BONITA NORRIS | ADVENTURER

Bonita Norris first set her sights on climb Mount Everest when she was 20 years old, even though she had never climbed any mountain before. In the process of getting to Everest, she became one of the youngest people to climb the eighty highest mountain in the Himalayas, Mount Manaslu. The following year, she secured nearly £50,000 in corporate sponsorship, and was able to fulfil her dream of reaching Everest’s summit.

But this wasn’t enough for Bonita. The very next year she skied to the North Pole, and at 23 she became the youngest person ever to reach both the “tops of the world”: Everest and the North Pole.

Not content with the fact she fell upon her descent of Everest, she set herself the challenge of climbing Mount Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world. It took her another year to train, and as part of that training, she climbed Ama Dablam, often called the world’s most beautiful mountain.

She has also attempted K2 in Pakistan, and guided a number of teams to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest freestanding mountain in the world.

BONITA NORRIS | MEDIA

Bonita’s amazing achievements have made her a popular media figure, and she has appeared on BBC News, ITV’s Lorraine, and the BBC World Service. She can also be heard on a number of popular podcasts, including BBC Outlook, Mindset Matters, Sheerluxe, The Convex Conversation, and Berghaus Finding Our Way.

In 2022, she published her memoir, The Girl Who Climbed Everest, detailing her journey from beginner climber to the highs and lows of pushing her limits in some of the most dangerous places on Earth. It was an immediate Amazon bestseller.

BONITA NORRIS | CORPORATE WORK

Outside of her mountaineering and media work, Bonita has become an ambassador for a number of educational institutions and is a Patron of the White Lodge Disability Centre in Surrey. She has raised money for charities, including raising £10,000 for the Global Angels Foundation during her Everest expedition, as well as raising £5,000 for the Forces Children’s Trust during her North Pole ski challenge.

Bonita’s experiences in adventuring have made her a popular inspirational and motivational keynote speaker. She particularly focusses on adapting your mindset to overcome seemingly impossible challenges ahead, be that in a personal, professional, or extreme sense. She adapts her talks for the occasion, and has worked at award ceremonies, conferences, team meetings, and dinner events.

BONITA NORRIS | SPEAKING TOPICS

– Personal Leadership

– Marginal Gains

– Mountaineering

– Teamwork

– Resilience

– Goalsetting

– Mindset

BONITA NORRIS | KEYNOTE TALKS

Mountains of the Mind/One Goal, One Team

“Everest was my dream and my responsibility. Nobody was going to climb that mountain for me. It’s amazing what you can do when you have people around who believe in you.”

What does it take to go beyond your limits? To have an impossible dream and turn it into a reality?

Bonita learned that her biggest challenge wasn’t actually Everest itself, but creating a mindset that worked for her in order to succeed. she talks about how to conquer the biggest mountain of all, the mountain of the mind. She discusses the mental challenges that she had to fight: the fear of failure, or the fear of death, uncertainty, and huge risk, as well as the pressure of knowing it would likely be her one shot to get to the top of the world.

In the Death Zone: Utilising Failure for Greater Success

Are successes and failures at odds with each other, or are they linked? Are excellent teams those who make no mistakes, or are they the ones that accept mistakes will, and do happen, and that they can learn from them?

Bonita looks at how we can ensure workplace culture encourages, not only the making of mistakes, but the ways to learn quickly from them, so they can be avoided in the future; and how we can better harness the learnings within our failings in order to succeed better and connect with our teams and clients.

Over the years Bonita has delivered over 650 motivational speeches to individuals and teams working in the world’s most successful companies. Her clients include:

3M, AstraZeneca, Bentley, BMW, Bupa, Clifford Chance, Dyson, Google, GSK, HM Revenue & Customs, HSBC, Investec, J.P Morgan, Lamborghini, Loewe, L’Oréal, Microsoft, Ministry of Defence, NatWest, NHS, Pfizer, PWC, Roche, Rolex, Samsung, SAP, Sky, Tag Heuer, Thales, Virgin

Call +44 1753 439 289 or email Great British Speakers now to book Bonita Norris for your next live event.

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