Nicole Bearne – Keynote Speaker

Nicole Bearne has been a senior leader in the world of Formula 1 for over 25 years, winning 9 World Constructors’ Championship titles along the way. As Head of Internal Communications for the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team, Nicole operated at Board level in an organisation of 1,300 people, partnering with leaders to build strong team culture and high levels of employee engagement, which translated into record-breaking performance on the racetrack.

Nicole Bearne began her F1 career in the late 1990s as a founding member of the fledgling British American Racing team, working alongside F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve, team principal Craig Pollock and technical director Adrian Reynard to establish a new team from scratch in rural Northamptonshire. Since then, she has worked behind the scenes with some of the biggest names in Formula 1: Michael Schumacher, Sir Lewis Hamilton, Ross Brawn, Toto Wolff, Niki Lauda, Nico Rosberg and Jenson Button to name a few.

Her Formula 1 experience encompasses executive and technical operations, Internal Communications, CSR programmes and Employee Experience. As Executive Assistant to Ross Brawn from 2007 to 2013, Nicole was at the epicentre of the story of Brawn GP, the team that rose from the ashes of the Honda Racing F1 team to take both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championships in 2009. From there, she went on to win a further eight Constructors’ championships with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team.

Nicole Bearne holds a Master’s degree in Organisational Behaviour and the CIPR Diploma in Internal Communications. She is a member of the Institute of Internal Communication, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (MCIPR) and an Accredited PR Practitioner. She speaks regularly on Internal Communications, Employee Engagement and Employee Experience at industry conferences, in interviews and on podcasts. In 2020, she was nominated for the Indigogold Work Psychology Innovation Award. In her consultancy work, Nicole brings a blend of extensive real-world F1 business experience and robust academic theory to building happy, high-performing, people-centric organisations.

Nicole also speaks fluent Russian and spent a number of years working in the former Soviet Union.