Built to Lead: Sport Science Meets the Boardroom
A leadership keynote by Dorka Nagy-Józsa
Elite athletes and elite leaders think alike. They also fail alike. Built on Dorka's work as a certified sport mental coach and the mental preparation of Hungary's WorldSkills national team, this keynote brings performance psychology to the people who run organisations.
Leadership is not a vitamin deficiency. It's practice.
No athlete gets to a world championship on a two-day course. They get there on daily practice, feedback, failure and trying again, and on a mental preparation that starts long before the competition. Dorka Nagy-Józsa knows this from the inside: her company Y2Y prepares the Hungarian national team mentally for WorldSkills, the world championship of vocational skills, and she is a certified sport mental coach.
The keynote puts that next to the boardroom. How elite athletes and elite leaders think alike, and where both fail: under pressure, in public, when the plan stops working. Mental preparation for high-stakes decisions, from a WorldSkills competitor with four days to prove a career to a CEO with one board meeting to land a strategy. And the research leaders don't expect: your CEO's age predicts your remote work policy, and Stanford has the data to prove it.
The through-line is Dorka's signature idea, the end of the specialist era, from her book Horizontal Thinking: the leaders who last are not the ones who know the most, but the ones who keep training. The room leaves with a performance routine, not a personality type.
What people take home
- How elite athletes and elite leaders think alike, and the three places both reliably fail
- Mental preparation for high-stakes decisions: a routine from WorldSkills that works in the C-suite
- Your CEO's age predicts your remote work policy: what the Stanford data means for your leadership team
- Why leadership isn't a vitamin deficiency, and how to build daily practice, feedback and failure into how leaders actually work
- The end of the specialist era: what horizontal thinking changes about who gets to lead
Offsites, kickoffs and leadership programmes
C-suite and senior leadership offsites. Leadership development programmes that want a keynote with a routine attached. Sales kickoffs. Skills, vocational education and sports-minded audiences, from WorldSkills stages to university keynotes.
Dorka holds an international federation leadership role at WorldSkills Shanghai 2026 and has spoken at WorldSkills, ICF (Toronto), SHRM INCLUSION (Denver) and leadership days for European industrial, logistics and insurance groups.
"I've counted, somewhere around 280 presentations on change management. After 200 you stop expecting surprises. Dorka managed to surprise me. Not in a gimmicky way, more like the feeling when someone explains something you've been doing wrong for years, but without making it humiliating. We had her back six months later for our senior leadership days."
How to book it
- Keynote
- 30-75 minutes, live, customised after a pre-event stakeholder call. Audience Q&A and a post-talk summary deck included. From €3,000 plus travel and accommodation.
- Languages
- English or Hungarian.
- By event type
- Town halls & all-hands, HR & L&D conferences, Leadership offsites & senior leadership days, AI & technology summits, Kickoffs & annual meetings, Procurement & supply chain congresses, Industry conferences (talent & leadership track), Corporate events in Budapest
- Related keynotes
- The Neuroscience of Why Change Fails · AI, Your Brain & the New Rules of Work
From the Y2Y Weekly
Questions organisers ask
What is the sport science connection?
Dorka Nagy-Józsa is a certified sport mental coach, and her company Y2Y is responsible for the mental preparation of the Hungarian national team at WorldSkills, the world championship of vocational skills. The keynote brings that performance psychology to leaders.
Who is Built to Lead for?
C-suite and leadership offsites, leadership development programmes, sales kickoffs, and skills, education and sports-minded audiences. Rooms of 150 to 1,500.
How long is the keynote and what does it cost?
30 to 75 minutes live, customised to the event, from €3,000 plus travel and accommodation. See the fee logic.