Penny Haslam - Former BBC business presenter and award-winning speaker
Motivational keynotes on impact, influence and confidence
from a top-rated communication expert
About Penny
Keynote speaker Penny Haslam is a well-known communication expert focusing on impact, visibility and confidence in the workplace. She is the MD-founder of Bit Famous and the author of two business communication handbooks. Her keynotes have helped 1000s of leaders and employees in some of the world’s biggest organisations.
Why you should book speaker Penny Haslam
Penny Haslam’s career in national broadcasting at the BBC spans 20 years. As a result, Penny has a breadth of experience in world-class communication that is second to none.
She is now a multi-award-winning communication and confidence speaker for events and conferences. Clients and audiences alike love her for her engaging energy, humour, warmth and instantly actionable tools to help overcome barriers to success.
Penny Haslam began her career as a secretary at the BBC, eventually becoming a well-known business news presenter on the BBC’s flagship Breakfast show, its rolling news channel and national radio stations.
Now, Penny is one of today’s most sought-after speakers on world-class communication and workplace confidence for businesses worldwide.
She founded Bit Famous, an L&D business that helps leaders and employees communicate confidently, share ideas fluently, role model behaviours and culture, and contribute to their organisation’s growth.
Bit Famous is a finalist for Personnel Today’s L&D Supplier of the Year 2024, recognised for its programme that helps retain mid-tier women in the talent pipeline and narrows the gender pay gap through developing managers and leaders’ communication skills and self-belief at work.
Penny’s fresh approach to business communication and brand reach is featured in her books, Make Yourself a Little Bit Famous and Panel Discussions - The Ultimate Guide (a UK Business Book of the Year Award 2023 finalist).
She excels as a keynote speaker with smart humour and storytelling, with one audience member dubbing her “the female Michael McIntyre who speaks to business”. And, as expected from a former live television presenter, she is a stellar performer online too.
Penny also impacts board and SLT levels, delivering interactive sessions and masterclasses for workplace networks and away days.
She’s skilled at engaging and motivating even the most reticent audiences with powerful messages, practical tips, and warmth. Penny is a dream to work with and always goes the extra mile for her clients.
Popular Keynotes by Penny Haslam
Make Yourself A Little Bit Famous: How To Have More Impact, Influence And Confidence
Penny’s content is designed to resonate with professionals at any level, addressing common fears and aspirations related to self-promotion and visibility at work, and beyond.
Inspiration and practicality: Penny offers compelling reasons and practical strategies for developing a personal brand, making it easy for attendees to see the value of getting known both within their workplace and beyond. Her delivery is filled with relatable stories and immediately actionable advice.
Business-centric approach: Penny ensures her content is directly aligned with your organisation’s goals, making the session highly relevant and applicable to your teams.
Real outcomes: Attendees frequently report that this keynote has helped them advance their careers, forge important connections, expand their networks, and become more confident communicators.
Workplace Confidence: Harnessing Self-Belief for Success - For You, Your Team and Organisation
Penny Haslam's highly useful and entertaining keynote empowers individuals and teams to build their confidence at work. It gently encompasses increased anxiety, stress, burnout and isolation experienced by many in today’s work environments.
Engaging and practical content: Penny's presentations are not only humorous and inspiring but also deeply relatable, offering three practical strategies to reduce negative thinking, eliminate limiting beliefs and enhance self-awareness.
Building confident teams: By equipping individuals with tools to boost their self-confidence, Penny helps cultivate teams of resilient, innovative and inclusive colleagues. These confident teams drive cohesion and supercharge business success.
Real outcomes: Audience members feedback they’re relieved to learn that they’re ‘not the only one’ experiencing self-doubt at work; they found it "enlightening, hilarious and life-changing"; that they wished they’d heard it years ago!
Be Seen, Be Heard: The Value of Visible Leadership
Penny shows leaders who know that increasing their visibility is the path for greater success, ways of achieving that. She shares strong motivational examples of how being seen and heard has a direct impact on business success.
Visibility that aligns with business goals: Penny’s approach links a leader’s visibility directly to workplace success. Leaders who are seen and heard can role model ideal culture and behaviours, share ideas, gather information and foster a culture of openness.
Practical strategies: Penny addresses common anxieties about ‘being in the spotlight’ and offers straightforward tips and relatable stories that make being visible feel more achievable. With plenty of original success stories of leaders with whom Penny has worked.
Results that matter: Leaders who’ve worked with Penny report greater confidence, stronger networks and career progression. Beyond the role, when representing the brand externally, profits have been positively impacted – through attracting more and better quality candidates, being seen as trustworthy thought leaders and building strategic relationships with key stakeholders.
"Penny spoke for 90-minutes to our 100 sales team
members at our off-site day. She brought us the boost we needed, with plenty of
fresh and practical ideas for building self-belief and confidence at work. It
was perfect for team building and I strongly recommend Penny. Highly
entertaining too!"
Adam Burt, VP Obesity Business Unit Head, Novo Nordisk
"Once again Penny delivered a first-class session on
developing communication skills for the team. The feedback was amazing, they
all embraced the tasks set and took Penny's expert tuition on board, managing
to perform very impressively in just one day. They spoke passionately about
their experience and how much they had learnt. We continue to work with Penny,
as she is simply the best at what she does.”
Sara Palmer, Distribution Director, The Mortgage Lender
"Penny Haslam’s remote session for our EMEA leaders was
sensational and they’ve gone on to use what they learnt to great effect. What
was also highly impressive was how she engaged them through the camera and held
their attention from start to finish. The feedback has been fantastic."
Tabitha Brear, Industry Engagement Lead, EMEA, Google
"Penny Haslam absolutely lived up to her reputation!
She delivered a ‘Make Yourself a Little Bit Famous’ 90-minute session for Adobe
Women - and the feedback has been amazing. She's fun and engaging, she makes
you think and people left with tangible actions. I highly recommend."
Tara Rule, (formerly) Senior Director of Commercial Strategy
& Operations, Adobe
"It's been the best workshop I've ever attended, hands
down. I left feeling energised and confident that the skills and tips Penny
shared with us are achievable and realistic, rather than pie-in-the-sky
theories that would be nice 'if only I had the time'. I've taken the learning
for my work life and personal life too. I definitely recommend her!"
Steph Nelson, Comms and Engagement Manager, NHS
"I've been trained on most things in my career, but
never on confidence - which is ridiculous because once you have ideas about how
to build your confidence, you can pretty deal with anything life throws at you!
Penny's keynote showed CIPFA members some incredibly valuable ideas to navigate
the bumps in the road and how to be more resilient in the future."
Kelly Watson, former Regional Head, CIPFA
Workplace Confidence – Be a Yeti – clip
https://vimeo.com/pennyhaslam/yeti
Make Yourself a Little Famous – fun showreel -
How to extinguish negative self-talk – clip -
https://vimeo.com/464185534/d7545730c1
Visible Leadership – The Coffee Strategy -