Mark Wales Book as a speaker/entertainer for your next event

Key Points for Mark Wales

  • Former Australian Special Forces (SAS) Commander with 10 military deployments, including 4 tours in Afghanistan.
  • Enlisted in the Australian Army at age 17 and rose through the ranks to become a troop commander.
  • Developed strong resilience and leadership skills through military service and overcoming personal challenges.
  • Earned an MBA from Wharton School.
  • Founded a luxury brand inspired by his combat experience, focused on modern survival.
  • Received the Wharton 40 Under 40 Award for Business Excellence for entrepreneurial achievement.
  • Won the TV competition Australian Survivor.
  • Competed in World's Toughest Race: Eco-Challenge Fiji, demonstrating physical and mental endurance.
  • Appeared in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
  • Author of the memoir Survivor: Life in the SAS and the thriller Outrider.
  • Keynote speaker specialising in leadership, mental resilience,decision-making under pressure, crisis management, and high-performance systems

 

 

Topics for Mark Wales

  • Leadership and high performance: Who dares wins
    • This high-impact keynote equips leaders with the mindset and tools to stay calm, think clearly, and execute under pressure.
    • Based on real-world lessons from combat, corporate strategy, and extreme environments, it’s a masterclass in leading through chaos and delivering when it matters most.
  • Execution and agile teams: Get it done - why execution beats intention every time
    • This powerful sequel builds on Mark’s keynote: Who dares wins — a deeper dive into how elite teams execute under pressure and deliver results.
    • Mark Wales reveals how Special Forces simplify complexity, build debriefing cultures, and codify lessons fast.
    • More than motivation, this is a framework for leaders who need their teams to adapt fast, move with clarity, and get the work done
  • Burnout prevention and personal sustainability: The resilience trifecta - rest, fuel, and purpose
    • Burnout is often a sign of misalignment.
    • In this keynote, Mark shares the three foundational pillars of sustainable high performance: quality rest, clean fuel (nutrition + movement), and a strong sense of purpose.
    • Backed by science and lived experience, this session gives leaders and teams a practical system for building resilience and high-performance habits.
  • Team Culture and psychological safety: Building eite teams - culture, safety, and execution
    • The best teams in the world — from special forces to successful organisations — have one thing in common: deep trust and shared mission.
    • Mark reveals the operating system behind elite teams, including how to build psychological safety, drive accountability, and create a culture where people perform at their best because they feel safe to be real.
  • Organisational agility and continuous improvementy: Adaptive organisations - learning, debriefing, and evolving
    • In rapidly changing environments, the most resilient organisations are not the ones that avoid failure — they’re the ones that learn fastest.
    • In this keynote, Mark shares how elite teams use structured learning rituals like pre-mortems, after action reviews, and real-time debriefs to continually evolve.
    • He explores the power of a debriefing culture — where honest reflection replaces blame — and how this can transform performance, agility, and trust across an organisation.

Testimonials for Mark Wales

Mark's story is unique to a few - his ability to hold the room weaving his story so that it resonated with an audience that had no exposure to his story - he was easy to listen to - and his presence powerful.
Roundtable Agents

Mark Wales was fantastic, he has a great story and is extremely professional and well spoken. 
TAL

Mark Wales was an outstanding Guest Speaker at our regional health service AGM. With a mixed audience of over 200 people including staff and community members, Mark’s fabulous presentation and his very powerful messages resonated with all. The feedback from those attending was exceptionally positive. A truly inspirational man. I could not recommend him more highly as an inspirational and motivational guest speaker.
Northeast Health Wangaratta

Mark Wales delivered a thought-provoking and insightful presentation. He displayed a level of vulnerability which was refreshing and enabled the audience to connect with him and his story. Mark also provided some very practical tips and was able to inspire others to make positive changes for both to improve mental health and perform better in the workplace. Mark made himself available during breaks and lunch to speak with individuals and answer questions and this was appreciated by many. On an administrative note, Mark was easy to contact, engage with and he was punctual and well prepared.
Department of Defence

Wanted to thank you for your presentation to the team on Friday. The feedback from the team was fantastic and certainly hit the right cord in terms of personal and professional challenges. Congratulations on what you have achieved with your business venture to date and if you don’t mind I may get in touch closer to my trip to NY at Christmas for some places to check out. Until then, all the best and ‘who dares wins’!
Director
Design and Build

Mark Wales was very engaging and provided the perfect message that the team required as we head into another year of selling. Mark delivered a message that demonstrated mental strong, commitment, ownership and emotion. I would highly recommend Mark.
Mimecast Aust. Pty. Ltd.

Mark Wales spoke to our group of approximately 100 executives at a high profile leadership offsite. He led topics related to mental health and effective techniques for stress management in the workplace. He was deeply credible and highly engaging, drawing on his experience from both the battlefield and the boardroom. We would be thrilled to have Mark join us again in the future and would certainly recommend him for other engagements.
Associate Partner
McKinsey & Company, Dallas 

In his ‘Peer Perspectives on Leadership’ keystone speech at Wharton, Mark Wales passed on thrilling lessons about life and leadership as a Troop Commander in the Australian Special Air Service Regiment. The unit specialized in sensitive strategic operations, hostage recovery, counter terrorism, and precision air strikes. Mark completed 10 tours of duty overseas, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, East Timor, and the Solomon Islands. Experiences in each of these countries taught Mark about the importance of how personal values and your perspectives on life can shape your approach to leadership. An unforgettable talk.
MBA
Wharton School of Business

I engaged the speaking services of Mark Wales to talk to a team of 30 high level sales consultants about teamwork, resilience, persistence & high performance. Mark not only did this with eloquence t ease & professionalism, he also had the sales team actively engaged throughout his talk by way of questioning and group activities/discussions. I would highly recommend engaging Mark to talk to your staff if you want them to move from good to great.
Sales Team leader

Mark Wales' engaging talk stood out from all the other corporate presentations our team has seen. There were slides filled with personal pictures that helped enhance the stories he was sharing from his time in Special Ops. His unique and interesting experience had takeaways that were directly relevant to our work in business. It was a great way to learn some great tips around working on teams, stress management and doing what you love. I would highly recommend him to any audience looking for a unique and interesting presentation!
Operations Leader
McKinsey Academy