at Exeter University when he suffered a spinal injury resulting in him becoming a wheelchair user. After spending one year rehabilitation in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Andy resumed his studies, completing his degree in 1998. Now based in London, Andy has held a number of roles with different corporate across a variety of business areas including marketing, communications and finance. He currently works for HSBC in a global role, responsible for communicating the bank's approach to sustainability. Away from work Andy is a keen traveller and sports fan and has endured the occasional up and multiple downs of being a West Ham season-ticket holder for the last 20 years…

Dr Natalie Riddell

Lecturer in Immunology and Ageing

Natalie recently joined the University of Surrey as a Lecturer in Immunology and Ageing. She gained her PhD in 2010 at the University of Birmingham where Natalie investigated the effects of acute psychological stress, and the concurrent release of adrenaline, upon immune function. Next, she joined UCL to study how the immune system changes with advancing age, and how these alterations may result in increased infection and illness in older individuals. Understanding how stress and stress related hormones may regulate immune function and influence ageing of the immune system is now the main focus of her research.

Guy Bloom

Director of Leadership

Guy Bloom is a Leadership Developer who’s focus is on enabling leaders, teams and cultures to perform at their best in a way that adds value to people, profits and society. Guy believes the world is in danger of losing its bravery as commercial, political and media agendas drive behaviours that harm people through a need to submit to the speed of change and ultimately this adds less value to the very structures that are driving the behaviour; believing, “it’s time for the individual as part of a collective to steer the ship, at the moment the ship is steering us and we are submissive to its wants and this is the wrong way around”. He delivers award winning projects, on awarding their Best Leadership Programme, the UK’s most prestigious training awards stated, “we’ve studied 73 different leadership development programmes, over the years. In terms of great design, demonstrable results and innovation, none have come close to this year’s

Henrik Kiertzner

Security and Risk Consultant

Old Guildfordian Henrik Kiertzner enjoyed a long military career, specialising in Intelligence, before launching into the heady world of corporate and governmental security and risk consulting, in which capacity, among other efforts, he helped develop the London 2012 Olympics security masterplan, designed a border security organisation for a (now failed) state, re-engineered the electronic and physical security infrastructure of a major East Asian gaming and sporting enterprise. advised foreign governments on cyber security and found time to spend three years as IT Director of an international engineering company.

Mandy Saligari

Clinical Director, Founder

Mandy’s first contact with the world of addiction, mental health and recovery was when she came into treatment in 1990. Her passion for therapy and its potential for change ignited here, inspiring her to make therapy her life’s work. Alongside a growing private practice Mandy always gave time to promote early intervention through lectures on addiction, emotional coping mechanisms and self-esteem as part of the PSHE (Personal, Social & Health Education) provision within independent schools. In 2008, with a busy private practice and many years of recovery under her belt, Mandy founded CHARTER Harley Street, an outpatient centre treating addiction and trauma using her pioneering model of care. www.charterharleystreet.com

Peter Molyneux

Managing Director

Peter Molyneux OBE has remained one of the most recognisable faces in the video games industry across 4 decades of landmark game titles and is still considered to be one of the world’s most innovative and celebrated game designers. As the former Creative Director of Microsoft Games Europe, founder and CEO of both Bullfrog Productions, Lionhead Studios and now 22cans, Peter has led various sized businesses in the industry and designed hugely successful products (both critically and commercially) such as Populous, Theme Park, Syndicate, Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper, Black & White and the Fable franchise. His work has granted him multiple Lifetime Achievement Awards from various sources such as BAFTA, GDC Awards and the Academy for the Interactive Arts and Sciences. Despite his legacy, Peter considers himself to only be getting started. His most recent endeavour 22cans stepped into the casual gamer space with "Curiosity - What’s inside the cube” which won an Online Innovation award at t

Russell Dean

Artistic Director of Strangeface Theatre Company

Russell Dean is artistic director of Strangeface Theatre Company. He is a writer and maker with a particular interest in cognition and what masks and puppets reveal about the way we perceive the world. He has made masks and puppets for Trestle, Geese, Vamos, ITV, Channel 4, and is responsible for the large Mrs Thatcher puppet in Stephen Daldry’s Billy Elliot. After touring nationally and internationally with Strangeface, his recent work has focused on using puppets in workshops with vulnerable adults, families with children in hospices and fathers in prison. He designs and sells masks that are used around the world. Currently he is engaged on a Wellcome Trust funded project exploring the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance via a semi clothed puppet hitman with obsessive compulsive disorder.

Sally Earnshaw

Managing Director

Sally comes with an extraordinary passion and energy, which translates into a highly unique and effective style of engaging with audiences. Her infectious manner ensures her messages land with all personalities. Sally has over 25 years’ experience at a senior level building, managing and leading teams to deliver exceptional customer service and sales results. Her passion for unlocking potential in people led her to the arena of learning and development where her enthusiasm and drive has led her to be described as ‘a force of nature’. She’s on a one woman mission to make the world just a little more human.

Thomas Bryans

Director IF_DO Architecture & Design

Thomas Bryans is a designer and co-founder of IF_DO, a London-based architecture practice dedicated to creating projects with a positive impact on users, the environment and the surrounding community. The firm constantly seeks to make their projects do more—working to create buildings that are not just beautiful, but that deliver wider social, economic, and ecological benefits throughout their lifespan. Thomas studied at both the University of Edinburgh and Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he gained his Master of Architecture. He has written extensively on issues of architecture and sustainability, and is passionately committed to improving the diversity of the architecture profession.