Amar Latif entrepreneur and keynote speaker
Amar Latif entrepreneur and keynote speaker

Amar Latif

Inspirational Speaker, Presenter, TV Personality

Amar Latif likes a challenge. A successful entrepreneur, he gave up his hard-won role as Head of Commercial Finance at BT to start his own travel company. He’s travelled the world, skydived, ski-ed, climbed, even done a spot of acting, and is also a TV presenter. A remarkable enough set of achievements, made more impressive because Amar has been blind since he was 18-years-old.

Born with an incurable eye condition, Amar had lost 95% of his sight by the time he was in his late teens. Determined not to be defined by his blindness, he continued through university and into a corporate career (despite the belief from some that you couldn’t be both blind and an accountant). Amar also had an incurable lust for travel, but found travel companies seriously lacking when it came to accommodating the needs of independent blind and partially sighted explorers. So he started his own travel business with a mission to help blind people explore the world in a way that was usually closed to them.

Traveleyes brings together blind and sighted travellers, usually unknown to each other before the trip, and unites them through experiences from sailing to safaris to trekking up Europe’s highest peaks. Sighted travellers guide and share their descriptions with their blind companions. In response, the sighted experience first-hand a fearlessness and curiosity about the world that they’ve often lost.

As well as becoming an award-winning entrepreneur, Amar’s love of travel has been the foundation of a broadcasting career. For the BBC2 series Beyond Boundaries, Amar was part of a group of disabled travellers that explored South America, trekking from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, through jungle, over a volcano, and across one of the continent’s largest lakes. He’s appeared on the award-winning River Walks for BBC1, and was the first ever blind contestant on Celebrity Masterchef. On BBC1’s Pilgrimage, he trekked a part of the Sultan’s Trail from central Europe to Turkey exploring both history, geography and faith. In BBC2’s Travelling Blind he joined comedian Sara Pascoe as they travelled from Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar to the Black Sea and the Cappadocia rock formations in an affecting and personal journey in which Amar explained the necessity of experience and the importance but impermanence of memory for blind people.

As both adventurer and entrepreneur, Amar considers how we view risk and trust – often overstating risk and giving into fear, and undervaluing trust. He recounts his entrepreneurial journey and how that too has influenced his view of risk, as he rejected the stability of a career to pursue something he understood, cared about, and which he was certain solved a problem for many like him.

As a Scot of Asian heritage, as well as being blind, Amar also examines the biases and assumptions that marginalise and exclude, and the damage done to individuals and society. He challenges how quick we are to define other with labels and expectations, and considers the inherent value, importance and advantages of diversity and inclusion.

Amar has spoken to audiences from the UN to Barclays, Samsung to the NHS to Goldman Sachs, sharing his personal story and the lessons in resilience, diversity and motivation. His enthusiastic and determined take on life is infectious and his story inspiring. He believes that obstacles are invariably a matter of other people’s perceptions and assumptions that we convince ourselves are real. When you can’t see an obstacle, you don’t limit yourself before you’ve even tried. The obstacles you face can either define you, or you can prove how passion, persistence and spirit can overcome anything.

Showreel

Testimonials

This has been the most inspiring and touching presentation I have ever experienced in my twenty five years of working in this company.

HR Director, BT

Amar’s speech ‘Obstacles! I Can’t See Any Obstacles’ was a hugely inspiring keynote address, which was both motivational and uplifting. We have received extremely positive feedback from audience members, with a number being so touched by his personal story that they would be keen to see him come back to Goldman Sachs in the future so that he can share his story with a wider audience.

Global Diversity Manager, Goldman Sachs

I wanted to thank you for speaking to us at Barclays Capital. It was great to meet you and we have had some really positive feedback from the attendees, all of whom found your talk incredibly motivating. As a result we have boosted our Disability Awareness Forum membership significantly and we will be able to build on this for future events.”

Equality & Diversity Director, Barclays Capital

We have done lots of briefing calls with speakers but it was obvious that Amar had really listened and taken on board what we discussed. He tailored the session right from the beginning which meant that people were invested right from the start. Amar was a brilliant contributor to the success of our event and a perfect speaker for keeping people engaged during a virtual presentation.

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