Dr Ed Coats

Ed is a doctor in Bath with degrees in Medicine, Extreme Human Physiology and Medical Law. In 2009 he took a break from Medicine to join James Cracknell and Ben Fogle on the first ever race of its kind to the South Pole. Ed completed a two-day selection course beating over 650 applicants to win his place on the team. The expedition and selection process was filmed for a 5-part TV series for BBC2 called ‘On Thin Ice’.

Prior to ‘The South Pole Race’, Ed was no stranger to physical hardship and had represented Great Britain as a track and field decathlete and led two teams to swim the English Channel for charity. After returning from the South Pole Ed celebrated becoming thirty with his ’30 at 30′ project taking on thirty adventurous challenges around the UK in a year, which included a Thames swim, a ‘Coast to Coast’ race across Scotland and an endurance mountain marathon on Dartmoor amongst others.
Since returning from Antarctica Ed has jointly led a ski expedition to the Geographic North Pole in 2012, which appeared on Channel 5’s ‘North Pole Ice Airport’. Ed has also jointly led a series of ‘Extreme classroom’ projects in the High Arctic and Africa. ‘The Coldest Classroom on Earth’ and ‘The Hottest Classroom on Earth’ were filmed for BBC World. These projects show that children with challenging behaviour, who are frequently labelled ‘un-teachable’, engage if taught with the right approach.

Ed is a regular keynote, motivational and after dinner speaker. In presentation he talks about leadership, team performance and the impact of team dynamics on a project. He focuses on maximising performance in teams under pressure and how to develop a cohesive understanding of your own team dynamics. He looks at individual and collective responsibility and how to form a healthy effective team quickly to perform at the highest level.

“Ed has a fantastic presentation style, using visuals, stories and videos to meet the brief of the session – focussing on team building, working under pressure, working together and maximising the team.  He was very funny and engaging but also relatable.  The audience felt motivated, enthused and energised.  We didn’t even realise that Ed was speaking for an hour– time just flew by!  He also made time to answer additional questions after his session had finished.” Business Support & Development Manager, Lloyds Banking Group

“Many thanks for presenting to the Nottingham Business School audience on Monday 3rd October at the Albert Hall. The slide show and accompanying account of your expedition was fascinating and contains many important messages for aspirant and practicing leaders in business. We are really pleased we chose to invite you to address our students, feedback from the event was incredibly positive and we would very much like to invite you back on another occasion.”  Head of Undergraduate Taught Programmes, Nottingham Business School

“Dr Ed Coats was simply outstanding, 10 out of 10.  I would say he was the most inspirational speaker I have ever heard.”  Global Albumedix Team day

“Dr Ed Coats enthralled an audience of over 200 multi-professional healthcare providers and academics, sharing his experience & learning from his travel to the South Pole and the importance of teamwork and how individuals cope under extreme duress and the need for a shared vision. He followed his speech with a workshop for 45 invited guests; this involved understanding human behaviour and the impact on teams and their performance.  The workshop stimulated discussion and an opportunity to share and think what we can do differently to improve the quality of the healthcare we deliver today. Ed is a highly engaging speaker, I would highly recommend him to motivate your organisation to understand behaviours and the challenges with teamwork and leadership.”  Scottish Patient Safety Programme Manager, NHS Grampian

“Fabulous 'storytelling' with powerful points that can be translated to our NHS organisation and teams. “
“Dr Coat’s session was a fantastic story that threaded through a lot of valuable lessons that are very comparable with day to day working in healthcare.”
“Ed was a compelling speaker and his presentation was coherent, interesting and everyone should have been able to relate something of his experiences to their role and function.”
Delegate feedback – NHS Grampian

“We ran a top level survey on the return from the staff conference and Ed’s talk was chosen as the highlight of the weekend. He surpassed cocktail making, a picnic under the Eiffel Tower and the Saturday night party. Praise indeed!  Excellent motivational talk tailored to our audience and business requirements. We were impressed by Ed’s professionalism and particularly enjoyed his humorous approach,”  Top Deck Travel

“Ed was simply amazing.  He is so personable, has valuable insight to share, he even created mascara warning moments with some of the audience crying throughout his speech as he described critical moments.  He was so impactful but with such humbleness, earthiness and humour.  Ed also proved that we can all be ordinary but still do something extraordinary.”   Learning and Development Manager

“Really great thank you, Fantastic feedback and some of the executives from other business would book Ed.”  Egton

From the NHS –

“Relevant and inspirational from Ed. Good to have him relate his experience to health service team”

“I really enjoyed Ed’s talk. It's affirmed my belief that team leadership and management is based on respect and kindness”

“Excellent presentation. How do we encourage our senior staff to engage more fully? Confidence building and enabling me to control issues more positively when affects my team”

“Fantastic delivery, appropriate to workplace, delivered with real meaning, honesty and pictionally which suits my learning style perfectly”

“Listening to an inspirational story with learning for us in the workplace – excellent”

“Ed Coats was amazing and thought-provoking. Lots to reflect on and take back to my team and leadership role”

“Ed was a delight to listen to – his story was very interesting and good to hear it through an NHS bod”

“Ed making us think about priorities for a team and also looking at the health of a team, looking at skills within the room to help”

“Ed's session was engaging and interesting. A great way of looking at team work, flexibility and reflection”

“Ed's session was very interesting – especially to see how he reflected on how his experiences applied to leadership in healthcare settings”

“The Team Health model – will be looking to implement it into my departments”