Sir Chris Bonington

World renowned Climber and Expedition Leader

       Chris Bonington is one of the most successful expedition organizers in the history of mountaineering, and is perhaps best known for his leadership of the first ascent of the 12,000-foot South Face of Annapurna in 1970 and the first ascent of the immense South-West Face of Everest in 1975. In both cases, his leadership responsibilities precluded him from reaching the summit, but he returned to Everest in 1985 and personally reached the top of the world at the age of fifty years.

         For his achievements, Chris was honored by Queen Elizabeth with the CBE in 1976 and was knighted in 1996.   In addition, he has received the Founder’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and a number of honorary degrees.   He has served as President of The Alpine Club, the British Council for National Parks, the British Orienteering Federation and the British Leprosy Charity.

         Chris lives with Wendy, his wife of 40 years, in a picturesque cottage in the Lake District of northern England, surrounded by rolling hills and green pastures dotted with sheep. He has written over fourteen best-selling books and produced or collaborated on a number of award-winning films.  He is a Visiting Lecturer at the Cranfield School of Management and travels widely, using his Everest experiences to inspire companies and workforces all over the world.  In so doing, he has built a reputation as an outstanding motivational speaker for business, using digital technology to link stunning photographs, computer animation and video from his various expeditions.  While he relates the dramatic stories from his climbs, he skillfully makes the links between the challenges faced on the “mountains” being climbed by global business today. 

“LAKELAND ROCK”: Devised, wrote and presented Award-winning Channel 4 Television Series, which won the Golden Shot award at the Portoroz European Sports Film Festival 1986, for the best sports documentary.   This was a world event with entries from America and Australia as well as Europe.      The series also won a Bronze Medal at the New York Film and TV Festival in 1986.

“EVEREST YEARS”: an hour long TV documentary based on “THE EVEREST YEARS” book, won the Gold Medal for sports programmes (highest award) at the 1988 New York Film and TV Festival.   It also won the prize for the Best Mountaineering Film, the top award in the mountaineering category, at the Banff Mountain Film Festival, which is the premier world mountain film festival.

 “THE CLIMBERS”:  Narrated and participated in this six-part series shown on BBC Television about the history of mountaineering, and wrote the accompanying book, “THE CLIMBERS”.

 “EVEREST - BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS”:  Wrote, narrated and fronted this documentary, filmed in Nepal around Everest Base Camp, to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the first ascent of Mount Everest.

 “LEADING TO THE TOP”: Completed a very successful management training video, distributed by Connaught Training Ltd, and for several years has lectured to the Sloan Programme of The London Business School and at Cranfield University, where he is a Visiting Fellow. Has become increasingly interested in the study of leadership, starting with his personal experience as a successful expedition leader and using this to explore a wider application.

Listed below are some of the companies addressed over the years on leadership and teambuilding, using a sophisticated live presentation illustrated by slides of his own ascent of Everest and short sound bites recorded at the time:

"Your multimedia case study on Everest gave our senior management more insight into empowering leadership than all the books on the topic put together.”

Cranfield School of Management