Building Skills and Leadership Through Adversity

Date: November 13th, 2026

Time Zones: 3:30 PM GMT (UK) | 4:30 PM CET/WAT | 5:30 PM CAT/SAST/EET | 6:30 PM EAT | 9:00 PM IST

Platform: Zoom (Virtual)

Duration: 1 hour 30 minutes

Adversity is part of every journey, and it can also be where we build our strongest skills and leadership. In a changing job market, where a degree alone is no longer the whole story, knowing how to turn challenge into capability matters more than ever.

That’s why Hesed World has invited Professor Geoff Thompson MBE, a five-time world karate champion and Founder and Chair of the Youth Charter, to share how to build skills and leadership through adversity. In this webinar, he’ll draw on his journey from a challenging upbringing in Hackney to national recognition. He’ll cover how resilience and lived experience shape effective leaders, the transferable skills that sport develops, and how to prepare for the future of work.

What You'll Learn

• Explain how resilience, endurance and lived experience can shape effective leadership.

• Identify the transferable skills developed through sport, including discipline, communication, analysis and recognising opportunities, and apply them in other areas of life.

• Reflect on Professor Thompson’s journey from a challenging upbringing to national recognition, and draw lessons from it for your own personal development.

• Describe why passing on knowledge and building capacity matter, and how to prepare for a labour market that is no longer defined solely by academic degrees.

• Recognise how youth leadership connects to civil rights, the Sustainable Development Goals, international frameworks and the social legacy of the Commonwealth Games.

  
  

Guest Speaker

Professor Geoff Thompson MBE is a former five-time world karate champion who grew up in Hackney facing material deprivation and social exclusion. For more than 40 years, he has worked through sport to support the social and human development of young people and communities. He was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his services to sport.

He is the Founder and Chair of the Youth Charter, a UN-accredited NGO established in 1993 that works in the sport-for-development and peace movement in communities around the world with histories of deprivation and disadvantage. He has worked with UN agencies including UNESCO and UNICEF. He chairs the Operational Board of the Professional Footballers’ Association and the London Youth Games. He was Deputy Chair of the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and Chair of the University of East London Board of Governors. He holds three honorary doctorates and is an Honorary Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University.

How To Register

This webinar is free and open to all! Students, graduates, early-career professionals, young entrepreneurs, and youth leaders across Africa and beyond.

Registration is free and open to all. To register, enter your name and email below: