Will Gadd – Big Idea Speakers

Will Gadd was the first person to climb a frozen Niagara Falls not because he was crazy, but because he could convince everyone from the Governor of New York down to the local state police that climbing Niagara would be a great adventure they wanted to be part of. That process took years of listening, hard work and preparation, and ended with the mayor giving him the keys to the city. And that’s just the most recent adventure in a wildly successful career spanning more than 30 years of high adventure from Africa to Greenland.

Will speaks on the topics he lives daily: Resiliency, seizing opportunity, risk and reward, high performance outcomes and success in hazardous environments.

Videos

Biography

Will grew up in a family that hiked, climbed and went into the mountains whenever they could. Some of his earliest memories are of long backpacking trips, wind-blown summits and surviving winter skip trips. The first sport Will really got into on my was caving. When he was 14 I started kayaking. At 16 Will bought his first climbing rope, and did his first new rock route. At 25 he first flew a paraglider. At 41 Will’s daughter came into the world. She’s already doing all the stuff he did as a kid, and she’s an athlete too.

Career Highlights

Establishing the hardest mixed ice climbing lines in the world.
Setting the world distance record for paragliding. Twice. 423 km (263 miles) the second time.
Kayaking down dozens of first ascents across North America.
Winning the Canadian National Sport-Climbing Championships. Four times.
Winning three gold medals at the X Games. And the Ice Climbing World Cup.
Winning the US and Canadian Paragliding Nationals.
Flying his paraglider over the Grand Canyon.
Climbing icebergs off the coast of Labrador with Ben Firth.
Flying his paramotor across the USA with Jim Grossman.
Using supplemental oxygen to explore high carbon-dioxide caves in Thailand.
Ice climbing in underground mines in Sweden.
First one-day ascent of the tallest mountain in the Canadian Rockies, Mt. Robson. Solo.
Climbing big new rock, ice and alpine routes all over the world.
Surviving.
Sharing the above through writing, presentations, clinics, TV shows, magazines and on the web.
Stay tuned.

Speech Topics

Will speaks on the topics he lives daily: Resiliency, seizing opportunity, risk and reward, high performance outcomes and success in hazardous environments. His always entertaining but professional presentations are based on his successful career as an athlete, director, author, and dad (his humorous story of teaching his daughters hazard recognition systems always resonates ). He has a lifetime of inspirational, carefully organized stories and images, and builds all his presentations for the specific challenges and goals of the groups he works with. He’s spoken to more than 200 organizations around the globe, and loves learning and presenting to new and repeat clients.

All his shows are entertaining based on the professional images and video alone, but they go deeper into questions about the value of adventure, why not taking risks is a much bigger hazard than taking them, and how to recognize the “unknown unknowns” that often trip us up professionally. His life experience ranges from running a qualitative market research company to leading large film teams into very hazardous environments. He’s funny, charismatic, professional and relates well to audiences ranging from senior management at some of the top companies in the world to at-risk youth. He is currently working on a new television series on the most radical places on earth.