Oli France Keynote Speaker

Led expeditions across 75+ countries over 15 years
Completed third stage of 'Ultimate Seven' project in 2025
Featured in global media including BBC, The Times, and National Geographic

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Oli France's Biography

Oli France is a British adventurer, expedition leader, and speaker who guides teams through the world’s wildest places. From Iraq to Syria, Congo to Yemen, Somalia to Siberia, he has learned what it takes to assemble, motivate, and lead high-performing teams toward world-class goals in the harshest environments. Drawing on over fifteen years of explorations in deserts, jungles, mountains, and conflict zones across 75 countries, he captivates audiences with powerful lessons on resilience, vision, and shifting our understanding of what’s possible.

In May 2024, Oli became the first person this century to complete a fully human-powered journey from Death Valley to Denali, traversing 3,588 miles in 64 days. This record-breaking feat earned coverage from the BBC, The Times, National Geographic, and Red Bull magazine. It also forms part of his ambitious ‘Ultimate Seven’ project: an unprecedented challenge to travel entirely by human power from each continent’s lowest point to its highest.

Continuing this endeavor, in early 2025, Oli successfully completed the third stage of the ‘Ultimate Seven’ project by journeying from Laguna Del Carbón, the lowest point in South America, to the summit of Aconcagua, covering 2,784 kilometers over 34 grueling days. This achievement further solidified his reputation for resilience and determination in extreme environments.

Oli’s other expeditions include a solo 8,000-mile winter mountaineering journey from Hong Kong to Istanbul, a 400-mile winter crossing of Siberia’s Lake Baikal, and a 1,634-mile route from Lac Assal in Djibouti to Kilimanjaro. He has tackled remote volcanoes in the Congo, summited Iraq’s highest mountain, and navigated encounters with spies, interrogators, and minefields. A Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Member of the Scientific Exploration Society, Oli holds a degree in Outdoor Leadership, is a qualified Winter Mountain Leader, and is supported by several global brands. He regularly speaks to international organizations—including Google, HP, and AXA—on how to thrive under pressure, manage risk, and unlock human potential.

SUMMIT VISION

What does it take to achieve the boldest world-class goals? Oli France draws on his extraordinary experiences leading elite teams through the most challenging environments on Earth. In Summit Vision, Oli shares the crucial elements that drive success: precise planning, unwavering commitment, exceptional trust and teamwork, zero complacency and relentless focus on a shared vision. Through captivating stories and practical lessons, Oli illustrates the importance of leading with clarity and purpose, fostering an elite team culture, facing into risk, and maintaining absolute focus to achieve ambitious objectives.

THE EXPLORER’S MINDSET

Oli has faced countless bleak situations while operating in high-risk environments across the globe. He has learned though that we each hold the power to uncover the light in even the darkest places. Oli's message is that everything is a matter of perspective, and we can learn to control it. Audiences will feel empowered to not only cope with difficult situations, but to see them as an opportunity to thrive and grow.

LEADERSHIP ON THE EDGE

Oli has guided teams through countless high-risk situations across the globe, from the highest mountain in Iraq, to the militia-filled jungles of the Congo, to the backstreets of Aleppo, Syria. The pressures and perils of expedition life mean that quickly developing high-functioning teams is vital. Oli shares his leadership lessons from these demanding environments, where calm decision-making, intensive planning, open communication and understanding the human factor within our teams is critical. Leaders and teams alike will leave the talk with new methods for building the resilient, caring and high-performing teams needed to achieve success.

Oli France OFFICIAL 2025 Speaker Showreel

A global adventurer's perspective on risk | Oli France | TEDxBristol

Oli France: The Ultimate Seven | OFFICIAL TRAILER

Articles, Media & Podcasts

39 Oli France: You can be half way around the World and stuck in Your Own Head

Oli France's Journey From Death Valley to the Summit of Denali of

‘As a full-time adventurer, I often ask if I’m letting my children down’

Adventurer Oli France takes on highs and lows across seven continents

Oli France : voir grand

Comments & Testimonials

'Oli delivered a gripping story of adventure and exploration to an audience of ca 200 people at our recent Google team event. He is full of energy and passion and his talk covered many learnings that apply to businesses of all kinds: from the importance of cultivating a growth mindset and taking calculated risks to push your own self development to inspiration for how to build and motivate psychologically safe, resilient, high performance teams. Oli is a joy to work with as an individual. He is enthusiastic, engaging and dependable and fine-tuned his talk to perfectly complement our program for the event.'

Oliver Borm Director, Google

'WOW - Oli was brilliant. He understood his target audience and put in a significant amount of effort to tailor his content accordingly. Inspirational, motivational, uplifting and challenging all in equal measures. Whatever your audience, if your requirements are any of the above, then I am sure he will fulfil the criteria perfectly.'

Campbell Watt NHS Scotland

We invited Oli to be our keynote speaker at our company conference in September 2024. Every interaction with him leading up to the day was a real pleasure: he is friendly, personable and very professional. On the day itself, he delivered a keynote that demonstrated that he had really listened to our brief and had tailored his content to meet the objectives for the session. He engaged the room with his style and content and was more than happy to stay for coffee and informal discussions with the team afterwards. We’ve had nothing but positive feedback about Oli from the team and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend him for motivational and leadership sessions.’

Claire Pallet People Director, 15Below

'Oli participated to our International Week of Happiness @ Work hosting two incredible sessions around The Explorer's Mindset. What impressed me most was how Oli interacted with our virtual audience and how he was able to link his experiences to a business context. We received amazing reviews from participants from all over the world about his sessions and I would be happy to work with Oli anytime!’

Iulia Craciun HP

Oli joined 60 of our senior leaders at a development event to share his inspiring story of the leadership lessons gleaned through his adventures. He offered a perspective on how resilience, mindset and determination play out from the mountains to the boardroom. Oli was engaging and approachable, and I would recommend him for leadership focused events.’

Clara Turner Global Head of Leadership and Management Development, AXA XL

'Oli was incredible, he wowed my boss and executive team. Our chairman loved him and the feedback from the team is that he was the best part of the event. His speech was amazing and he was also an extremely talented MC who carried the event despite many last minute changes and deviations. He took my brief to heart and made the keynote really focussed on what we as a business are trying to achieve and people were very engaged.'

Kristina Flickinger VP Marketing, Halfords

Thank you so much for the great motivational speech you gave yesterday during our Eurocommercial Employees Digital Day. Our teams were very enthusiastic about your presentation. We truly appreciate your lessons on endurance, resilience, adventure, adaptation, and teamwork—qualities we can all apply in our daily lives. And, equally important, your insight that how you react to a situation often determines the outcome. You made it a fantastic day for our teams!'

Danette Albers Director, Eurocommercial Properties

‘Oli, what a pleasure and joy it was to welcome you to FundApps. You are an amazing storyteller, and we were inspired by hearing about your incredible adventures. Thank you for sharing your lessons and wisdom—it was the perfect way to wrap up our final company meeting of the year.

Adriana Pislaru Toma Head of People, FundApps

'Oli recently spoke at our annual Business Network Live event. His presentation was inspirational, fun and informative and Oli was a pleasure to work with. I would definitely recommend him.'

Allison Hargreaves Head of Wella Professionals Education, Wella

'Oli truly is a high performer.'

Jake Humphreys The High Performance Podcast