Graeme Joy
Leadership & Team Performance Expert, Explorer & Adventurer
The first Australian to ski to both the North Pole and solo to the Magnetic North Pole. Drawing on decades of extreme expeditions and leadership experience, he delivers high-impact presentations on team performance, leadership, and goal achievement—showing how preparation, commitment, and resilience turn challenges into success.
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Graeme Joy is the first Australian to ski to both the North Pole and solo to the Magnetic North Pole. Drawing on his extraordinary expeditions and first-hand experience of high-performance teams in extreme environments, Graeme delivers powerful presentations on leadership, goal-setting, team success, and the critical role of preparation and commitment.
Graeme’s presentations and corporate training programs focus on building the right teams, motivating individuals, and achieving excellence under pressure. He has led and facilitated experiential leadership and team development programs, including pioneering expeditions such as the first water traverse of Cooper Creek, from Innamincka to Lake Eyre, for a top-performing management team.
In May 1998, Graeme reached the Magnetic North Pole alone—hauling his own sled and ski sailing—becoming the first Australian to complete an unguided solo expedition. He also became the first, and only, Australian to ski to the North Pole as part of “Icewalk – The International North Pole Expedition,” where he served as joint leader, navigator, and developer of award-winning student expedition and education programs recognized by the United Nations Environment Programme.
Over his career, Graeme has led or participated in more than 88,000 participant days in outdoor development, adventure, and scientific expeditions across Australia, the Arctic, Antarctica, Greenland, Africa, North America, Europe, New Zealand, and the British Isles. Notable expeditions include climbs of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. McKinley (Denali), and Mt. Vinson, as well as sea kayaking the southeast coast of Greenland and the first unassisted Bass Strait crossing.
Graeme brings this experience into corporate leadership training, backed by qualifications in Social Styles, Negotiation Skills, Authentic Leadership, Team Management Systems, and Investment in Excellence. He also served as Master in Charge of Outdoor Education at Timbertop, Geelong Grammar School, where he transformed the school’s outdoor and environmental programs.
Topics
Leading Your High Performance Team
In the fields of corporate speaking and extreme environment achievement, Graeme holds a unique place. His presentations combine the thrills of an inspiring adventure with the management and personal development material that makes his wisdom instantly useable in your business or everyday life. In this address, Graeme looks at the critical role of the leader in the development of quality team performance. He focuses on the qualities of the high performance leader and the implications for the aspiring leader and his/her team.
These include:
- Vision – its creation and developing commitment within your team. Defining success and the measurement of performance.
- Empowerment – creating leaders within your organisation.
- Creating a Sense of Urgency – critical for the leader
- Communication – high performance leaders are excellent communicators. Recognising the m personality types within your organisation and communicating effectively.
- Attitude – the cultivation of a positive attitude which Graeme stresses is more important that a skill base
- Empathy – a quality of the high performance leader and his team; the legacy of the high performance leader.
Importantly, Graeme believes that leadership can be learned and shows how you can become a high performance leader by concentrating on some simple fundamentals.
