Paul Kelly • Back to Menu

Paul grew up next to the sea so after university, a year in the city and a year backpacking round the world he started his professional sailing career. After 7 years, 50,000 miles of racing, charter and teaching this love for the sea eventually saw him, at the age of 27, get selected from over 300 people to skipper a race yacht around the world.

Dubbed ‘the world’s toughest yacht race’ the Global Challenge 2004/05 saw 12 identical steel yachts battling it out against the prevailing winds and currents, crewed entirely by amateurs with just one professional on each yacht. The race was always going to be difficult – physically and more often than not mentally. Paul’s story is one of triumph over adversity, maintaining a safe, happy and motivated crew through some extremely testing times. Mixed with humour and humility the story focuses on what it takes to lead a team through one of the toughest leadership challenges known to man.

Since the race Paul has used the lessons learnt from his experience to build teams and transfer his knowledge from the water to the classroom. His story is compelling and one that never fails to capture the imagination of the listener. In short, it leaves the listener thanking their lucky stars that they are on dry land.

Backed up with a high impact multi media presentation, Paul’s talks are awe-inspiring and can be tailored to suit the needs of the client. The talks can be as diverse as focusing on leadership and teamwork through to an anecdotal, highly entertaining after dinner speech.