John Amatt Travels from CANADA, CA

John Amatt was the leader of an early climbing expedition to Western China, which used camels to approach a 24,757-foot mountain before skiing to the summit, this being perhaps the highest peak in the world to have been ascended and descended entirely on skis.

More recently, he was the principle organizer and a leader of Canada's first successful expedition to reach the top of the world—the 29,028-foot summit of Mount Everest—a climb that was televised live throughout Canada and on ABC's Nightline in the United States.

Building on these experiences, John Amatt founded an innovative educational and motivational company, its mission is to encourage people to push beyond their self-imposed limitations, to be more personally accountable for their own actions, and to embrace effective teamwork by valuing the contribution of others.

He 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.

John Amatt'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.

In his best-selling book, Straight to the Top and Beyond, John Amatt uses the metaphor of his own adventures to develop a nine-step approach for scaling the heights in today's unpredictable global environments.

At the age of 20, John Amatt spent two weeks sleeping on tiny ledges while making the first ever climb of Europe's highest and steepest mountain face – the 5,000-foot 'Vertical Mile' Troll Wall in Norway. An account of their adventure was written by John Amatt's climbing partner, Tony Howard; Troll Wall: The Untold Story of the British First Ascent of Europe's Tallest Rock Face was published in 2011.

John is the Founding Director of the world-renowned Banff Mountain Film Festival, Founder and President of One Step Beyond WorldWide, and has been called “The World’s Best Adventure Speaker”. In his acclaimed keynote presentations, he uses the power of metaphor and storytelling to address such themes as; Embracing Fear and Anxiety, Taking Calculated Risk and Being Adventurous and Learning from Setbacks and Applying the Lessons.