Biography
John Amatt knows about tough times and the value of struggle in bringing out the best in teams of people! After all, he was a leader of an Everest team, which suffered four tragic deaths in two unpredictable accidents before putting six climbers on top of the world.
After graduating from Bolton School in England, Amatt started going on expeditions almost right away. In 1964 he lead a 4-man expedition to Arctic Norway, returning a year later to make the 1st ascent of “The 5000 FT 2Vertical Mile” Troll Wall, the highest sheer rock wall in Europe.
In 1966 he was part of an expedition to Peru, which achieved the 1st complete ascent of the north ridge of Nevado Alpamayo and produced the award winning film, “The Magnificent Mountain”. The following year, with Rusty Baillie, he made the 6-day first ascent of the North Face of Sondre Trolltind in Norway, a 3,000 ft rock wall so featureless that no ledges are visible after a snow storm.
Graduating from Durham University in 1968 he then emigrated to Canada and began his education career as a school teacher in Medicine Hat, Alberta. He acted as a guide for an American expedition climbing in the Coast Range Mountains of British Columbia in 1970.
After moving to the mountain town of Banff in world-famous Canadian Rockies in 1973, he became a qualified member of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. Leading a student expedition to Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic in 1974, he and the team made a number of 1st ascents of unexplored mountains. Five more expeditions to the Arctic followed.
In 1979, he was recruited to develop a School of the Environment at The Banff Centre for Continuing Education and Graduated from the Banff School of Advanced Management.
In 1976, Amatt organized the 1st Annual Banff Festival of Mountain Films, now recognized as the world’s most important celebration of mountain life. Three years later, he was recruited as Expedition Manager for the first Canadian expedition to attempt Mount Everest (29,035 ft) and made responsible for raising $1 million in sponsorship and assembling 20 tons of equipment and food.
In 1982, he was leader and climber on the 1982 Canadian Mount Everest Expedition, sponsored by Air Canada, which, after 4 tragic deaths early in the climb, placed 6 people on the summit.
In 1983, he become Managing Director of CanEverEx Promotions Inc., and organized over 500 corporate presentations and public appearances by Everest climbers across Canada.
Establishing his own company in 1984, he had the intention of going ‘one step beyond’ Everest; to take the Everest experience and apply it as a metaphor to the challenges faced in corporate and professional life.
Over the following two decades, he delivered more than 1,500 keynote presentations and seminars to over 750,000 people in 35 countries worldwide and was described in 1998 as “The World’s Best Adventure Speaker” by International Celebrity Management of Australia.
John's experience on Everest taught him about the danger of falling into the trap of complacency and the importance of always questioning the status quo in seeking new ways of succeeding in a rapidly changing world.
He is the perfect speaker to assist your team in navigating through the turmoil of today's global economic crisis.
Speaking topics include:
· “Climbing Your Own Everest: What it Takes to Get to the Top”
· “Straight to the Top and Beyond: Nine Keys for Meeting the Challenges of Changing Times
· “Meeting the Challenge of Change” (3 to 5 hour workshop)
To book John Amatt for your event, please contact Parliament on
+44 (0) 1202 24 24 24
Speaker Products
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Straight to the Top and Beyond [Paperback]
£0.00
How to achieve success with the Adventure Attitude.
Parliament 1Gb USB Memory Credit Card
£8.99
Great storage for photos or work files, this amazing bit of technology will fit into your wallet.
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