Keynote speaker
Most teams don't crack under pressure. They crack under what no one said.
Two-time Olympian, Boat Race winner, America's Cup sailor. Keynotes on why the best teams say the hard thing, and what happens to the ones that don't.
- 2× OlympianRio 2016, Tokyo 2021
- World Championship silver2018
- 2× U23 World Champion2013, 2014
- Boat Race winnerOxford, 2022
- America's CupAlinghi Red Bull Racing
- Oxford MBAHead of Growth, health-tech
The signature keynote
Three acts. One room. One hour.
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01
From last place to first
I finished dead last at my first Swiss championships and wasn't invited back the next year. I was embarrassed and confused, and there was no cinematic turning point. What followed was a slow, stubborn decision: to care about improving, not about results.
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02
Teams that don't crack
Oxford in 2022 and the America's Cup: two elite environments, the same ambition, different outcomes. What I took from them is simple. The teams that hold are the ones where hard truths can be said, and heard, without becoming personal.
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03
Breaking through
The 5:40 barrier on the ergometer, and the ones I never fully explained: the trap of being the 2019 favourite, and Tokyo. Humility, not a tidy ending.
Every keynote is shaped to the event. The material moves comfortably between leadership under pressure, building teams that hold, performing when the plan breaks, and transition and reinvention.
What the room leaves with
Five principles from teams that held together.
One thread runs through all five: say the hard thing, and hear it without taking it personally.
- 1
Values chosen from within, not imposed
Values a team writes itself hold under pressure. Values handed down from above rarely survive the first hard week.
- 2
Radical transparency about pressure
Say what is at stake, and what could go wrong, before race day. No surprises when it counts.
- 3
Productive conflict
The courage to name the elephant in the room, and to hear it without taking it personally. Criticism is aimed at the work, never at the person.
- 4
One system, over individual optimisation
A single way of working that everyone commits to beats each person optimising alone. Buy-in first, refinement second.
- 5
A controlled narrative
The underdog on the outside, absolute certainty on the inside. The team decides the story it tells itself.
Ways to work together
Three formats, in order of depth.
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Keynote
Five principles, one room, one hour. The talk above, shaped to your event and your audience, with room for questions afterwards.
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Workshop
Built around your team's own situation. The principles from the keynote, worked on by the people who have to use them. Designed on request, with no fixed curriculum.
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On the water
The team gets into a boat. The principles stop being metaphorical when a crew has to move it together. On the water or indoors on ergometers, year-round. Group size is arranged to fit, from a single crew to a full department.
The flagship engagement
The offsite day.
A keynote in the morning. Your team on the water in the afternoon.
One booking, one day, and a team that has put the principles to work together before it goes back to the office.
Enquire about an offsite daySome engagements continue afterwards as ongoing one-to-one work.
Keynotes in English or French, with Q&A, panels and informal conversation with teams also possible in German. In person or virtual. Audiences from 20 to 2,000. Based in Lausanne and Barcelona, travels internationally.
In the room
What organisers and audiences say.
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Recent talks
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About
Barnabé Delarze
I finished dead last at my first Swiss championships. I went on to two Olympic Games, two U23 World Championship titles and a World Championship silver. Then I changed sport. At Oxford I completed an MBA and won the 2022 Boat Race, and I joined Alinghi Red Bull Racing for the America's Cup, starting again as a beginner among the best in the world.
Today I am Head of Growth at a health-tech startup, applying what elite teams taught me to a commercial one. When I speak, I talk about the part that transfers: how a group of ambitious people tell each other the truth, and keep going.
Booking
Check availability.
Tell me about the event. I reply personally, usually within two working days.
Fee on request, adapted to format and audience.
Prefer email? barnabe@barnabedelarze.com