SSOW has a long experience of sharing the stage with champions. Since our live return in 2022, our all-star panels of Shared Service and GBS leaders have already been joined by a world cup-winning footballer and not one, but two, record-breaking distance runners. Those legends taught us much about what it takes to reach the top of your game – and then to stay there – building the resilience, humility and focus that characterises those performing at the very highest level.

Raising the bar on last year was always going to be tough, but if anyone can, its Jonny Wilkinson. A career rugby union fly-half – and generally considered to be one of the best ever to play the game – Jonny had a long club career in both the UK, where he played for the Newcastle Falcons, and France, where his team won two Heineken Cups and a Top 14 championship. His international career remains even more of a record-breaker. Winning 91 caps for his country, the England squads he was part of won 4 Six Nations Championships, one Grand Slam, a Triple Crown and, most famously of all, the 2003 Rugby World Cup, where Jonny famously scored a drop goal in the last minute of extra time to clinch the trophy against Australia. His tally of 277 remains the most points scored by any individual World Cup player – and he is also the only one to score in multiple Rugby World Cup finals. Retiring from the Game in 2014 and inducted into the Rugby Hall of Fame soon afterwards, Jonny today continues to coach England’s fly half in addition to his role covering rugby on UK television.

Jonny’s storied career on the pitch might imply success without drawback, but Jonny has been open about his long-running fight against anxiety and depression. The unrelenting demands of high-level sport and the parallels with our own industry are striking; the constant and often self-driven pressure to improve on what is already a high level of performance, to stay balanced when highs become lows, to find fulfilment whilst constantly seeking to raise the bar and to overcome stigmas around vulnerability to turn openness into a leader’s greatest strength. Jonny’s story has much to teach us, not just about winning, but about winning sustainably, inspiring a team – and sometimes a nation – without compromising on the fundamentals that enabled that success in the first place. Headlining the third final day of SSOW Lisbon 2023, Jonny will share his personal story via a wide-ranging interview, designed to confront those very human challenges that sit beneath our community’s day-to-day commitment to professional excellence.