PA Forum Learning and Development Conference 2025

Alex Staniforth is a record-breaking adventurer, ultra-endurance athlete, international keynote speaker, author and charity founder from Chester, who is no stranger to overcoming challenges.

By the age of 19 he had already survived the two most significant disasters in Mount Everest history, in two consecutive years. However, his biggest mountains have been within: overcoming epilepsy, bullying, mental ill health and a stammer since childhood.

Alex has never allowed adversity to become his identity – only an opportunity to discover his potential and inspire others. He is the fastest person to climb all 100 UK county tops – covering 5,000 miles by human power in 72 days – and has raised over £100,000 for charity, winning the Pride of Britain Granada Reports Fundraiser of the Year 2017 and a Points of Light award from the Prime Minister in 2023. Alex has authored two books ‘Icefall’ and ‘Another Peak’, and in 2020 founded a mental health charity, Mind Over Mountains, to restore mental well-being through nature. Why settle for Base Camp?

Here’s a short synopsis of Alex’s upcoming talk at the conference – Re-defining Resilience: how to embrace the unexpected

Challenges and change are inevitable; being defeated is optional. Resilience isn’t simply about bouncing back or enduring to breaking point: it’s how we recharge, prepare and move forward – even when we can’t see the top of the mountain.

Drawing lessons and insight from adventure and ultra-endurance challenges, Alex will share the tools in his ‘Resilience Rucksack’ for anyone to adapt and achieve in the face of setbacks, failure, uncertainty and pressure – when the whole team depends on it.

alexstaniforth.com

My first proper job was fresh from school, aged 16 – a Junior Secretary at KPMG.  I was terrified – everything was so posh and fancy (there was a waterfall in the lobby!) but I found I was happy doing lots of typing and helping to organise the lives of those I worked with.   I stayed in similar roles, slowly progressing from Junior Secretary ultimately to Partner PA in various global finance and law firms.  But there was something missing – I felt my creativity wasn’t being used, and in these big firms I felt a bit like a number.

Also, I was always…different.  I was happiest working on my own and found the social side of things terrifying.  Sometimes I’d be too shy to even go to the kitchen to get a coffee in case someone was in there.

I decided I needed a shake up, so I quit my job, halved my salary and went to work at a community centre in Bristol.  It was a HUGE shock to the system – I was so used to fancy offices, top of the range tech, and suddenly I was cleaning loos and spending my days with homeless people, some of whom were on drugs.   Shockingly quickly though, I found such deep kindness and humanity in this world.  There is real beauty hiding in places you’d never think – so many people are quietly helping others in need without telling anyone else.  It’s remarkable.  It inspired me to start Festive Friends, free social events for isolated older people, which is still running now, 9 years later in both Birmingham and Bristol.

At the community centre I found I was great at marketing – I loved the creativity, and I was put in charge of all of their events and marketing.  I adored it. So much so, they encouraged me to go to university aged 32 and get a degree – which I did! And I got a First (whilst working full time still!).

I ended up running my own marketing agency after that, working full time from home (starting during the first lockdown) and I felt like I’d finally found my place. It combined all of the computery/organisey stuff from my life as a PA and the creativity and purpose of the community centre.   We had 5 fantastic years of huge lessons learnt, but generally we did very well and I rose to a team of 5.  I did struggle with people management – I’m a natural people pleaser, and I found that managing their needs took up 50% of my time.

Combine the people management issue with the fact the market changed AND generative AI came out (I became instantly obsessed) and the agency began to sink rapidly.  We went from profitable and flourishing to me having to get personal loans to pay salaries – for 6 months running.  It was one of the worst times of my life and I tried EVERYTHING to fix it, but I had to make my whole team redundant.  It was a dark time – and it was only 1 year ago almost exactly as I write this.

Turns out, it’s exactly what was meant to happen. It meant my then-side project, AI for Non-Techies, came to the fore.  I’d already been learning for 3-4 hours a day, sharing what I knew for free, and even teaching webinars and doing speeches – so why not take it to the next level? I went all in.  And now – here I am, about to turn our first £1m.  I even have my very own AI team to help me get there (as well as some beautiful humans!)

Session outcomes including Copilot and Gemini examples:

• We hope you will leave this session feeling inspired, motivated and that you will be able to relate to many of the examples in Heathers story.
• You will take a way some exciting examples of really useful prompts for your chosen AI (Copilot or Gemini)
• How you can really get to grips with the AI chatbot you have at work including understanding it’s features, functions and prompts
• Understand the power of building your own custom chatbots and leave with the ability to even building your own entire AI team
• Learn how to stay safe and careful whilst using these tools

https://nontechies.ai

This world class re-framer has a unique ability to help people reframe their stories and situations, bringing transformation in their work, life and communities. This is Jaz’s alchemy.

Jaz combines lessons learned from a challenging and often brutal childhood with those from her rise to TV presenter, TEDx Speaker, stand-up comedian and Z-list reality TV star.

Her authentic honesty and humour consistently empower people to think differently about leading themselves and others.

Jaz is highly recognised for her impact on the education and health sectors, inspiring and galvanising positive change. She has led national and international projects unlocking potential in leaders and teams and is now a sought after headline keynote speaker by business leaders, corporations and governments wanting the same results.

Along with her husband Ed, Jaz is co-founder of the leadership development consultancy Be Human First Limited. Together, they help leaders who want to influence, inspire and motivate their teams with greater engagement in order to grow their businesses and leave a lifelong legacy.

Working with Jaz leaves a mark. She empowers you to get out of your own way and challenge that which you previously considered impossible so that the next time you face adversity and challenge, you’ll be ready.  In her TEDx Talk she re-storied her life as a broken child, highlighting the transformative power we have to make a difference. Jaz’s determination drove her from appalling abuse at the hands of her own parents to running away from foster care and life as a teen on the streets, to advising countries on education policy and living as the resilience influencer she is today.

As a speaker, Jaz has a disarming ability to captivate her audience and share her story with humour and humility and without anger or bitterness. She invites people into a more authentic narrative around choice and agency, leaving individuals and organisations reporting an increase in determination and productivity.

Jaz’s ability to reframe means she sees the world in a unique way, which challenges and ignites those around her, lifting them out of what she calls ‘mindset poverty’ into previously unachievable outcomes.

Jaz speaks internationally and works with industry leaders such as Skillsoft, The Marketing Society, Gucci, RED, The Festival Of Media and the BBC.

Be Human First

In a world where there are many different in points of view and even information overload offering conflicting opinions, it is important that we, as a community, take the opportunity at this year’s conference to discuss the challenges you might be facing in your businesses right now.  In addition, you may have concerns about your career and understanding how we, as a community, can work together to lead and inspire the next generation of Business Support Professionals.

The round table discussions will initially be led on stage as we briefly address a topic of importance that we all could be facing right now and then it will lead to open discussions on each of the round tables. It’s a chance to hear from your peers about their own experiences, how they might be tackling a particular situation or scenario right now and to have some real life experience and reassurance that you can take back into your organisation and apply to your situation.

From a broader perspective, it is a great opportunity to gather different insights that will help to share real life working facts and figures about our profession.  Hearing from the people that are dealing with and working in these situations will help to gain a deeper understanding of our profession.

Some of these questions to be collectively discussed could include:

• How has the shape of Business Support Roles changed within your organisation over the past 2 years – including the size and shape of the department within an organisation and what the organisational structure looks like in that department
• Do you believe that this is a profession for life or a stepping stone to something different and if so what roles could it lead to?
• Is there a clearly defined career pathway and what qualifications do you feel you might need to expand your role?
• What does succession planning look like currently in your organisation?
• How are you engaging the “Next Generation” of Business Support Professionals and what is your business doing to attract talent?
• The Gen Z boss? Many members now may have a boss in a different generation and how do you balance the relationship?
• The continued rise of the self employed Virtual Assistant role.  Have you worked with a VA before? Have you ever thought about starting your own business?
• What’s your opinion on the Chief of Staff Role?
• The rise of Artificial Intelligence

These are just some of the most pertinent topics for discussion right now but when do we ever have time to sit down and give these some thought with our peers?  We will dedicate time at our annual Learning and Development Conference to survey and uncover peer group answers to these questions.