Mandy Hickson

When faced with the prospect of dropping out of the RAF, Mandy Hickson proved that with drive and determination, anything is possible. Sharing her stories of success with audiences everywhere, she is an engaging, captivating female motivational speaker.

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Mandy Hickson is a role model for young women wanting to join the Airforce. At the age of 17, she was awarded an RAF scholarship, giving her the opportunity to fly planes well before she started driving on land. Despite her extraordinary skill, she failed the computer-based test carried out by all future RAF pilots - a major setback for the budding pilot. Faced with a great hurdle, Mandy endured a challenging personal test. With her persuasive, determined nature, she convinced the RAF to take her on as a test case, ultimately saving her career in the skies.

Due to her unapologetic self-belief, Mandy became the only female pilot on her Frontline Tornado Squadron, flying multi-million-pound jets for the Royal Air Force. Over the course of her flying career, Mandy survived hostile environments, including operating in a 'No Fly' zone. As a testament to her dedication to piloting, Mandy became the second woman to pilot a Tornado GR4, completed three tours of duty and carried out 45 missions over Iraq.

Mandy is passionate about encouraging the future generation. When she retired from the Airforce, Mandy dedicated her time to serving as a school governor and being an ambassador of sport for Hampshire County Council. With her years of experience in the cockpit, Mandy is a Volunteer Reservist with the RAF, where she flies budding pilots on the Air Experience Flight. As a trained Human Factors Facilitator with the Civil Aviation Authority, Mandy uses her aviation expertise, strategic risk-taking and ability to stay calm whilst under immense pressure to transfer the lessons she has learned from the cockpit to the corporate boardroom.

On top of this, Mandy created Inspiring Women for Work, which organised tailor-made events to help women realise what they are capable of and regain the self-confidence essential to go back to work. Mandy is a captivating female motivational speaker, engaging with her audience through highly interesting personal stories of how persevering through failure leads to success. Speaking candidly about her life story, from being a working mother to dodging enemy fire, Mandy is dedicated to building the confidence of those around her.

Her stories will have your heart racing, as she describes the sensation of soaring through tornadoes it feels like you are there with her, in the cockpit. With an enthusiastic presenting style, Mandy eagerly shares her story of overcoming setbacks and handling pressure no matter the circumstance. Audiences lucky enough to witness Mandy speak won’t just be privileged to her witty anecdotes, but can learn from her first-hand life advice too. Personal strategies, a positive approach and prioritising are all points that Mandy shares, as she offers tips and tricks to embrace your best self.

Get a taste for what Mandy is like at events, by watching some of her speech at the Pendulum Summit, 2019.

Take a look at what exactly motivates Mandy, how she keeps calm under immense pressure and you can conquer the 'fear of failure'.

Take a look at Mandy in action at a speakers event, where she shares her personal experiences in the RAF and the key things she learnt during her career.

“Mandy is a fantastic public speaker. She is both inspirational and extremely well prepared. Her ability to relate her own experience working under extreme pressure and in highly performing teams to everyday situations is most impressive. She tops it all with a wonderful sense of humour and great modesty. Listening to her talking about the many challenges that she has successfully overcome should be compulsory for all girls!” – Miriam Gonzalez, Partner Dechert LLP, International Law Firm

“Much like the fighter jets you flew, the noise (feedback) about your presentation can still be heard. The feedback has been fantastic with many saying “Mandy was the most inspirational speaker I have ever heard”. You are extraordinarily talented, hugely determined and beautifully funny with a great ability to connect with people – for such a high flier you are very grounded! Thank you for sharing , it was great pleasure.” – Peter Kenny , Managing Director, Old Mutual International

“Mandy, great to meet you. Your session was particularly well received. I am delighted I was able to stay to hear you talk. Your story is very inspirational and I recognised many of the challenges you have faced as a woman in a predominantly male world as these issues are industry agnostic. I am sure we could spend hours sharing our war stories (literal and metaphorical !). I do all I can to help the next generation navigate these challenges and not experience the same difficulties as those who have gone before. You are clearly doing the same.” – Sue Fox, CEO I M&S Bank

“I just wanted to say thank you once again for a fabulous talk at our execs conference. They were buzzing afterwards, just as the partners were, and it really made the day. Funny, human and relevant with an appropriate dose of self-deprecation. You went down a storm! Thank you.” – Jonathan Thornton, Managing Partner, Russell-Cooke International Law Firm

Teamwork & Leadership - Mandy focuses on the ability to flex your different leadership and working styles to help tune in better to employees changing needs, whilst also making sure that there is an understanding of employees own natural workings styles, which helps in order to build cohesive teams. She also includes the importance of improving communication skills by having the ability to balance listening and sharing to get the best results. As well as this, she points out the need to empower employees, increasing the feeling of value, by allowing the expression of concerns across the company and acting on those concerns.

Risk Management - The threat of damage, injury, liability, loss, or any other negative occurrence, is why risk management is crucial. Mandy wants to encourage a change of perception so that employees can think creatively, which will help to minimising threat and damage.

Threat & Error Management - Mandy discusses the importance of changing organisational culture to recognise that competent professionals can make mistakes, and why this acknowledgment helps to reduce the development of unhealthy norms. Having open communication in order to report problems is another factor that helps to build up a picture of where the biggest threats lie what needs to be implemented to prevent them.

Human Factors - Using knowledge from her career, Mandy discusses the importance of understanding human dimension. By using proven techniques from her career, Mandy offers tips and tricks to help achieve the highest performance, whilst protecting your business reputation.

Crisis Management - Using three important elements to preparing for a crisis, the threat, the element of surprise and short decision times, Mandy looks at how to best manage a crisis. She does this by changing the attitudes to crisis and by prioritising crisis planning.

Facilitated Debriefing - Putting an emphasis on the fact that everyone has a voice, Mandy looks at focusing on the what (the facts), the why (the cause) and the how (the cure). She also looks at how to improve team performance and tips and tricks to encourage all to speak up.

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To book Mandy Hickson as the speaker for your corporate event, function or conference, contact The Motivational Speakers Agency using the contact details below:

Enquiry form 0207 1010 553 motivationalagent@championsukplc.com

Please note we do not accept requests for autographs personal messages or video messages.

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