Steve Ingham

Dr Steve Ingham is a performance scientist who specialises in helping individuals and organisations achieve sustainable high performance through evidence-based decision-making and strategic clarity. He spent 30 years inside British Olympic sport, supporting over 1,000 athletes and more than 200 World and Olympic medallists across five Games, working alongside Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Steve Redgrave, and Sir Matthew Pinsent. As Director of Science and Technical Development at the English Institute of Sport, he led teams through multiple Olympic cycles and later advised the French system for Paris 2024. Today, through his consultancy Supporting Champions, he works with executive teams at Google, McLaren, and Samsung, translating elite sport principles into practical frameworks that help leaders set goals, make decisions under pressure, and build environments where high performance is sustained rather than simply celebrated.

Between 1996 and 2016, Britain transformed from winning a single gold medal at the Atlanta Olympics to becoming the first nation in modern history to win more medals at a Games after hosting. Dr Steve Ingham was not a spectator to that rise. He spent 30 years inside the engine room of British Olympic sport, supporting over 1,000 athletes and more than 200 World and Olympic medallists across five Games from Atlanta to Rio. He worked alongside Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Steve Redgrave, and Sir Matthew Pinsent, applying performance science where the margin between gold and nothing is measured in milliseconds and millimetres. After advising the French system for Paris 2024, he now applies the same evidence-based rigour to boardrooms at Google, McLaren, Elastic, and Samsung, helping executive teams rethink how they set goals, make decisions under pressure, and build environments where high performance is sustained, not just celebrated.

Steve's credibility is rooted in measurable impact and applied expertise. As Head of Physiology and later Director of Science and Technical Development at the English Institute of Sport, he led a team of 200 scientists supporting Team GB and Paralympics GB through Athens, London, and Rio. His work was not theoretical. It was tested in the most unforgiving environment imaginable: Olympic competition, where preparation meets reality and years of effort are decided in seconds. He holds a PhD and is a Fellow of the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences, and today he teaches at Warwick Business School and Saïd Business School, Oxford. His bestselling book, How to Support a Champion, distils decades of learning into a framework that bridges elite sport and organisational performance. His approach is evidence-based, grounded in real data from 10 million athletes, and delivered with clarity, humour, and respect for the intelligence of his audience.

Steve's keynotes are not lectures. They are interactive experiences that challenge leaders to distinguish between what feels productive and what is actually necessary. Through live demonstrations, Olympic footage, and real-time data analysis, he shows audiences how elite teams think probabilistically, set goals that drive performance above the norm, and create cultures where high challenge meets high support. Leaders leave with a shared language and practical tools they apply immediately: filters for decision-making, methods for switching perspective when teams are stuck, and an understanding of how small, deliberate changes compound into lasting impact. Whether speaking at a leadership conference, facilitating a strategy day, or working directly with executive teams, Steve helps organisations move from chasing outcomes to designing for success.