“Take away your opinion, and there is taken away the complaint.”
Bring a sharper understanding of people to your next leadership conference or company event. Gemma and Gareth Gardner specialise in professional identity, behavioural change and the human foundations of performance: how people see themselves, what drives them and how they respond when expectations change.
Gemma connects original framework development, independent research and international academic dialogue. Gareth turns those ideas into practical coaching and facilitated learning. Together, they give leaders and teams a language for understanding change and practical questions to apply at work.
Professional identity · Leadership · Organisational change
Gemma Gardner is the founder of AURIS Institute, creator of the AURIS Identity System™ and a speaker on the identity behind leadership, behaviour and performance. She helps corporate audiences examine what happens when people are asked to change how they work without understanding what that change means for who they are.
Leading the Identity After the Uniform research programme and convening the developing Global Identity Steering Group, Gemma brings independent research, international academic dialogue and 15 years of British Army leadership and training experience into one conversation. Her specialism is the relationship between professional identity, purpose, belonging and adaptation.
For leaders, HR teams and conference audiences, she makes identity relevant to the decisions organisations face: developing people, sustaining engagement, supporting career transitions and leading through uncertainty. Her approach connects lived experience with a clear framework for reflection, giving audiences specific questions to take back to their teams.
Formats: keynotes, leadership conversations and panel moderation.
Behavioural change · Self-leadership · Practical workforce development
Gareth Gardner specialises in translating identity research into practical coaching and development. As AURIS Institute’s Senior Lead Facilitator and Charity Partnerships Lead, he develops and delivers coaching that connects self-awareness, personal responsibility and purposeful action with the realities of working life.
Drawing on his Royal Artillery and Royal Army Physical Training Corps background, Gareth brings a grounded perspective to preparation, pressure and the demands of a defining professional role. His focus is how people adapt when familiar expectations change, and how they understand themselves when a role no longer serves them but the identity remains.
For employee development events, team sessions and leadership programmes, Gareth moves the conversation into application: recognising patterns, understanding responses and identifying a practical next step. His speciality is connecting the research with the person in the room, so participants can relate the ideas to their own responsibilities, choices and development.
Formats: speaking sessions, interactive workshops and facilitated employee development.
Gemma and Gareth are leading AURIS’s work to form the Global Identity Steering Group, bringing together professors, doctors, researchers and practitioners from multiple countries and disciplines to examine identity, transition and adaptation.
Gemma convenes the research dialogue; Gareth connects AURIS’s developing research with coaching and programme delivery. The group creates space for academic challenge, cultural perspectives and professional experience, strengthening the questions that inform the Institute’s work.
The group is in formation and has an advisory purpose. Participation does not imply institutional endorsement of AURIS or its developing model.
Gemma · Keynote or leadership conversation
For organisations navigating new structures, expectations or responsibilities. Explore why a change to someone’s role can carry personal significance, and how leaders can make that part of the conversation.
Audience focus: senior leaders, people managers and HR teams. Take away questions for understanding the human impact of change before asking people to move forward.
Gareth · Speaking session or practical workshop
For teams and employee development events exploring self-leadership, responsibility and adaptation. Connect professional expectations with personal values, familiar behaviour and the choices available under pressure.
Audience focus: employees, emerging leaders and teams taking on new responsibilities. Take away a structured reflection and a practical next step to discuss or apply at work.
Gemma and Gareth · Joint conversation and facilitated reflection
For employers supporting career moves, service transition or the end of a long-held role. Combine Gemma’s research perspective with Gareth’s practical coaching to explore continuity, purpose and belonging through change.
Audience focus: career development, transition and employee support events. Take away a way to distinguish practical career needs from questions about identity and direction.
Tell us the challenge your event needs to address, who will be in the room and what you want the conversation to open up. We will agree the speaker, focus and format around that brief, including time for questions or facilitated reflection where appropriate.
Book Gemma, Gareth or both for leadership conferences, company events and employee development. Scope, availability, accessibility requirements and fees are agreed before confirmation.
Confirmed speaking and moderation engagements, with programme links and a short overview of each session.
MAD World Summit 2026
· 13:25 UK time
Convene, 155 Bishopsgate, London
Gemma Gardner · Panel moderator
Gemma will moderate a panel addressing a pressing workforce challenge: why generic wellbeing provision can miss men, and what employers can do differently. Bringing together the panel’s workplace, community and clinical perspectives, the discussion will explore barriers to engagement, trusted routes into support and earlier conversations. A focused session for leaders and wellbeing professionals reviewing how their organisations reach and support men.
Our speaking record brings together past events, the subjects explored and links to the organisers. It grows as further engagements are added.
Veterans & Blue Light Conference 2026
· 14:50–15:15 UK time
Blackland Farm Outdoor Centre, East Grinstead
Gemma Gardner · Conference speaker · 25-minute talk
Delivered at the Veterans & Blue Light Conference, Gemma’s 25-minute talk put a direct question to the audience: who am I when the uniform is gone? Drawing on 15 years of Army service, her own transition and the developing Identity After the Uniform research, she explored how a professional role can become the foundation for purpose, status, routine and belonging. The talk examined what happens when that foundation changes, with wider relevance for employers supporting career transitions and people leaving roles that have defined their working lives.
Explore the research publications behind the developing work and Gemma’s books. AURIS speaking provides non-clinical professional development. Identity Performance Psychology is a developing model and remains subject to evaluation.
Start a conversation about your corporate event. Share your audience, event objectives, preferred date and location, and whether you are interested in Gemma, Gareth or a joint session. We will discuss the right speaker and format for your brief.
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