Pen Hadow

Pen’s Early Years

It is perhaps not surprising that pushing the boundaries of what was possible became a recurring theme for the young Pen Hadow. For example, aged just 15 and inspired by Ethiopian long-distance runner Abebe Bikila, Pen devised his own training regime to attempt a traditional school 20 mile run.  (This was long before marathons had become a popular participation sport.)  He completed the route in 3 hours and only discovered the next day that the route hadn’t been done since 1927, fifty years earlier.  It is now a major feature of Harrow School’s sporting calendar.

Following University College London, the keynote speaker Pen Hadow became the youngest-ever executive at Mark McCormack’s Sports Organisation, the International Management Group (IMG) promoting international sports stars.  His own ambitions and vision of what could be achieved continued to evolve and a new business and a series of extraordinary Polar expeditions were to follow.

Expeditions, Entrepreneurial Spirit & the Environment

Pen’s exploration and entrepreneurial interests culminated in 1995 when he established a specialist polar guide company: The Polar Travel Company which has enabled many others to fulfil their dreams in the Arctic and Antarctic. Pen devised and organised the first all-women’s expedition to the North Geographic Pole in 1997.  Twenty women, with no previous polar experience were led by professional women guides to walk into the Guinness Book of Records. In so doing, Pen managed to change the preception of what was possible in the Polar regions.

In 2009, our strong-willed speaker Pen Hadow founded Geo Mission, a pioneering enviromental sponsorship organisation which delivered the multi-award winning series of Catlin Arctic Surveys (2009-11) invesetigating the rates, causes and global impacts of changes to Arctic sea ice.  Pen continues to advise FTSE 250 businesses on upgrading and communicating their environmental credentials and the importance of environmental responsibility.

Pen’s best-selling autobiography ‘Solo’ (2004) is a fascinating insight into the preparation and build-up to his unrelentingly tough and hazardous two-month journey to the North Pole. This is a personal story of courage and ambition to achieve the impossible. On reaching the North Pole, our speaker Pen Hadow became a national figure through the global media coverage of his iconic achievement. One of the three front cover stories by The Times’ coverage of Pen’s endeavour was voted one of the Top 100 Newspaper Front Pages of the 20^th century (British Library).

Pen’s love of exploration and endeavour is infectious and he actively encourages others to push back their limits. Pen has inspired audiences across all sectors worldwide delivering talks in a very entertaining style but with powerful memorable messages.