Lewis Gordon Pugh

Lewis Pugh is one of the world’s leading inspirational speakers. He has addressed and influenced many international organisations. Coca Cola chose Lewis to address their world-wide leadership team on their 125th anniversary. When Unilever wanted to double the size of their business and half their environmental footprint, they chose Lewis to speak to their management team and when Microsoft needed to become more customer-centric, they picked Lewis to speak to them about the “Radical Tactical Shift” that enabled him to complete the first swim across a glacial lake on Mt Everest.

As a maritime lawyer, an ocean advocate and a pioneer swimmer, Lewis puts his hard learned lessons into the context of a corporate environment. His message is highly relevant, inspirational and, most importantly, actionable towards achieving your own impossible.

Lewis is the only person to have completed a long distance swim in every ocean of the world. In 2007 he became the first person to undertake a swim across the icy waters of the North Pole. To date he has pioneered more swims around famous landmarks than any other swimmer in history. Each of these seemingly impossible feats were done to raise awareness about the vulnerability of our oceans and their importance to humanity. And he won’t stop there. He continually redefines his own impossible, in the same way that any company must, in an everchanging world.

Lewis’s speeches have received widespread acclaim. His speech on leadership at the BIF Conference in Rhode Island was voted as one of the “7 Most Inspiring Videos on the Web” and his speeches at TEDGlobal have been viewed by over 2.5 million people.

He has received a number of awards including France and South Africa’s highest honours and the Freedom of the City of London. In 2010, the World Economic Forum named him a Young Global Leader for his “potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world through inspiring leadership.”

Lewis’s accomplishments have received extensive media coverage by the BBC, Good Morning America, CNN, Jon Stewart, National Geographic, Sky News, Al Jazeera, Jay Leno and many more. His autobiography “Achieving the Impossible” is a Bestseller and was chosen for Oprah’s Exclusive Book List.