Lesley Woods – Chief Communications Officer MOD

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Lesley Woods Keynote Speaker
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Talks about

  • Storytelling
  • Leadership
  • The role of women in the military

Bio

A motivational keynote speaker sharing communication lessons from the front line, she offers inspiring insights to help you ‘bulletproof’ your corporate narrative and stories.

With a background in Public Relations, Lesley has 20+ years’ experience of curating and creating compelling content. Her career has taken her around the world, working with international partners to shine a light on the work of her military colleagues, from celebrating Christmas in Kandahar to delivering humanitarian aid to the Central African Republic. 

As a current serving senior Royal Air Force Reserve officer, Lesley brings unique perspectives gained from her operational experience to your organisation. Her mission is to get you out of the (communication) trenches and into new territory, to get you thinking differently about how you can emotionally engage your people and your audiences. 

In her civilian role she leads the Campaigns team in the UK Ministry of Defence Communications Directorate, a team that aims to ‘give a voice to the men and women who serve so that their stories can be heard’.

To help the UK Armed Forces reach new audiences she has led collaborations with films, TV series and documentaries, from influencer events with Disney to a PR partnership with the producers of James Bond.

She once lost half an eyebrow evacuating a TV documentary crew from a burning US Marine Corps toilet tent in Afghanistan….whilst wearing ballistic pants.

Testimonial

We spent a jaw dropping couple of hours in Lesley’s company hearing one of the most engaging talks about leadership, storytelling, expert people handling and what working in comms on the front line really means. Her crisis management examples really help put things in perspective! This was all peppered with a healthy dose of humour, complete authenticity and support for our team’s work and challenge areas. We could have hijacked her whole day to hear more about her incredible career, campaigns and courage.

Charlotte Speedy, Head of Communications, Guide Dogs for the Blind Association