020 8914 8966
020 8914 8966
Ben Saunders explorer and motivational speaker. He is a record-breaking long-distance skier, with three North Pole expeditions under his belt. Ben became the youngest person ever to ski solo to the North Pole in 2004. He also holds the record for the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton. Between 2001 and 2004, Ben has skied more than 2,000km (1,250 miles) in the high Arctic. Not one to rest on his laurels, Ben has other ground breaking polar projects lined up for the future.
In the meantime, Ben Saunders explorer is available for motivational keynote speaking on Teamwork, Motivation and Communication. His Ted talks have had more than 5 million views.
Born in 1977, Ben Saunders explorer grew up in Devon. He was educated at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and currently lives in London. Ben is passionate about the great outdoors and spent four months walking and climbing in the Nepalese Himalayas aged 19, going on to work as an instructor at the John Ridgway School of Adventure in the Scottish Highlands (once billed as ‘the UK’s toughest management training school’). John was (and is) a role model and mentor of the highest calibre. In 1966 he and Chay Blyth rowed the Atlantic in an open boat. John went on to break records in non-stop round the world sailing.
John’s wife, Marie-Christine, remembers a nineteen year-old Ben asking her to photocopy the ‘Antarctica’ pages of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. ‘That’s where it all started’, says Ben, ‘I blame it all on John’.
Ben Saunders explorer and a keen athlete – after an unpromising start (‘I was the podgy kid at school that was always picked last for the football team’) he discovered mountain biking in his teens. He went on to race bikes on and off-road and also at national level. He has run several marathons (New York is his favourite course & 332 302 is his best time to date), two ultramarathons, and aims to start competing in Ironman-distance triathlons before too long.
When he’s not pulling a sledge, Ben Saunders explorer is probably either planning his next expedition, keeping fit or cross-country skiing in Norway. Or he may be earning a crust as one of the UK’s leading motivational speakers.
