Jim Lawless

Jim is one of the most inspirational and highly sought-after business speakers in Europe. He is only authority on change and personal development to have put his life on the line to prove his theories.

After starting life as a City lawyer, he moved in-house to become International Legal Counsel at ICL (now Fujitsu) before founding the cultural change consultancy Optimise (now Taming Tigers Group) in the late 90's. His clients have included Apple, Legal and General, BT, AstraZeneca, Barclaycard and the NHS.

In 2003, an audience member bet Jim £1 that he could not prove the power of his Ten Rules for Taming Tigers - by becoming a jockey and riding in his first televised race within 12 months. It was a good challenge as he was 3 stone too heavy to be a jockey and couldn't ride a horse.

Working with the Ten Rules as his guide, he took delivery of his pound on 22 November 2004 on returning to unsaddle from the 12.00 at Southwell. On being a jockey Jim says "it took many years, but at last I found a place where being short is an advantage."

Jim advises teams and individuals in some of the UK's leading companies, writes regularly for a range of publications including Finance Week and Personnel Today and is a columnist for the Institute of Leadership and Management's periodical "The Edge".

He is CEO of the Taming Tigers Group.