Felicity Ashley

Transatlantic rower, cancer survivor & award-winning mindset expert speaker inspiring leaders & teams

In the words of one of her IWD clients:

“Her talk was captivating, and inspiring. Her experiences and achievements are so beyond what many of us dream of, yet she left us with the thought that we can all achieve so much more than we think. She normalises her skills and successes to demonstrate how important mindset is to overcome physical and mental challenges – it will be a talk that stays with us for a long time.”

With over 20 years’ experience as a blue-chip marketing leader, the mother-of-three and business founder rowed 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean whilst unknowingly fighting cancer.

Drawing on her personal journeys of discovery, she now works as an expert speaker to help organisations and leaders facing transformational change. Supporting them to become more inclusive, dynamic, confident, adaptable and resilient. Her work focuses on how a positive mindset is key to success – overcoming challenges, tackling biases, creating winning teams, thriving through change, embracing opportunities, smashing goals. When life gives you lemons, it’s not just about making lemonade - it’s about using them to create something amazing.

During her career in marketing leadership positions for some of the UK’s largest organisations, she successfully navigated and guided teams through a plethora of business and personal challenges, from organisational restructuring and transforming corporate culture, to supporting colleagues’ return to work, striking her own work/life balance with three young children and adjusting to extreme market disruption. Throughout her career Felicity has led by example, championing women’s development and career progression in the male-dominated environments of banking, rugby and energy.

Inspired by renewed mobility following a hip replacement, she put her body and mind to the ultimate test by taking on ‘The World’s Toughest Row’ as part of ‘The Mothership’ crew – four working mothers in their 40s and 50s united by their mission to inspire their children to dream big, and show that neither gender nor age is a barrier to achieving extraordinary goals. The ‘World’s Toughest Row’ is a 3,000 mile, unsupported row across the Atlantic Ocean, from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean.  When they crossed the finish line, Felicity and the Mothership crew joined the ranks of fewer than 250 women to have ever rowed an ocean.

Just weeks after this incredible achievement she was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer, a challenge which would once again put her mental and physical resilience to the test.

Felicity brings together her professional and personal experiences as an expert speaker to inspire and motivate leaders, teams and individuals to challenge limiting beliefs, build resilience, thrive through adversity and achieve their own goals. She tailors her content to the needs of her clients and audiences, and shares practical tools and techniques that they can put into practice straight away.

She is relatable, authentic, honest, dynamic and engaging, and will move your audience to action through her candid accounts of her own lived experiences.

She is flexible and easy to work with, confortable delivering content through a range of formats, from keynotes to fireside chats, Q&As and workshops.

She has spoken for companies across industries, including Centrica, Barclays, Savills, Aston Martin, GSK and Baringa. She's also been featured widely in media, including The Telegraph, BBC News and BBC Sport.

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