Ben Ryan

Ben Ryan is a world-renowned rugby coach and performance director whose expertise in leadership and high-performance culture has taken him from Olympic glory to the Premier League. He led Fiji's rugby sevens team to their first-ever Olympic medal, winning gold at the 2016 Rio Games, earning him Fiji's highest honour and recognition as one of rugby's greatest coaches. Now Performance Director at Brentford FC, Ben translates the strategies that transformed international rugby success into elite football environments. His sessions equip leaders and teams with practical tools to build trust across cultures, optimise performance under pressure, and develop winning mindsets that deliver measurable results in demanding, fast-paced organisations.

When Ben Ryan guided Fiji's rugby sevens team to Olympic gold at the 2016 Rio Games, he delivered not only the nation's first ever Olympic medal but also one of sport's most remarkable underdog victories. That triumph earned him Fiji's highest honour, the Companion of the Order of Fiji, and saw him named a chief in the province of Serua with the title Ratu Peni Raini Latianara. Recognised as Pacific Person of the Year and shortlisted for World Rugby Coach of the Year, Ben transformed a team with limited resources into world champions through innovative coaching methods that challenged convention. His journey began as a professional rugby player with Bedford Blues and West Hartlepool in the Premiership before injury redirected his path towards coaching, where his true impact would be realised.

Ben's coaching career progressed rapidly through roles with England Under-18s, South West Schools, and as Director of Rugby at Newbury RFC, where he developed one of the country's top twenty teams. Appointed head coach of England Sevens in 2007, he spent six years building the programme before taking on the Fiji role in 2013. Under his leadership, Fiji claimed their first Dubai Sevens title and achieved a record nine tournament victories, the most by any Fiji Sevens coach. His success stemmed from deep cultural intelligence and his ability to adapt high-performance principles to different environments, skills he has since applied as Performance Director at Premier League club Brentford FC. Now in his third season with the club, Ben works in elite football where he focuses on optimising performance under sustained pressure, a discipline increasingly adopted across top-flight English football.

Ben equips audiences with practical strategies for leading across cultural boundaries, building trust in high-stakes environments, and achieving peak performance with constrained resources. His sessions draw on real examples from Olympic competition and Premier League football to demonstrate how leaders can create cohesive teams from diverse backgrounds, maintain standards whilst reducing pressure, and develop resilient mindsets that deliver results. Whether addressing corporate leaders navigating organisational change or teams seeking competitive advantage, Ben provides actionable frameworks that translate directly into improved communication, stronger collaboration, and measurable performance gains that endure long after the session ends.