Katy Leeson, the inspirational businesswoman who powered Steven Bartlett to success, signs exclusively with Champions Speakers. 

The woman credited for “changing everything” by Steven Bartlett has signed exclusively as a keynote speaker with Champions Speakers.

Katy Leeson worked alongside the Dragons Den star for over half a decade and rose to become managing director of his Social Chain enterprise.

Katy, who Steven has described as “exceptional”, was responsible for scaling the business from 30 to over 750 employees, across 24 offices worldwide.

She later became CEO of Relentless Media, Gary Neville’s media company where she led the media team at Salford City FC and launched the club’s social channels.

She drove the marketing strategy for the award-winning Stick to Football, and helped launch The Overlap, which is now one of YouTube’s leading UK sports shows and also tours the UK.

Her career has firmly established Katy as one of Britain’s leading businesswomen.

She was recognised as a LinkedIn Top Voice in 2019 and 2020, named a Campaign Female Frontier Honouree in 2020, listed as an IPA Women of Tomorrow Finalist in 2016, and has built a LinkedIn community of 70,000.

Now, in an exciting new collaboration with Champions Speakers, the UK’s leading keynote agency, Katy will share the story of her career so far, and explain why she felt able to walk away from her dream job.

Katy said: “I’m hugely excited to be working with Champions Speakers, and starting to write a brand new chapter in my career. If I help just one person by sharing my experiences then I’ve achieved my mission.

“I hope people leave my talks feeling inspired, but also equipped with practical takeaways they can apply in their own roles. I want the message to stay with them long after the event.”

Reflecting on her time working with Steven and Gary she said: “The biggest lesson I learned from Steven and from Gary was the power of visionary leadership combined with a willingness to challenge.

“They taught me to trust my instincts, push boundaries, and always put people first. The main thing that both of them have though, is an incredible way to envisage what is next, before anyone else has a clue and I’ve tried to absorb a bit of that from both of them in how I think now. Steven has been hugely supportive, and said how interesting my career arc will be to a lot of people I will be speaking to.”

Explaining how she initiated the change which Steven so famously credited her for bringing about, Katy said: “To hear that was an incredible compliment from Steven. I’m a very good reader of people, they key for me was to hire people who fitted the values of the company. For me you can have the strongest CV but if you are going to disrupt the rest of the established team by the way you approach things I don’t want to hire you. I also focussed on building a strong, values-led culture; implementing clear communication, especially around company performance, and empowering teams to take ownership and innovate.”

Jack Hayes, the Director of Champions Speakers, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Katy into the family at Champions Speakers. She’s already one of the country’s best and most inspirational speakers and we’re looking forward to supporting her in this exciting new stage of her life and career.”