Pete Goss
Outstanding Yachtsman, Inspirational Adventurer, & Author
Pete is a world-renowned adventurer, former Royal Marine and international leadership speaker. Having sailed over 300,000 nautical miles and completed multiple round-the-world races, he is best known for his courageous rescue during the Vendée Globe. Pete delivers powerful keynotes on leadership, teamwork and resilience, inspiring audiences to perform under pressure and achieve beyond perceived limits.
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Pete is a world-renowned adventurer, former Royal Marine and highly sought-after international speaker, known for leading teams through extreme, complex and high-risk environments. Over his career, he has sailed more than 300,000 nautical miles, competed in seven transatlantic races and two round-the-world yacht races, and completed a series of groundbreaking expeditions by sea and land.
Pete’s work is underpinned by four defining principles: innovation, technology, challenge and adventure. Drawing on firsthand experience from some of the most hostile environments on the planet, he delivers powerful leadership, management and team-building keynotes that challenge individuals and organisations to rethink risk, resilience and performance under pressure.
Pete first captured global attention during the Vendée Globe, the world’s toughest single-handed, non-stop round-the-world yacht race. While battling a Southern Ocean hurricane, he turned his yacht around to rescue fellow competitor Raphaël Dinelli, risking his own life to save another. After safely delivering Dinelli to Tasmania, Pete resumed the race and finished fifth. For his courage and leadership, he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur (France’s highest bravery award), an MBE presented by Her Majesty The Queen, and was voted World Sailor of the Year.
An experienced leader of people and projects, Pete trained and led the original amateur crews for the British Steel Challenge, widely regarded as one of the toughest yacht races in the world. He has also headed major innovation-led projects, including the revolutionary Team Philips catamaran. Over five years, Pete led a workforce of more than 100 people, negotiated multi-million-pound sponsorship deals and contributed to the creation of several new companies, gaining deep insight into managing competing pressures, uncertainty and ambition.
In recent years, Pete built the 37-foot Cornish lugger Spirit of Mystery, famously featured on BBC Coast, and sailed it with family members — including his fourteen-year-old son — from the UK to Melbourne. The voyage recreated the journey of the smallest migrant vessel to reach Australia 150 years ago, navigating by the stars and rowing out of harbour. Despite facing extreme conditions, including a violent Southern Ocean storm that rolled the boat upside-down and broke a crewman’s leg, the team reached Australia together.
Pete has also circumnavigated Tasmania by sea kayak, exposed to the harsh conditions of Bass Strait with limited communication, and continues to lead expeditions, including journeys to the North Pole.
A regular lecturer at leading business schools, Pete is an Associate Fellow of Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. From design through to execution, he has personally managed more than 15 major projects. A natural communicator with a dynamic yet informal style, Pete’s talks are engaging, humorous and deeply motivating, weaving extraordinary stories into practical lessons on leadership, teamwork and achieving the seemingly impossible.
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Topics
- Innovation
- Technology
- Challenge
- Adventure
- Leadership
- Teamwork
- Responsibility
- Vision
- Values
- Trust
- Learning from your Mistakes
- Risk
- Peak Performance
- Overcoming Adversity
- Competitive Tenacity
- Will to Win
