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Mark Inglis

To climb Everest is one thing, to do it without legs is totally another! Mark’s presentation is less about his disability and Everest but more about how passion, commitment, planning and just plain old ATTITUDE will turn any stumbling block into the stepping stone.

Standing on the summit of Mount Everest has always been a boyhood dream, a dream that Mark thought he had lost in 1982 when as a Search and Rescue Mountaineer in New Zealand’s majestic Mount Cook National Park, He had a ‘hiccup’ in my climbing career, stuck in an ice cave dubbed ‘Middle Peak Hotel’ near the summit of Mount Cook for 14 days. As a result of this stay Mark lost both legs below the knees to frostbite.

“You are 23 years old, trapped in an ice cave for 14 days by a sub-zero blizzard on the summit of New Zealands highest peak.

You are starving and freezing to death. You wake up in hospital to find that you have lost both legs below the knees due to frostbite. What do you do next?

You climb Mount Everest, of course.”

Between losing his legs at 23 years old due to frostbite and then going on to be the only double amputee to have stood on the roof of the world, the summit of Mount Everest, Mark has carved out careers as a scientist, a world recognised winemaker, business innovator, trekking guide and a leading International Motivator.

A silver medal from the 2000 Paralympics joins all medals from the world of alpine skiing, wine and his ONZM for Services to the Disabled.

Founding Trustee of Limbs4All Charitable Trust, patron of many charities and author of 5 books (2 for youth, both finalists in The NZ Book of the Year Awards) Mark was recently awarded a doctorate (honoris causa) in Natural Resources. Over the last 10 years Mark has presented to hundreds of thousands of people across the world, inspiring them to embrace challenge, to develop the attitude to excel.

It is this combination of achievement in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds and his ability to interpret this to a wide range of people resulted in the honour of being both a delegate and panellist at the UN partnered 2009 Global Creative Leadership Summit in New York, presenter at TEDx Chicago 2011 and guest lecturer for the Oxygen series in the UK, November 2011, all opportunities to share his experience and philosophy with world leaders.

Much of Mark’s time currently is spent in India, consulting to the countries top executives, focusing on change, challenge and the role of attitude in business.

Mark leads treks to Nepal each year to raise funds and awareness for Limbs4All projects in Nepal and Cambodia.

Challenge and attitude is at the core of all growth, in our families, communities and businesses, Mark is the epitome of Challenge and Attitude.

As the only double amputee who has stood on the summit of Mt Everest, who else can truly define the often used saying, “Attitude determines your Altitude”

  • First and only double amputee to summit Mount Everest (15 May 2006).
  • Doctor Of Natural Resources, honoris causa
  • Officer of the NZ Order of Merit (ONZM)
  • Bachelor of Science, 1st Class Honours, Human Biochemistry
  • Ambassador, Blue Lagoon Cruise Line, Fiji, Disabled Riding NZ and Outward Bound NZ.
  • Founding Trustee of Limbs4All Charitable Trust
  • Adventure Plus Ambassador for Scouts NZ
  • Internationally awarded winemaker for last 18 years
  • Author of 5 books

Mark is one of New Zealand leading motivational speakers, experienced in all forms of presentation from conference keynote addresses and workshops to entertaining and humorous after dinner talks. He has presented to audiences as small as five to as big as 1400 and everything in between.

Presentations:

  • ‘The Choice’ Team building program using mountaineering as a core theme and is an interactive simulation involving problem solving as individuals, as members of a group and even between groups. Suitable for any number of participants, used effectively with several corporate groups already (from 6 to 75 participants)
  • ‘Leading the Team’ is focused on business owners, leaders and their teams. The objective is to gain a greater understanding of the drivers of your organisations culture. his is an essential to maximise your performance as a leader and hence the performance of the team.
  • ‘The Culture Change’ program is aimed at smaller business groups and utilises world wide research into organisational best practice. t is the ideal litmus test before committing to more extensive and expensive culture change programs.
  • Presentation Skills - Both to frontline public presentation/contact staff, sales staff and anyone that gets put in front of the media. A 3 hour program that incorporates both lectures, demonstrations and a strong interactive component. Follow up sessions here are extremely valuable
  • Lifestyle
  • The Attitude
  • Defining Mental Toughness
  • Team Programmes
  • The Business of Success
  • Motivation/Inspiration
  • After Dinner
  • Master of Ceremonies
  • Workshops

Testimonials:

"We were delighted to have Mark Inglis present at our 2017 SBS Annual Awards Celebration. Mark is a highly engaging presenter who took us through his inspirational and uplifting story. We have not used external speakers at our Awards before as we felt that they can miss the mark and dilute our message.  We were so pleased we decided to get Mark along as he shaped his life story around our organisational messages and made it such a personal and relevant presentation to the leadership team and award finalists that were there.  The comments from all that attended suggested Mark was a highlight of their day that they will talk about for years to come. Thanks Mark for making our Annual Awards a truly memorable experience".  Shaun Drylie,  CEO SBS Bank

"Right from first contact through to his followup email - Mark was professional, enthusiastic, easy to communicate with and helpful. Paid attention to the information I gave him (he had looked us up online and got further information), tailored what he did to the group. He had my staff absolutely riveted from the beginning and could easily have gone longer. Everyone was commenting the rest of the conference about how amazing he was, what they took away from it, and how well he had tied in to our own message for Conference. I will be very keen to work with him again".  Andrea Vickery, Technology Holdings Ltd

"Very motivational and an incredibly interesting story about resilience in the toughest of times".  Stuart Hutchinson, AUT