Ant Williams

About Ant

Ant Williams is business psychologist and world champion freediver, who draws on his academic knowledge and his experience as an elite athlete to teach leaders mental toughness.

Through his keynote address on Courage in Leadership and by facilitating conference events and workshops, he helps leaders of Blue Chip companies – among them Allianz, Telstra, Estee Lauder and Asciano – build courage, perform under pressure and achieve their aspirations.

A highly experienced facilitator for groups of all sizes, Ant Williams is well-suited to senior audiences.

It was when Ant was working as a sport psychologist, coaching big wave surfers, motoGP riders, rock climbers and other risk takers on how to breakthrough mental barriers that, according to him, he he realised was a fraud. He hadn’t done anything risky in his life. He wanted to know if anyone could learn how to become a risk taker. Ant decided to take up freediving and learn firsthand how to perform under pressure.

Now one of the deepest men in the world, Ant has pushed through both physical and mental barriers to hold his breath for over eight minutes, dive to – 100m and to swim 240m on one breath. In short, he knows how to overcome some of the most demanding and uncomfortable challenges a person can face. Ant teaches others how to “lean into discomfort” and take positive, calculated risks.

Ant brings these intense learnings to the world of executive education, helping clients boost their leadership capability, develop new service delivery models, innovate in mature markets,
improve their sales effectiveness and develop impactful consulting skills.

As an Associate Director with leadership consulting firm Maximus, Ant sponsored multiple key accounts including Telstra Channel Management, Estee Lauder, Asciano, Australian Super, Fitness First and Tabcorp. He was formerly a Manager with Price Waterhouse Coopers in Sydney specialising in the creation and delivery of Learning and Development programs