Sir Dave Brailsford

Biography

Sir Dave Brailsford has been called one of the greatest winners of our generation.

He was knighted for his winning attitude to life after masterminding Great Britain’s gold medal rush at the Beijing and London Olympics as well as leading Team Sky’s dominance of the Tour De France.

With an extraordinary talent for motivating and transforming teams, Dave now sits on a powerful committee running operations at Manchester United where he is overhauling the way the world-famous football club is run.

Dave featured on high rating podcast The Diary of a CEO where he spoke about how his meticulous approach to leadership caught the eye of entrepreneurs both inside and outside the world of sport.

He revealed how he was driven by doing “big, bold things” and feeling compelled to make them happen.

Key to Dave’s success is his ‘1% Factor’ – a method where making lots of small improvements in lots of areas has a huge cumulative benefit for the way an organisation is run.

Just look at the impact his approach had on cycling. A team which only won a single gold medal in 76 years suddenly turned into a cycling superpower winning the majority of gold medals at the Beijing Olympics and matching it four years later in London.

So it’s not surprising Dave’s so-called marginal gains philosophy has been used extensively outside sport and applied by business leaders, in UK education policy and social mobility policy.

As Director of Sport at Ineos he oversees the company’s operation across a range of sports in Formula 1, cycling, sailing, football, rugby and running.

And as track records go, few can match Dave’s incredible breadth of leadership skills which have motivated so many teams, transformed so many sports and inspired so many businesses.