TEDxTamworth

Speakers

Speakers may not be confirmed. Check the event website for the latest lineup.

• Amanda Kellerher

  Social Entrepreneur

  Amanda Kelleher is an award-winning theatre maker, speaker and social entrepreneur. With over two decades of experience delivering 4 solo theatre shows that toured nationally and workshops to thousands of people, she works across education, business and community settings to build belonging, Inclusion and well-being. Amanda is the co-founder of Cor, creating Epic Arts Projects for Social Value. An Associate Fellow in Contemporary Theatre at Birkbeck, University of London, she blends neuroscience, performance and play to help people regulate, collaborate and thrive. In her talk she explores how rhythm can transform the way we connect and ultimately belong. She is THE number one George Michael fan.

• Cherish Reardon

  Co Founder and Creative Director

  Cherish Reardon is Co-Founder of one of the UK’s most community-driven fashion brands. She built it from a passion for helping women feel confident, shaped by her own experience of lacking it. After growing an online community of 250,000+ women, her work champions inclusivity and self-acceptance, creating spaces where women feel seen, valued and empowered. A creative entrepreneur and speaker, Cherish offers an alternative voice on belonging, identity and quiet confidence. As a lifelong introvert, she knows what it means to feel on the edge of the room. In her TEDx talk, Too Quiet To Lead? Take Me As I Am, she challenges the idea that loud equals leadership, exploring the strength behind quieter personalities and inviting audiences to rethink what belonging really means.

• Emma Easton

  Speaker and Business Strategist

  Emma Easton is the founder of Business Bollox and BBLX Strategy, where she helps SMEs, funded start-ups and corporate teams make market-led decisions instead of chasing tactics. She lectures at multiple business schools, and her corporate work funds deeper, high-impact support for start-ups with world-fixing ideas. Currently completing an MBA, Emma was named a 2024 SmallBiz100 honoree. We think belonging means harmony - everyone gets along, nobody rocks the boat. Emma argues that's not belonging; it's silence, and silence is where good ideas go to die. She traces the pattern she sees in organisations as they drift from mission to process, and shows why new joiners stop asking awkward questions within months. Drawing on her own experience of being labelled "difficult," she reframes the challenger as an early warning system - the person who still cares enough to risk their place.

• Falguni Patel

  Business Start-up Mentor

  Falguni Patel, born in India and raised in the UK from the age of two. A graduate with a BSc (Hons) in Biochemistry and Microbiology, her career has been anything but linear. A 2025 Soloprenure Award winner, with over 20+ years of experience as a successful serial Entrepreneur, she is now a Keynote Speaker and a Business start-up mentor. She is a two-time Education Investor Award finalist (2020 & 2025), and a fierce advocate for accessible education. “Unbelonging as Power: Why Walking Away Can Be the Ultimate Act of Liberation” In this actionable talk, we look at how we’re conditioned to believe that belonging is always the goal. However, in some cases, choosing to ‘Unbelong’, to step outside of spaces, systems, or identities that confine us, is liberating . It is not abandonment, but a radical act of self-definition and freedom. Learn to identify ‘Conditional vs Authentic’ belonging and how to determine when it is time to ‘Unbelong’ and walk away.

• Katie Alberici

  Researcher

  Katie Alberici is a customer research executive from Tamworth with a strong academic background, holding a BSc and a Master of Research in Psychology. She is studying part-time for a PhD exploring the impact of social media on young people. She is driven by her passion for higher education, cyberpsychology and shaping more empathetic, evidence-informed approaches to supporting young people online. Katie is committed to research, working with people to understand their challenges and offer meaningful support. Her TEDx talk shares her personal journey of joining a fanbase for her favourite band as a teenager. Through the chaotic joy of joining, she formed friendships that carried her through adolescence and grew into deep lasting connections. These online friendships eventually moved offline, becoming a friendship group that looks like any other. Her talk highlights how social media can be used positively and spark belonging, joy and lifelong relationships.

• Katy Landis

  Author and Speaker

  Katy Landis is an Amazon best selling author, speaker, and transformational coach whose work focuses on behaviour change, nervous system regulation, and helping people interrupt self sabotaging patterns. Her work is rooted in neuroscience and somatic healing, exploring how dysregulation shapes the way people cope, react, and disconnect from themselves. Her approach combines lived experience with professional training, and she has shared her work across a wide range of settings, including retreats, festivals, prisons, and sports centres. In her TEDx talk, Katy explores how the nervous system quietly governs how we respond, connect, and cope, often without us realising it. In a world of constant stimulation and emotional overload, many people override what they feel in order to keep going, missing the signals their body has been offering all along.

• Lara Jeetley

  Student

  Lara Jeetley is a sixth-form student driven by curiosity and a love of learning. She studies Maths, Further Maths, Economics and Physics at A-level, alongside a deep interest in AI and the philosophical questions it raises about our future. Outside school, she is a Young Researcher at the Alan Turing Institute, has spoken at the world’s first Children’s AI Summit, and is part of the Young Entrepreneurs Forum, where she runs a small e-commerce business. Lara has long wrestled with a personal tension: in a world that rewards early specialisation, what happens if your interests refuse to fit into one lane? Many young people feel anxious about their futures, pressured to narrow their options too soon. As AI reshapes the job market, she argues that adaptability, curiosity and the ability to connect ideas across disciplines may matter more than credentials alone. In a world transformed by AI, Lara makes the case that generalists could be exactly what the future needs.

• Mo Shehu

  Founder

  Mo Shehu is a founder, writer, and speaker who has lived and worked across seven countries. Born in Nigeria and now based in the UK, his life across borders has shaped his interest in how communities form, adapt, and decide who belongs. In this talk, Mo explores belonging through a personal and historical lens, arguing that movement is a constant in human history. Drawing on lived experience, he reframes migration as a shared human reality rather than a dividing line, and shows how communities strengthen when newcomers are treated as part of the story.

• Osaro Otobo

  Strategic Transformation Consultant

  Osaro Otobo is a strategic transformation consultant and speaker raised in East London as the daughter of first-generation Nigerian immigrants. She represented England in basketball and carried the Olympic Torch in 2012, experiences that shaped her. She is the founder of Make Diversity Count, a social impact organisation examining how leadership, strategy and governance shape performance, culture and the way people experience them. The Lone Wolf and the Wolfpack: Rethinking Belonging, Osaro explores the dynamic tension between solitude and community. Drawing on her experiences of visibility, isolation and growth, she questions the assumption that belonging is something we secure by simply finding the right group. Instead, she invites the audience to reconsider where belonging truly begins. The talk reframes the “lone wolf” not as a failure to fit in, but as an essential and recurring stage in building stronger, more grounded connections with others.

• Richard Williams

  Founder and Campaigner

  Rich Williams is a purpose-led founder in the children’s sector. After a career in brand strategy and entrepreneurship, personal experiences of trauma, late-diagnosed ADHD and mental health challenges reshaped his direction. He now creates environments where young people who feel excluded or overlooked can find responsibility, direction and meaning. Working across alternative provision, residential care, technology and education, Rich builds practical pathways that help young people move from risk to possibility. His approach combines commercial thinking with social impact, redesigning systems around contribution rather than compliance. In his talk, “Belonging Isn’t the Answer. Purpose Is.”, he challenges the belief that belonging is the ultimate goal. Drawing on lived experience and years supporting care-experienced and excluded young people, he argues that purpose, not acceptance, drives lasting change. When young people are trusted with responsibility, belonging follows.

• Safron Bonser

  Business Owner

  Saffron is a big believer in belonging, the real kind, where you don’t have to shrink, filter yourself, or pretend to fit in. She cares deeply about community, confidence, and helping people feel seen for who they truly are. Her own journey of learning to show up even when it felt uncomfortable has shaped her belief that taking up space is an act of courage. She is especially passionate about encouraging women and young people to stop playing small and trust that their voice matters. In her TEDx talk at TEDxTamworth, Belonging in a Digital World, Saffron explores what it really means to belong in an age of likes, filters, and constant comparison. Through honest reflection and relatable storytelling, she questions whether the online world is bringing us closer together or quietly pulling us further from ourselves. Her talk is an invitation to show up more truthfully, connect more deeply, and remember that belonging starts with being brave enough to be seen.

• Samantha Fletcher

  Presenter, Reporter and Charity Founder

  Sam is a Presenter, reporter, producer in both Sport and Children’s entertainment. On your screens, at events and on your radio, you’ll hear her regular sports show on BBC Radio Stoke, football reporting on BBC 1’s Final Score, the daily children’s podcast ‘Today with Tonies’ or you might spot her throwing out free t-shirts on the big screen at T20 Blast cricket games, just to name a few! Alongside her media career, Sam founded the growing children’s charity Kids’ Village which is inspired by her own experience with cancer as a child. After facing her own mortality at the age of 9, Sam made a promise to herself that she would grab every opportunity and squeeze every drop of happiness and fun out of life. Just a few words, one sentence from a doctor, following diagnosis set the course of her journey through cancer and ultimately life. Sam believes that we are all unified in hope and have the right to both belong on this planet and hope for all our wildest dreams.

• Will Crawford

  Founder & CEO

  Will Crawford is a classically trained guitarist from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Will founded his business (quietnote) during the COVID-19 lockdown after losing all of his work as a musician overnight. Since then, he has led programmes for organisations across the UK and recently delivered a clinical research study in partnership with the University of Birmingham, exploring the measurable impact of music-led mindfulness on stress, focus, and emotional wellbeing. Learning to feel that you belong in your mind is the most powerful step you can take for your health. In his TEDx talk, Will explores how mindfulness, grounded in scientific research, and music, the most accessible form of art on the planet, come together to create a powerful, accessible, and impactful way to look after our health. At a time when many people feel fragmented or disconnected, he offers the perspective that belonging is not something we chase - it is something we learn to feel.