Speaker Bio
Professor John Amaechi OBE is an organizational psychologist, Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter Business School, and founder of APS Intelligence Ltd. For sixteen years he's advised FTSE 100 boards and their international equivalents, including Fortune 100 and global enterprise, across Europe, APAC and the Americas. He served seven years as a Non-Executive Director of Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Britain's largest healthcare organization, chairing the HR Scrutiny Committee through the TUPE transfer of 10,000 colleagues and the Trust's response to the Manchester Arena bombing. His clients span professional and financial services, banking and capital markets, legal, insurance, technology, life sciences, and sovereign institutions.
His work returns to one consistent finding: most organizational underperformance traces to behavior, in leaders and in colleagues, not to values, strategy, or culture in the abstract. Leaders who work with John and APS Intelligence don't leave with a sharper self-image and an inspiring afternoon. They leave with a measurable, auditable difference in how they lead under pressure, and with frameworks that make specific excellent behaviors the norm. APS Intelligence holds a five-year average Net Promoter Score of +84.
John is the New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author of three books, including The Promises of Giants, winner of the Porchlight Award for best business book, and It's Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders (2025). He holds an OBE, the 2023 Sport Industry Integrity and Impact Award, and a LinkedIn Top Voice designation. Before founding APS Intelligence, he completed his graduate training in psychology while playing professional basketball in the NBA, becoming the first British person to have a career in the League.
In 2026 he was appointed to the Mayor of London's AI and Jobs Taskforce, advising on workforce capability, role design, and the behavioral conditions that determine how organizations and their people adapt as technology reshapes work.
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