Paul Tolley

Paul Tolley is a former RAF fast jet pilot and Big 4 management consultant, and currently an elite performance coach working with professional cricket teams, and is a speaker on high performance and mental health.

Paul began his career as a fast jet pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF), where he honed his elite performance skills, including leadership, teamwork, and risk-based decision-making under extreme pressure. Beyond the cockpit, he achieved high performance levels in several other disciplines, including captaining the RAF Combat Shooting Team and qualifying as a scuba diving instructor.

After leaving the RAF, Paul transitioned to operational management consultancy, working for Deloitte, where he established a reputation for rescuing strategically critical projects and delivering complex transformational change. As a qualified Deloitte Coach, he also delivered their Operational Excellence training programme and built high-performing teams in challenging environments.

He currently works as a Senior Operations Delivery Specialist, having transformed a struggling £35m software managed service into a high-performing operation.

Paul is also a speaker on mental health and wellbeing. His RAF career was cut short by a significant physical illness. Later, his marriage ended on the day he was due to find out whether he had cancer, meaning he had to get to grips with becoming a single parent to two young children whilst recovering from another serious illness (which fortunately was not cancer).

Both of these events took a huge toll on his mental health from which it took time and effort to recover. Today, as a direct result of his experiences of poor mental health, he is a qualified Mental Health First Aider and helps organisations to design and deliver employee mental health & wellbeing strategies.

Speaking Topics

When helping individuals, businesses and professional athletes to maximise their personal and team performance, Paul draws on this rare combination of elite military and elite corporate experience, coupled with deeply personal insights from his own life outside work. Paul’s tried and tested method blends continuous improvement techniques, self-understanding, and a strong focus on personal and team mental health & wellbeing to deliver peak results.

Speaking topics include:

• Peak Performance and fulfilling potential – Drawing on his experience from elite fast jet flying operations, Paul understands the importance of fostering a culture of trust, collaboration and excellence for elite performance. This involves creating environments where individuals feel supported to reach their potential and perform at their best, as well as being empowered to take individual accountability and focus on collective goals.
• Mental health, wellbeing and resilience – Sustained high performance is not possible without a strong foundation of mental health & wellbeing and psychological safety. Paul has led initiatives that integrate mental health & wellbeing support into organisational culture, promoting resilience, reducing burnout, and enabling individuals to thrive.

Speaking Topics – 

• Peak performance and growth mindset
• Resilience
• Leadership
• Mental health
• Wellbeing – eating well, sleeping well, moving well, relaxing well, the importance of talking
• Effective communication
• Teamwork
• Risk management
• Marginal gains
• Continuous improvement
• Building high performance teams
• Stress and pressure
• Embedding behaviours and culture
• Fulfilling potential
• Reframing

Paul is always happy to liaise with event organisers to ensure that their essential themes are incorporated into his talks and presentations to deliver maximum impact and results.

“The health and wellbeing of staff should be an important consideration for all businesses today, but many organisations struggle with what that practically means. After seeing a growing number of individual mental health challenges within my team and recognising we needed to take action, I asked Paul to bring his experiences to our organisation. We invested the time and asked Paul to be the opening speaker for a day dedicated to this topic. We asked Paul to speak to all of our staff about mental health and wellbeing; to share his story and learnings and leave them with practical tips. Paul’s presentation left our staff and our leaders with key messages and practical tips to take into every single working day. “It’s OK not to be OK” remains my number one takeaway from Paul’s presentation. Hearing Paul speaking about mental health through his own story and normalising it, making it clear that it needn’t be a barrier or the end of anything, has been a valuable lesson in how to approach this often perceived to be difficult topic. The day after Paul’s presentation, I heard reports from right across our business of people sharing their own stories with each other, kicking off an openness on this topic that we recognise the importance of, and work hard to maintain. The day was a first in the business, but amid scepticism beforehand, delivered a positive impact across our staff base, and was repeated a year later, with Paul again on the agenda.” Global Defence Company

“Paul was very knowledgeable and calm and I liked his style. He delivered a great presentation and showed us the importance of using logic, emotional intelligence and managing our emotions when making important decisions and actioning things. Paul’s talk gave me real perspective on my role and challenges I have in my job.” former England Women’s Cricket Head Coach

“Paul’s diverse experience through his fast jet career, his work with Deloitte, and with elite athletes ensured that we couldn’t keep up with the questions from the pupils. They liked the diversity of experience as well as the elite level of performance he has had to manage and succeeded in across a whole range of very different, but stressful environments. A truly unique and inspiring session.” Director of Sport, Abingdon School