Mark Inglis

A mountaineer, researcher, winemaker and motivational speaker. The First & ONLY Double Amputee to Summit Mt. Everest.

Mark Inglis

You are 23 years old, trapped in an ice cave for 14 days by a sub-zero blizzard on the summit of New Zealand's 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.

Working in New Zealand's Mount Cook National Park as a professional Search and Rescue Mountaineer, Mark Inglis' life was forever changed in 1982 at the age of 23 after he lost both legs below the knee to frostbite. Mark went on to become the only double amputee to have stood on the summit of the world's highest mountain and has forged several successful careers as an athlete, scientist, internationally recognised winemaker, business innovator, trekking guide, author and leading motivational speaker.

Mark has been an international competitor in disabled skiing, and was the winner of a silver medal in track cycling at the 2000 Paralympic Games. He made an Officer of the NZ Order of Merit (ONZM) for Services to the Disabled and is the Founding Trustee of Limbs4All Charitable Trust, and a patron of many charities including the Cambodia Trust NZ, Scouts NZ, the NZ/Nepalese Foundation and the Malborough First Light Foundation (of which he is also a Founding Trustee). He is the author of five books: Legs on Everest, No Mean Feat, Off the Front Foot and two for young adult readers, To The Max and High Tech Legs on Everest, both of which were finalists in The NZ Book of the Year Awards.

Mark holds a Bachelor of Science with first class honours in Human Biochemistry and was recently awarded a Doctorate of Natural Resources (honoris causa) and the Fervent Love Of Lives Medal. He was Senior Winemaker for Montana Wines for ten years and has been internationally awarded for the past 17.

Over the past six years Mark has presented to over 100,000 people across the world, inspiring them to embrace challenge and to develop the attitude to excel.

It is Mark's combination of achievement in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds and his ability to interpret this for a wide range of people that resulted in the honour of being both a delegate and panellist at the UN partnered 2009 Global Creative Leadership Summit in New York, an opportunity to share his experience and philosophy with world leaders.

With his diverse background Mark can offer a wide range of presentations and activities, from short stimulating and inspiring presentations to keynote addresses focusing on the themes of challenge, overcoming adversity, personal excellence and life long learning.

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Over the last 17 years Mark has specialised in Keynote addresses that are based around mountaineering as a metaphor for business and life, utilising his wide experience in the mountains, vineyards and boardrooms. To take that experience one step further he now offers a range of learning programs.

To listen to the ideas and proven research on how we can function better, either as individuals or as members of an organisational culture is great, but far more powerful is the opportunity to see these lessons in action, to get an understanding of where you and your organisation are, relative to the gold standard and to receive feedback and support on how to become even better.

These programs don’t rely on you jumping off a cliff into the arms of your work mates or taking your first bungy or even putting your life at risk by climbing a mountain, instead by using innovative and fun simulations we can learn the lessons, still be challenged in our thinking but not putting our bodies on the line. The lack of physical threat allows a far more focused learning outcome, one that can be as useful in your own life as your corporate life.

The main benefit of these programs is a greater awareness and respect of the people around us, an increased ability to sort assumptions and heresay from fact, all things that mean a more efficient and profitable working culture.