You can't accelerate transformation without evolving how people think.
Gina Buckney is an enterprise transformation and human performance expert, international keynote speaker and creator of The Mental Reboot Code™.
For more than 20 years, Gina has worked at the intersection of technology, transformation and people, leading large-scale change across telecommunications, technology, engineering, operations and financial services. Her corporate career has included responsibility for global teams of up to 500 people and commercial portfolios worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
Her experience spans organisations including BT, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group, while her speaking and consultancy work has taken her into organisations including Microsoft, Amazon, HSBC, the British Army, HMRC, the NHS and Tesco Technology.
What differentiates Gina is that she approaches transformation as a practitioner. She has experienced first-hand what happens when organisations introduce new technology, restructure operations and accelerate change — and the human capability required to make that transformation actually work.
Today, her work focuses on peak performance, corporate transformation and the human advantage in the AI era. Drawing on neuroscience, behavioural science and more than two decades of enterprise experience, Gina helps leaders and organisations understand how the way people think, adapt and perform must evolve alongside technology.
She is a two-time TEDx speaker, author and award-winning international speaker, known for translating complex ideas into practical, relatable insights audiences can apply in the real world.
At the heart of Gina's work is a simple premise: you can't accelerate transformation without evolving how people think.
Talking Points
REBOOT — For Peak Performance™
The world of work has accelerated. Information is constant, expectations are rising and technology is changing what is possible at extraordinary speed. Yet many of us are trying to meet these new demands with thinking patterns developed for a very different environment.REBOOT — For Peak Performance™
In REBOOT — For Peak Performance™, Gina Buckney explores the relationship between the way we think and the way we perform.
Combining more than 20 years of leadership experience with her study of Fundamentals of Neuroscience at Harvard University, Gina makes the science of the brain practical and relevant to the realities of modern leadership. She explores how repeated patterns of thinking can influence focus, decision-making, behaviour and our ability to perform under pressure.
Through principles from The Mental Reboot Code™ and her Decode → Recode approach, audiences learn to become more conscious of the thinking running in the background, identify patterns that may be limiting their performance and deliberately develop better ones.
Because peak performance isn't simply about asking more of yourself. Sometimes, you need to change the thinking producing the performance.
Best suited for: Leaders and senior professionals operating in high-pressure, fast-changing environments who need to think clearly, adapt quickly and sustain performance as demands increase.
Key Takeaways
Recognise how patterns of thinking influence behaviour and performance.
Understand what happens to thinking and focus under increasing cognitive demands.
Develop greater metacognitive awareness — the ability to notice and examine your own thinking.
Use Decode → Recode to identify and challenge patterns that are no longer useful.
Build greater adaptability, focus and intentionality in how you perform.
The Power To Transform at Pace
Organisations can change technology, structures and strategy remarkably quickly. Getting people to think, decide and behave differently is harder.The Power To Transform at Pace
Gina Buckney knows this from experience. Across more than 20 years in technology, telecommunications, engineering, operations and financial services, she has led complex transformation from inside major organisations — leading global teams of up to 500 people and holding responsibility for commercial portfolios worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
Her professional study of The Neuropsychology of Decision Making at the University of Cambridge adds another dimension to that experience: understanding what is happening beneath the organisational charts, programme plans and transformation roadmaps when people are being asked to make decisions, abandon familiar ways of working and operate effectively through uncertainty.
The Power to Transform at Pace explores the human dynamics that can accelerate transformation or quietly become its biggest constraint — and what leadership teams can do differently when the pressure to deliver is high.
Because the speed at which an organisation can transform is ultimately influenced by the speed at which its people can adapt.
Best suited for: Executive and leadership teams navigating challenging or complex transformation, including technology implementation, organisational change, restructuring and shifts in operating models.
Key Takeaways
Understand why human adaptability can determine the speed of organisational transformation.
Recognise the behavioural and decision-making dynamics that can create resistance or inertia.
Identify how leadership behaviours and decisions can accelerate — or unintentionally obstruct — change.
Lead people more effectively through uncertainty, ambiguity and sustained transformation.
Maintain performance while established ways of working are being disrupted.
Create stronger alignment between technology, transformation and people.
Women Who Lead
Women don't need to wait to be noticed, chosen or told they're ready.Women Who Lead
Women Who Lead is about becoming a driving force in your own career — while recognising that meaningful progress in female leadership also requires organisations and existing leaders to play their part.
Drawing on her own progression into senior leadership through traditionally male-dominated technology, telecommunications and engineering environments, Gina Buckney explores the choices, relationships and behaviours that can influence a woman's trajectory at work.
Her professional studies in Empathy and Emotional Intelligence and the Science of Happiness at Work at UC Berkeley complement that experience, bringing another perspective to how relationships, emotional intelligence, workplace culture and human behaviour can influence leadership and progression.
For the past three years, Gina has also served as a UN Women UK delegate, advocating for equal pay and greater representation of women and girls in STEM — giving her a wider perspective on the structural and cultural factors that influence women's opportunities and advancement.
Gina moves the conversation beyond simply telling women to “be more confident”. She explores career ownership, visibility, influence, professional identity and the importance of building relationships with people who will advocate for you when you're not in the room.
And progression isn't solely women's responsibility. Gina also explores the role of male allyship and, critically, sponsorship — moving beyond supporting talented women to actively advocating for them, creating access and putting their names forward for opportunity.
This is about women owning their progression, leaders using their influence, and organisations creating environments in which female talent can genuinely advance.
Best suited for: Women in leadership roles, emerging female leaders and high-potential talent pools, as well as organisations seeking to strengthen female progression and create more effective cultures of allyship and sponsorship.
Key Takeaways
Take greater ownership of your career direction rather than waiting for progression to happen.
Become a driving force in creating opportunities, visibility and momentum.
Build the relationships, credibility and influence that support career progression.
Understand the difference between mentorship, allyship and sponsorship — and why each matters.
Explore how male allies and senior leaders can move from passive support to active advocacy.
Recognise workplace and organisational dynamics that can unintentionally restrict female progression.
Develop a leadership identity built around your strengths rather than somebody else's model of what a leader should look like.
Video
Gina Buckney | How Workplace Stress Costs the World $1 Trillion a Year | Saxton Speakers
Gina Buckney opens with the cost of workplace stress: a trillion dollars a year globally, and 900,000 lost working days in the UK alone. This showreel captures her case for building human and emotional intelligence alongside the systems we already teach our people, so they can transform at pace.Gina Buckney | Why Focus, Not Productivity, Is The Real Workplace Problem | Saxton Speakers
Gina Buckney shows leaders why multitasking, financial stress and constant noise quietly drain the brain's processing power, and what to do about it. This clip introduces her "close the tabs" technique, a practical tool for building focus and mental wellness into everyday working life.Unmasking Yourself Through A Journey Of Self-Discovery | Gina Buckney | TEDxBedford
Have you ever done something that you regretted or self-sabotaged your dreams? Maybe you want something in your life but continue to push it away? If you are ready to break patterns that hold you back, this TEDx talk is for you. Gina Buckney shares her emotional journey of self-discovery and the one key that helped her break down walls and decode self-sabotaging patterns from childhood. She will tell you how you can achieve the life you want. Gina Buckney is a Leading Global Transformation Director, Corporate Speaker, and Self-Help Author.I just wanted to drop you a quick email to say how incredible Gina was at our event yesterday. She absolutely nailed the brief and brought such energy and professionalism to the event. We ha ... keep reading HSBC
Working with Gina over the last few months has been a pleasure. Not only is she infectiously positive but she really took time to understand our business and our requirements for an engagement talk with Aegon colleagues. The session was well attended and really delivered what we needed it to, a talk on how delivering exceptional experiences in a busy environment is as much about looking after yourself as it is about looking after our customers.
Gina is an incredible speaker and really lifts the aura of the room with her presence. Gina really broke down the gender bias and opened up interesting conversations within the workplace. It's important to see and hear role models like Gina to highlight how important diversity is and how her real life examples have made her the successful ambitious women she is. I think having Gina as part of a well-being programme is key for any company that is looking to take care of their employees. Thank you Gina for an eye opening session.
Gina went above and beyond to deliver the messages that we discussed in our prep session alongside her own experiences.
Thank you for sharing your journey. Your courage to be vulnerable and open about such personal experiences was incredibly powerful and inspiring. Thank you for encouraging us all to embrace our own vulnerabilities and prioritise our well-being.
