Stef Reid MBE has never been very good at staying in her lane.
She is a World Champion long jumper, four-time Paralympian, triple Paralympic medallist, five-time world record holder, keynote speaker, TV broadcaster, trustee, actor, fashion model… and the first amputee to walk London Fashion Week in a custom-made stiletto running blade. Naturally.
In 2018, Stef was awarded an MBE for services to Paralympic Sport. Alongside elite athletics, she completed an honours degree in biochemistry, became a trustee for the Women’s Sport Trust and Variety Children’s Charity, and serves as an ambassador for London’s Air Ambulance Charity and The Leprosy Mission UK.
Her story, however, was never supposed to look like this.
At 15, Stef’s dream of becoming a rugby player was shattered when she was involved in a devastating boating accident. Her life was saved, but her right foot could not be. What follows is a story of resilience and radical reinvention. Stef went on to become one of the most successful Paralympic athletes of her generation and built a career defined by curiosity, courage, and a refusal to accept other people’s limits.
More recently, Stef proved to the nation that you really can learn to skate with an artificial foot when she reached the quarter finals of Dancing on Ice. Since retiring from professional sport after the Tokyo Paralympics, she has become an award-nominated TV broadcaster and one of the UK’s most sought-after keynote speakers on resilience, adaptability, and high performance.
Stef’s sessions are equal parts hilarious, moving, practical, and perspective-shifting. Expect big laughs, honest truths and unexpected stories. But be warned: this is more than inspiration. Perspectives will be shifted, and you leave seeing challenge, change, and your own potential very differently!
Audiences leave not only inspired, but challenged to think differently about change, uncertainty, and what they are capable of when life refuses to go to plan.
Expect big laughs, honest truths, unexpected stories, and the kind of keynote that stays with you long after the conference ends.