Vanessa's sessions are flexible and tailored to the event. Keynotes typically range from 20 to 45 minutes, with 40–45 minutes often being the sweet spot for emotional impact and practical takeaways.
Longer keynote sessions (60–90 minutes) are also available where a deeper exploration of the themes is appropriate.
Workshops and interactive sessions can be added separately and will extend the overall session time.
Vanessa is comfortable speaking to groups of all sizes — from small leadership teams of 8–10 people to large conferences with audiences of 3,000+.
Regardless of size, her approach remains personal, grounded, and engaging — expect moments of laughter, reflection, and often a few tears too.
Yes. Vanessa speaks across the UK and internationally and has been flown to destinations including the USA, Spain, India, and Norway, as well as regularly speaking throughout the UK.
Travel arrangements are discussed during booking to ensure everything runs smoothly.
No.
While motorcycles and adventure form part of Vanessa’s story, her talks are fundamentally about resilience, mindset, pressure, leadership, mental wellbeing, and navigating challenge. The adventure element simply provides a powerful and memorable framework.
You absolutely do not need to be interested in motorcycles to connect with or benefit from her talks. Many of Vanessa’s strongest audience responses come from people with no prior interest in adventure sports.
In some cases, yes — and it can be a real highlight.
Vanessa occasionally brings her rally bike to events where logistics, access, and space allow. Seeing the bike in person often creates a powerful visual moment, helping audiences truly grasp the scale, challenge, and reality behind the story.
This depends on venue access, travel logistics, and timing, so it’s best discussed during the booking conversation.
Yes. Vanessa regularly delivers after-dinner speeches, speaks at awards evenings, school speech days, charity events, and other occasions where an engaging and inspiring story is valued.
Each session is adapted to suit the tone, audience, and purpose of the event.
Absolutely. Vanessa often delivers workshops or breakout sessions following a keynote. These sessions are designed to help teams reflect on the talk and turn insight into practical, achievable action around mindset, ownership, goal setting, and resilience.
Yes — every session is tailored.
Vanessa works closely with organisers to understand the audience, organisational culture, current challenges, and event objectives, ensuring each talk feels relevant, grounded, and genuinely useful.
Yes — and this is often why organisations book Vanessa.
Her approach is honest, balanced, and emotionally intelligent. She speaks about difficulty without being heavy, and about resilience without resorting to clichés, creating a safe and engaging environment for diverse audiences.
Yes. Alongside recovery, chronic pain, and adventure, Vanessa also brings the lived experience of motherhood — including responsibility, time pressure, identity shifts, and balancing ambition with care.
This adds further depth and relatability to her work, particularly in conversations around wellbeing, resilience, and sustainable performance.
Fees are bespoke and depend on the event type, session length, format, and travel requirements.
For an accurate quote, the best next step is to get in touch and have a brief conversation about your event.
Booking as early as possible is recommended, particularly for fixed dates. That said, Vanessa maintains some flexibility and can occasionally accommodate short-notice enquiries, so it’s always worth reaching out.
Yes — where appropriate.
Alongside recovery, chronic pain, and adventure, Vanessa can draw on her lived experience of motherhood and balancing ambition with responsibility. This is not a dominant or assumed theme within her talks, but something that can be woven in or explored further where it feels relevant to the audience and event objectives.
For some organisations, this perspective adds depth to conversations around resilience, identity, pressure, and inclusion. For others, it may not be appropriate at all — and that’s absolutely fine. This is always discussed during the booking process and shaped around what will best serve the audience.
Yes.
Vanessa speaks both across the UK and internationally, and has delivered talks in countries including the USA, Spain, India, and Norway, as well as at international conferences and events.
International bookings are welcomed and discussed on a case-by-case basis to ensure logistics, travel, and format work well for everyone involved.
Yes.
In addition to in-person events, Vanessa regularly delivers virtual keynote talks, webinars, and online sessions for organisations around the world. These can be hosted via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or other platforms used by your organisation.
Virtual sessions are designed to be engaging, interactive, and impactful — not simply a scaled-down version of an in-person talk — and work particularly well for global teams, remote workforces, and large distributed audiences.
Yes — by prior agreement.
Organisations are welcome to record the session for internal catch-up purposes only, for employees who were unable to attend live. Any recording must be kept securely within the organisation, not shared externally, not used for marketing or promotional purposes, and not distributed on public platforms.
Recordings are typically agreed for a limited internal viewing period, which will be discussed and confirmed as part of the booking process. This helps protect the integrity of the content and Vanessa’s intellectual property, while still allowing teams to benefit from the session.
Yes.
Vanessa regularly supports hybrid events, where she speaks in person to a live audience while the session is simultaneously streamed to teams in other locations or countries.
This format works particularly well for global organisations with mixed or distributed teams and can be delivered via your preferred platform (such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or internal systems), subject to technical setup and logistics being agreed in advance.
Hybrid delivery allows organisations to maximise reach and inclusion while still retaining the energy and connection of an in-person event.
The simplest way is to drop Vanessa an email.
There’s no complicated booking form — just a conversation. Share a bit about your event, your audience, and what you’re hoping to achieve, and we can take it from there.
Vanessa is always happy to arrange a quick phone or video call to talk things through properly. No pressure, no hard sell — just two humans having a chat to see if it’s a good fit.
If you don't see the question and answers you're looking for, please do get in touch.
I'd be more than happy to chat through your needs and see if I am the right fit.
Vanessa Ruck