Profile

In January 2026, Hari Budha Magar stood on the summit of Mount Vinson in Antarctica and became the first double above-knee amputee in history to complete the 7 Summits, the highest peak on every continent.

Hari served fifteen years with the British Army's Royal Gurkha Rifles, working as a combat medic, sniper and covert surveillance specialist across five continents. In 2010, an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan took both his legs above the knee.

Rather than accept the limits others placed on him, Hari set out to remove them. He climbed Mont Blanc and Kilimanjaro in preparation, then in May 2023 became the first double above-knee amputee to summit Everest, a feat Guinness World Records confirmed had never been attempted. Denali, Aconcagua, Puncak Jaya and Vinson followed, completing a challenge fewer than 500 people have ever finished.

In 2018 Hari successfully lobbied Nepal's government to overturn a ban preventing people with disabilities from climbing Everest. He now works with Ottobock, a global leader in prosthetic technology, to help other amputees access the equipment his climbs demanded. On stage, Hari speaks with the same directness he brought to the mountain: on resilience, adaptation and what changes when limits are treated as decisions rather than facts.

Expertise

Talking Points

Removing the Limit, Not the Disability

Hari Budha Magar lost both legs above the knee in Afghanistan in 2010, then became the first double above-knee amputee to summit Everest and complete the 7 Summits challenge. This session unpacks the mental shift that took him from injured veteran to record holder: treating physical limits as problems to solve rather than facts to accept. Hari shows audiences how the same thinking applies directly to teams facing constraints, setbacks or a perceived ceiling on what's possible.

Key Takeaways:
- A practical framework for separating a genuine limit from an assumed one.
- Tools for reframing setbacks as engineering problems rather than verdicts.
- A direct model for building resilience under sustained pressure, drawn from fifteen years of military service and seven of the world's toughest climbs.

Leading Through Adversity: Lessons from the Gurkhas to Everest

Drawing on fifteen years with the British Army's Royal Gurkha Rifles and the discipline required to plan and execute a decade-long mountaineering challenge, Hari explores what real preparation and team leadership look like under extreme conditions. He covers the years of training, the partners and specialists he had to bring in, and the decisions made at altitude when the stakes were highest. This is a leadership and teamwork session grounded in specifics, not platitudes.

Key Takeaways:
- A structure for building a team around a goal that looks impossible on paper.
- Decision-making principles for high-pressure, high-stakes environments.
- A first-hand account of how discipline learned in one context transferred completely to another.