Richard Askam spent 30 years working in the Wine Business, which turned out to be an apprenticeship for public speaking, as the Wine Business is the story telling industry! You can’t possibly sell someone a bottle of wine without giving them a 30 minute keynote on the provinence…A career turn in 2010 saw Richard launch the first personalised champagne gifts in the UK as an antidote to the commoditisation of the wine market in the UK. Ultimately, this lead him to the doors of Coca-Cola where he created and executed the online ShareaCoke campaign across Europe in 2014 – still the benchmark of direct to consumer brand marketing campaigns.
Over the following 2 years, Richard created similarly successful personalised campaigns for the likes of Unilever, Barclays, Vodafone and McVities before a chance opportunity to speak at a conference in the UK changed everything. After amazing feedback on his skills as a speaker and story teller, Richard made the long yearned for leap to become a full time speaker and since that day has not stopped working all around the world.
Richard is a much sought after business speaker, panelist and interviewer and consistently wins the highest scoring feedback at the events he works at. Voted No 1 speaker at Hewlett-Packard’s Global conference in the USA recently – he is travelling more than ever and enjoying every minute, which is evident if you have ever seen his stage craft as a speaker. Engaging, witty and demonstrative – Richard is one of the best story tellers of his generation.
His clients have included some of the biggest names in business such as Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, Canon, BlackHawk and the highlight was becoming a TED Talker in 2017.
We live in a world where businesses have to adapt to the conversation its customers wish to have – and understanding the lost art of conversation is key to this approach. Richard is a master of conversation used for business growth and comes highly recommended.
